Beezie Madden & HHS Hercules. ph: Taylor Renner/ Phelps Media Group.
The CP National Horse Show featured a different style of show jumping competition on Friday, November 4, 2017, with the $35,000 Salamander Hotels and Resorts Accumulator Class CSI4*. Local groups were invited out for “Barn Night” to watch as Beezie Madden of the United States the eight-year-old Irish Sport Horse gelding HHS Hercules took the top prize of the evening.
The class was held at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Kentucky, USA, and featured ten obstacles of increasing difficulty. Points were awarded for each fence cleared; obstacle one jumped without fault was worth one point, obstacle two jumped without fault was worth two points, and so on.
A final fence option called ‘The Joker” was worth double points. However, if a rider opted for ‘The Joker” and knocked it down, those points were deducted from the total score.
Twenty three horse and rider combinations took to the course designed by Canada’s Michel Vaillancourt, with the end goal being to secure a perfect score of 65.
Eleven athletes were able to do just that, finishing with no faults and jumping the high point ‘Joker’ fence without error. Between those 11, it all came down to time.
Wednesday’s big winners, Laura Kraut of the United States and the 14-year-old KWPN mare Whitney ( Indoctro x Concorde), were the first to achieve a perfect score of 65 points in a blazing 47.81s to take the early lead for the majority of the class.
None were able to catch Kraut’s time until Madden and Hercules entered the Alltech Arena as the very last to go. The pair finished clear for 65 points in 47.62s, outpacing Kraut’s time to move into 1st place.
USA’s Devin Ryan and the ten-year-old KWPN gelding Cooper (Unaniem x Baloubet Du Rouet) finished in 3rd with 65 points in 48.03s.