WELLINGTON, Fla.--Richard Vogel of Germany on Chaina-Blue P won the $6,000, 1.40m class on March16 at the Winter Equestrian Festival.

Richard Vogelon Chaina-Blue P (Photo by Sportfot)From a large field of 70, 27 went clean over Canadian Michel Vaillancourt’s power-and-speed track.

Laura Chapot on Calafornia was leading with a time of 31.641 until Ireland's Darragh Kenny on Cicomein VDL finished  in 31.114.

But then Vogel put in a blazing fast round with a finishing time of 29.83 seconds for the win.

“I thought today’s track was a decent build and a decent size,” said Vogel. “Most people use this class to build up their horse for the week, so you don’t want to have an incredibly difficult track. I thought Michel did a great job at building accordingly.”

Vogel has only ridden the mare for two weeks.

“We didn’t even try her, but a good friend of mine thought we could be a good match so I figured I would give it a shot,” said Vogel. “I competed with her in two classes last week and there were definitely some things to improve, so I worked on getting to know her this week and she was already better today. She is always game, which is nice; she will always try her best to win no matter the height, and she is naturally fast.”

Kenny placed second with Chapot third.

 

ARMANDO HASSEY from Colorado rode Lomax to win the day’s first class, the Pre-FEI Horses 1.40m, out of 43 entries.

The day then focused on young horses as classes ran for five, six, and seven year old young jumper divisions ahead of the Developing Jumper Series finals to be held on Friday, March 18.

Daniel Coyle of Ireland on Lovely Boy P won the 6-Year-Old Young Jumper class after landing double-clean with a time of 30.083 seconds.

Canadian Erynn Ballard on Kiamond won the Future Challenge 7-Year-Old Young Jumpers to end the day.