United States Eventing Association

Spectators arrived in droves to cheer on their favorite riders today at The Fork Horse Trials and CIC3* in Norwood, North Carolina, where many of the top riders in the country were getting in final runs before the Rolex Kentucky CCI4* in a few weeks.

Overnight CIC3* leader Clark Montgomery had an unfortunate fall at a trakehner mid-way around the course, but neither he nor his horse Up Spirit were injured. Their elimination left the door wide open for any of the riders in the three-way tie for second place to take over the lead.

Buck Takes the Lead...Twice!

Buck Davidson and Carl Segal’s My Boy Bobby leapt from fifth to first in the CIC3* standings after cross-country today, which serves as the second Adequan USEA Gold Cup event of the season. Amazingly, Buck and another of the Segal’s horses Ballynoecastle RM topped the standings in the Advanced class as well.

When asked about his recent successes at the Advanced level with numerous horses, Davidson replied: “I think the biggest thing is the quality of the horses I’m riding now. The Segals have provided me with fantastic horses and I’m just doing what I’m supposed to do.

“Bobby is a super-nice horse that I just started riding last summer and we didn’t have a partnership last year, but I think we do now. He’s a completely different horse now,” Davidson, 33, of Ocala, Florida and My Boy Bobby, a 13-year-old Irish Sport Horse gelding, added only 3.2 time penalties to their dressage score of 49.0.

“Ballynoecastle is about as good a horse as there is anywhere in the world. I trust him and he knows me and I know him—we know exactly what we’re going to do.”

Thoughts on Rolex: “The distance is going to be hard for Bobby—he’s not a clean-bred horse. He just felt maybe a little bit tired here at the end. Ballynoecastle was pulling my arms out the whole way. I’m pretty excited—I’ve been to Kentucky a lot, but not with these good of horses.

Words of advice from seasoned eventer and father Bruce Davidson? “No, are you kidding, he wants to beat me!” said Buck with a laugh. “No, but seriously, it’s fun, we’ve been getting ready together down in Florida and he comes over to my place every day and we ride together. I’m just glad that he was okay after his fall with Cruse Lion.”

Bruce took an uncharacteristic tumble at the second to last fence from home in the Advanced division aboard his homebred gelding Cruise Lion. After being checked out by the medics, Bruce was back in the tack to compete his Rolex-bound mare, and crowd-favorite, Jam later in the division.

Buck had nothing but high praises for The Fork Farm’s wonderful course. “[Owner] Jim Cogdell and all his people here do a fantastic job. This is one of the premier events in the country, there’s no question about it. The footing couldn’t have been better, the conditions were perfect.”

For those riders who were prepping for their four-star run in Kentucky in a few weeks, Buck felt the course left them with enough challenges to adequately prepare their horses for the difficult event ahead. “I think [course designer] Mark Phillips did a really good job of giving us some options—if you wanted to go the four-star route and go straight, then you could do that. If you wanted to go [the long route] then you could, too. So, I think it was a really good day for the sport and I want to give a big thanks to Jim and all the people here at The Fork.”

Olympic gold medalist Leslie Law retains his second place aboard Fleeceworks Mystere du Val, after adding 7.2 time penalties to his score. Yesterday Law said that riders had to ride the course, “straight, straight, straight!” and he stuck to his own advice and put forth one of the best trips around a three-star course for the talented Arabian/Selle Francais gelding owned by Beatrice Rey-Herme.

Though he was tied for second yesterday with Law and Corinne Ashton, Michael Pollard and Kate Luce’s Tia Lusso dropped to third after incurring 0.4 more time penalties than Law.

Pollard Preps for Rolex

“I had a great day today,” said Pollard, 28, of Chatworth, Georgia. “Tia Lusso was second to go out, and I haven’t ridden him in many Advanced events, but I thought he went around the course really well. I went fairly quickly, although I didn’t try to really stretch him out between the gallop fences, but he’s a horse that doesn’t take a lot of time to set up [for the jumps], so his time held up fairly well.

“The course rode great—I thought it was a little bit heavy on corners and skinnies, but actually the options that were given were not too time-consuming and made things a little bit nicer. I took a couple of long routes—they weren’t the straightest option, but they were only a stride or two more.”

Pollard had to go clear on his other three-star horse Icarus in order to gain a qualifying score for Rolex this year, as the gelding had been out of competitions for about a year due to an injury. “I was really pleased with the way he went today. He’s been great—he was undone a little bit by the wind yesterday in the dressage, but he’s a horse who’s just good at everything he does. I’m really excited and hopefully we’re going to show jump clear tomorrow or at least well enough to qualify!”

Close on Pollard’s heels is Kim Severson and Tipperary Liadhnan, who are mere tenths of a point behind. The top ten riders in the division are only divided by a handful of points, and the leading four are separated from each other by less than a rail.

Forty-four of the 61 starters in the CIC3* jumped cleanly around Capt. Mark Phillips’ rolling course, with six riders incurring penalties for refusals, one rider was eliminated, five retired, two were technically eliminated, and two riders fell. India McEvoy unfortunately had a fall at the goose pond complex, but neither her nor her horse, Jumbo’s Jake, were injured.

Rolex-bound Sara Dierks and her talented partner Somerset II were the only pair to post a double-clean round, finishing with a speedy time of 6:30, which moved her from 44^th to 11^th.

Adequan USEA Gold Cup Series

If Buck pulls off a win tomorrow afternoon with My Boy Bobby, he’ll take home an Adequan USEA Gold Cup Trophy, $500 in prize money, 7-dose box of Adequan, a three-month supply of SUCCEED, an E.A. Mattes Couture Pad, and a pair of Nunn Finer American Style open front boots. Second place finishers take home a Nutrena feed gift certificate and a pair of Nunn Finer American Style open front boots, and third place receives a pair of the Nunn Finer boots as well.

The pair will also receive 200 Gold Cup points for their win, and if they show jump cleanly, they’re eligible for 40 extra bonus points.

The CIC3* also serves as the Adequan USEA Gold Cup division, one of the premier programs for talented horse and rider combinations in the U.S.

Now in its fifth year, the Adequan USEA Gold Cup Series is an exciting format of competition and entertainment for U.S. Eventing, encompassing eight of the top eventing competitions from around the U.S. where the best of the best vie for prize money, trophies, and the title of Gold Cup champion!

The Series kicks off this spring with one more event: a new event for 2009, the Chattahoochee Hill Horse Trials on the third weekend in May down in Georgia. Five more events will round out the year, from July through September. The year-end champions will receive their trophies, prizes, and prize money at the USEA Annual Meeting and Convention this December in Reston, Virginia for the USEA's 50th Anniversary Celebration. Visit the Adequan USEA Gold Cup page to keep track of the Gold Cup leaderboard.

The Adequan USEA Gold Cup Series is made possible through the support of its many sponsors: Title: Adequan; Legacy: Nunn Finer, Nutrena, and E.A Mattes; Contributing: Cover-All, and Patron: Broadstone Equine Insurance Agency, and Succeed.

Adequan is proud to be the official joint therapy treatment of the USEA.