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Phillip Dutton and I’m Sew Ready finished a seamless weekend on the top of the leaderboard at the Cloud 11 – Gavilan North LLC. Carolina International CIC3*, part of the Adequan USEA Gold Cup Series.
“Jackson” (Lupicor—Jarda) has only competed in two CIC3* competitions, and Phillip kicked on to make the 7:05 optimum time for have a shot at the $35,000 purse.
“He probably hasn’t gone that fast in his life. It was a little bit of an eye-opener for him but I believe it’ll be a good experience,” said Phillip. “The horses have to think quick and look for the flags and the jumps have to become a magnet to him and I think he started to figure that out.”
“It’s a unique kind of cross-country riding here; there’s a lot of jumping and turning and you have to be able to look for the jump through a bending line or through the woods where the jump is coming at you,” he said.
“They’ve done a good job opening the track up but at the end of the day it’s still in a tree forest. It’s not so much about travelling at high speed but being able to make tight turns and save time coming to the jump and being able to get away from the jump. But I’m very pleased for the Bonds and the Nortons...he’s got a great future.”
Phillip was also effusively happy with Mighty Nice and Mr. Medicott, who finished third and second in the CIC2*, respectively.
“Mighty Nice and Mr. Medicott are just unbelievable cross-country horses. I’ve been doing this a long time but you don’t get any better cross-country horses than that. It’s a real privilege to ‘go along with them,’ is probably the right way to put it.”
Boyd Martin was excited with the performance of Stephen Blauner’s 11-year-old Irish Sport Horse, Master Frisky (Master Imp – Frisky Legs), who added nothing to his dressage score to finish second (45.6).
“I think the exciting thing for me is that his dressage is world class, he’s a great cross-country horse and the show jumping has really improved with him,” said Boyd. “I’m very grateful to my longtime supporter Stephen Blauner who owns him. I asked Steve to purchase him and he hadn’t even seen him and he backed me and believed in me.”
Boyd says that he will take “Mikey” a bit slow around The Fork in Norwood, N.C., and then he will be Kentucky-bound for the Rolex CCI4* at the end of April.
“He’ll be green at Kentucky but he’s gusty and he’s a trier. He’s a bit awkward in his jump but he will bust himself to get through the flags and that goes a long way when you’re going around a very big course and a long way around…He could be impressive there.”
Crackerjack and Pancho Villa, who also jumped around the 3* course today, are also entered at Rolex. While several of Boyd’s horses are suitable to compete at the Pan American Games in Toronto in July, Boyd feels flexible about which horse goes to which competition.
“Out of my group I’ve got four or five written down to participate in the team. Some are young, impressive two-star horses, some are green three-star horses, some may be four-star horses soon. So I’ll see what happens and keep trucking on.”
Will Faudree moved up the rankings on longtime partner Andromaque to finish third (47.2), and Michael Pollard had a double-clear round on Cyrano to finish fourth (50.8). In the Advanced division, which is also a qualifier for the Adequan USEA Gold Cup, Ariel Grald and LBF Oleagh's Image lead the way into tomorrow’s show jumping in Advanced-A (37.7), and Sinead Halpin and Manoir de Carneville lead Advanced-B by over 4 points (30.6).
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