On Thursday, October 31, at National Sunshine Series 1, Brown and Bling VD Duvelshoeve Z bested a field of 57 entries to take home the first $30,000 1.45m Open Classic win of the 2024-2025 DIHP season.

On their way to the victory, Brown and “Bling” were one of 14 entries to navigate the first-round, Anderson Lima-designed course without fault. From there, Brown returned in the middle of the pack for the jump-off and quickly shot straight to the top of the leaderboard with a time of 35.577 seconds. 

Coming the closest to catching Brown, and taking home second place, were Nicolas Gamboa and NKH Vittorio S with a time of 35.621 seconds. Third place with a time of 36.033 seconds went to Shawn Casady and Cool Quarz. 

“It’s really amazing to kick off the season with a win; it’s a little confidence booster,” said Brown, who trains with, and works alongside, her mother, Olivia Dawson-Grove, at Dawson Grove Farm. “But Bling is naturally just such a fast horse and such a winner that I can always trust her to be amazing, jump clear and do the job.”

Brown continued, “I actually went in [the jump-off] and was hoping to just jump a nice, double-clear round for maybe fifth [place]. Then, I got a little excited as I was heading for the first fence and decided to give it a little go. Bling’s naturally so fast that she really took over and also wanted the win just as bad as I did.”