Devin Ryan Wins $100,000 Great American Insurance Group Grand Prix at Lake Placid Horse Shows

Devin Ryan Wins $100,000 Great American Insurance Group Grand Prix at Lake Placid Horse Shows
Devin Ryan won the $100,000 Great American Insurance Group Grand Prix at the 48th annual Lake Placid Horse Shows, presented by Sea Shore Stables, LLC and sponsored by Bainbridge Farm.

After 12 of 27 entries qualified for the jump-off by riding fault-free over the 16-effort, first-round course designed by 2016 Rio Olympic course designer Guilherme Jorge, Ryan was the first to return for the eight-effort tiebreaker on Eddie Blue. Ryan rode his 8-year-old, Dutch Warmblood gelding to a clean ride in 35.220 seconds to set the mark to beat.

After the next 10 riders failed to catch Ryan's time, it came down to Jimmy Torano, winner of the first week's $75,000 Devoucoux Richard M. Feldman Grand Prix of Lake Placid. Torano succeeded in riding Daydream to a clean round, but his time of 35.604 seconds left him just shy of Ryan and prevented him from joining Leslie Burr Howard, Debbie Dolan-Sweeney, Margie Goldstein Engle, Jeffrey Welles and Darragh Kenny as the only riders to sweep both Lake Placid Grand Prix in the same year.

"He's not the fastest horse but he has such a big stride and in a big field like this I was able to take advantage of that," Ryan said. "There were two places on course where I was able to leave out a stride and I think I finished about as fast as I could have with him today."

Torano's second place finish, combined with his win the previous week, earned him the Richard and Diana Feldman Trophy for the best combined finish in Lake's two Grand Prix. He also earned a win in the $15,000 USHJA International Hunter Derby presented by Eastern Hay & Purina Animal Nutrition, held just prior to the start of the Grand Prix. Torano won over a starting field of 26 horses on Exclusive. He finished the two-round competition with 373 points to top another Grand Prix rider, Amber Harte. Harte, who placed fifth in the Grand Prix on Austria 2, finished second in the Hunter Derby with 357 points on Style.