The beautiful Fieldstone Show Park welcomed day two of the 2015 Silver Oak Jumper Tournament with a full day of action in both rings including a packed schedule on the Unicorn Landing Grand Prix field. This year's tournament, booked to capacity, saw big numbers in almost every class of the day. With temperatures hovering in the mid 70's and the skies mostly sunny, it was a great day to enjoy a good day of action. And despite the big numbers, everyone was off to enjoy a night out by dinner time.
The highlight of the afternoon was the final class of the day, the $10,000 Shire Equestrian Welcome Stake class with 37 starters. Once again, Olaf Petersen, Jr. of Germany is designing the courses for the jumpers on the big field and today came up with a Table II 2b course that saw six horses go clean initially and five go on to be double clear when all was said and done.
But, all wasn't said and done immediately, even when the class was complete. As they say on Monday Night Football, "Let's go to the video tape!"
First, let's give you a rundown of how the day's event unfolded. As we mentioned, scoring was Table II 2b, so riders that were able to produce the initial clean round stayed in the ring to complete their jump-off ride right away.
With Paul O'Shea and Skara Glen's Dolphin leading the way as the first to go and the first to go clear, they proceeded to the tiebreaking course. Racing around the short course in the jump-off, the speedy O'Shea tripped the finish line timers in 32.991 seconds, a seemingly unbeatable time, at least for the time being.
As it turned out, no one even came close. But, with good reason.
Although it wasn't immediately apparent, the timer beams tripped early on O'Shea's jump-off ride. It became very evident though as the class proceeded and horse after speedy horse were way off the mark set by O'Shea and Dolphin.
When Michael Hughes and Luxina raced around the course fault-free in a blazing time of 40.529 seconds, everyone really began to take notice of the 32 second time. But O'Shea, because he went first, had no idea. "No I was first to go, so I obviously didn't know what was up with the times," O'Shea explained. "As they continued to jump-off, I didn't pay that much attention, but a few other people said it to me."
Hughes, who was initially clocked in eight seconds slower than O'Shea, knew something was mistaken. "I thought there had to be something wrong with the time. I mean maybe I was a bit slower, but I didn't think I was THAT much slower than Paul," he laughed. "I did all the inside turns and everything that Paul did, but I wasn't eight seconds slower."
When the class was completed, the judges had a chance to go back and check on the times. The timing system, required by the FEI, and one of the best in the business, records times every time a horse breaks any of the beams. The judges went back and looked at O'Shea's time and found his true time to be 41.116 seconds, a half a second slower than Hughes.
Finishing in third place was Lauren Tisbo and Entre Nous. They crossed the finish line in 45.150 seconds, four seconds slower than O'Shea. Colin Syquia and Adventure E nailed down fourth place in 47.003 seconds.
Rounding out the top six were Diamonte Darco and Wilton Porter and O'Shea on his second mount, Primo Calypso. Porter galloped home in 47.265 seconds and O'Shea in 52.589 seconds.
For O'Shea, it's his third year in a row at the Silver Oak Jumper Tournament, but for Hughes, it's a first time visit. "It's beautiful here," he smiled. "The footing is great, the jumps are really nice and the courses are great...it's really nice."
