NORTH SALEM, N.Y.--Nayal Nasser of Egypt on Dorado De Riverland won the $38,700 Speed Stake on Saturday, Sept. 21 at the Old Salem September Horse Shows, Week 2.
Nayal Nasser on Dorado De Riverland (Photo by SEL Photography)Nasser was clean in 56.71, 1.78 seconds faster than his nearest competitor, over a course set by Alan Wade.
From a starting field of 29 that included seven Olympic veterans, 10 were clean.
“I think I had the advantage today because I was on such an extremely quick horse,” Nassar said. “Dorado, or Rodger as he’s known in the barn, is just really agile. He turns super quick and doesn’t spend much time in the air, so I knew that I was in a bit of an advantageous position."
I ended up just wanting to do my own round" he said. "Sometimes, I end up going too fast and knocking a rail or two down, so today I stuck to my plan. I didn’t actually do many leave-outs, and our numbers just happened to be enough today."
“GENERALLY, if I can leave the jumps up, the horse finishes in the top three,” he said. “I knew even with an extra stride to the last and without doing the leave-out after the first double, he’d turned everywhere to be efficient enough to be close or even keep the win today, and he was. I’m very happy with him.”
Samantha Schaefer on James Bond HX was second, clean in 58.49, and former Olympic silver medalist Jessica Springsteen was third on Gmai, clean in 58.75.
