Smith Can’t Be Beat in the Twin Rivers CCI3*-L
“I’m really lucky to be sitting on some truly phenomenal horses. They’re making me look really good. The horses I’m sitting on are all super special – it’s exciting.”
Tamra Smith came out guns blazing today in the CCI3*-L at the Twin Rivers CCI and Horse Trials in Paso Robles, California, claiming the top four spots in the division with her four rides: Ruth Bley’s En Vogue (Earl x Laurena), a 14-year-old Hanoverian mare; Ruth Bley’s Danito (Danicer x Wie Musik), a 10-year-old Hanoverian gelding; Fleeceworks Royal (Riverman x Marisol), Judith McSwain’s 10-year-old Holsteiner mare; and Alex and Ellen Ahearn and Eric Markell’s 13-year-old German Sport Horse gelding Mai Baum (Loredano x Ramira). To top off the success, three of her four horses earned scores below 30.0.
“I actually tried to really go for it on all of them and left some points off the scores because of it because I had some mistakes,” Smith said. “I felt like I needed to do that and figure out where I’m at and how much I can push them and how much I can’t. You want to know where you can kind of risk it a little bit. It’s a good thing to take chances to get the bigger points. It was a good educational day.”
“It’s still early in the season, so Fleeceworks Royal is still a little on the muscle, a little feisty, but her canter work was actually really super.”
“Lexus (Mai Baum) was trying to buck me off in the warm-up the whole time – it was quite interesting,” Smith laughed. “I was really happy because he’s such a professional [in the arena] but I had some mistakes in my test. It was windy and it just brought them all up, but that’s good to know – you don’t always get to ride under perfect conditions.”
“They are all so correct and so trained and such workmen and showmen that it’s really great,” Smith continued. “I was most proud of En Vogue because she and my partnership is so new and she really gave me everything she had today. I think I had a conservative test on her but she was very accurate. She’s the only one I didn’t press for more because I’m not quite there with her yet.”
As the first selection trial of the year for the Pan American Games in August, Smith said that certainly influenced her decision to bring these horses to compete in the CCI3*-L. “I applied on all four of those horses because I think they’re all quality enough to go. I walked the cross-country course and I can say that in the past I think it’s been on the soft side so my eyes were peeled wide open when I walked it yesterday. It’s a serious track – there are some aggressive questions but afterwards [course designer James Atkinson] has rewarded them – but all the horses are up to the task.”
Billys and Caletina Take Control of the CCI2*-L
The largest of Twin Rivers’ 34 divisions spent the day dancing in the sandbox, but only one horse-and-rider combination could stand above the rest when the dust settled. Lauren Billys and Caletina, the Caletina Syndicate’s 8-year-old Holsteiner mare, rose above the other 27 competitors to sit in first place on a score of 25.7.
Acquired as a 6-year-old, Caletina had competed in the 1.20-meter jumpers in Germany but had never been ridden outside of the arena. Billys confided that producing her has been a process. “She’s been a really fun horse to produce,” she elaborated. “She was a little difficult to get to go out of the box cross-country because she’d never been ridden outside of an arena, so that took some time and I nearly sold her. Now though, to have her as a Preliminary level horse – she gets it and she’s game. It makes it really cool to know that all that work means something.”
“Having never done dressage and cross-country, she’s a fighter,” Billys continued. “She’s kind of like a softball player – really gritty and tough – and she likes to be challenged. But, she wants to do a really good job for you. She’s always intense – in the stable she’s present in whatever she’s doing and she’s the same way when you’re riding her. She’s a workhorse through and through.
“This will be the biggest challenge my two-star horses have faced,” Billys commented of the cross-country course for tomorrow. “They did the Training Three-Day last year, but they’ve just started going Preliminary. I think it’s a nice course – it has elements of what we already did this spring but has new tracks and goes new places, and galloping longer distances is going to be a good challenge for them. All of the questions seem really fair.”
Meg Pellegrini and RF Eloquence (Contender x D-Ginger), her own 14-year-old Holsteiner gelding, slid into second place as the final ride of the day just 4.1 points behind Billys and Caletina on a score of 29.8. Alexis Helffrich and Rose Sullivan’s S Crème de la Crème SE (Claire de Lune SE x Zathalida SE), a 7-year-old Belgian Warmblood, round out the top three in the CCI2*-L on a score of 31.2.
Complete scores can be found here.
Cross-country for all FEI divisions including the CCI2*-L, CCI3*-L, CCI3*-S, and CCI4*-S will take place tomorrow starting at 11:55 a.m.
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