United States Eventing Association

Conditions could not have been more perfect for the Adequan USEA Gold Cup and PRO Tour Series CIC3* cross-country at The Event at Rebecca Farm. Organizer Sarah Broussard and her father Jerome provided the horses with the best possible footing and a quality course courtesy of British course designer Ian Stark. The fences, built by one of the best course builders in the world, Bert Wood, were true works of art; most of them were carved out of a solid block of wood with a chain saw and no detail was missed.

Matthew Brown gave Blossom Creek Foundation’s Super Socks BCF a confident ride in the CIC3*, adding just 7.2 time penalties to move into the lead ahead of James Alliston and Hawley Bennett-Awad on a score of 54.5. James Alliston flew around the course for just two time penalties, moving from 8^th to 2^nd on Mojo (Private Talk - Meaux). Hawley Bennett-Awad and Gin & Juice sit in third place on a 57.9.

“I couldn’t have been happier with my horse,” said Brown of the 8-year-old Super Socks BCF. “He started really well and then I had a balky ride to the Trakehener fence at #6, and I realized I didn’t finish my turn to it. He was zeroing in on some fences to the left and he looked at the fence at the last minute and had a bad moment. I had my heart in my throat there, but it gave me a wake-up call. It was totally my mistake.”

Matt Brown (Petaluma, Calif.) is taking it one day at a time and is just excited to be sitting at the table. “I am going to bask in this feeling for while,” he said. “I have never done a CCI3* or CCI4* so for me to be sitting here with James and Hawley who have so much experience and have had so much success is amazing. It has been such a great couple of days that a lot would have to go wrong for me tomorrow to make me feel like the weekend had not been a success.

James Alliston knew that the optimum time would going to be hard to make, but said, “You don’t come all the way here from Southern California not to be competitive. Mojo is an ex-racehorse and it is nice to ride a horse that you know is fast.”

Hawley Bennett-Awad wanted to have a steady round on Gin & Juice as the final run before the World Equestrian Games at the end of the month, easing back her pace on the course to incur ten time penalties.

“Ginny was awesome,” said Bennett-Awad (Temecula, Calif.). “She stayed in a rhythm right out of the box and I couldn’t have asked for a better go. I feel very, very confident about getting on that plane and riding overseas.

“I know I can kick her on and go for the time and that is my job next month in France, but today I had to go for a steady round. That’s what I did and now she’s in the barn chowing down! And I just have to chase these two guys tomorrow,” she said, nodding to Alliston and Brown.

Ian Stark had purposely designed the course to get the rider’s attention from the outset. “I don’t like to place easy fences at the beginning of the course,” Stark explained. “The warm-up arena is for getting the horses ready to jump. I want the riders to be focused and to begin to ride the course from the beginning.”

The enhancements to the course this year certainly posed some questions that one or two horses and riders were not ready to answer, but Stark’s goal is to have the horses come off the course having gained a solid education.

Stark had worked with Jerome Broussard to redesign some of the tracks through the acres of crops that are grown on the farm. “I don’t think it does the horses any good to run on a straight track for too long. The longer the approach to the jump, the more riders seem to get into trouble so I aim to have them jumping off of turns as much as possible. Jerome allowed me to reclaim some of the land previously used to grow canola, and this has allowed me to shorten up the long straight gallops and add some new fences.”

The riders will attack Richard Jeffrey’s show jumping course at 2:15 p.m., but there will be exciting action in the arena all morning beginning with the Advanced horse trials division at 9:00 a.m.

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