January 21, 2007

Jacksonville Winter Series

A Golden Night for Margie Goldstein Engle and Hidden Creek Farm

Green Cove Springs, FL –10 time AGA Rider of the Year, Silver Medalist of the 2006 World Equestrian Games, Olympic veteran are but a very few of the titles Margie Goldstein Engle has earned and tonight partnered with Hidden Creek’s Quervo Gold she added another World Cup Qualifier victory to their list by winning the $75,000 Green Cove Springs CSI-W Grand Prix presented by Glen Kernan Golf & Country Club.

The nearly 3200 spectators were treated to an international field consisting of 22 riders representing the USA, 2 from Canada, 1 for Belgium, 1 from Denmark, 1 from New Zealand, and 1 for Venezuela along with 31 top equine athletes. All taking on last year’s defending champion Olympic veteran Laura Kraut and the technical challenge presented by course designer Dave Ballard in the hope of moving one step closer to the FEI World Cup finals in Las Vegas this April.

Ballard, whose home base is Ontario, Canada, is known globally for creating some of the most technical and unique layouts in the sport of show jumping including the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, GA, the 1999 Pan Am Games in Winnipeg, Canada, and the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia. Tonight’s first round of 14 obstacles demonstrated why the O Class designer is so highly regarded. With a time allowance of 82 seconds to navigate tight roll backs, combinations, and the often feared triple bars, all set between 1.45M and 1.60M (maximum width 5’9”) the biggest hurdle was making it through clean.

“This is best group of horses we’ve had here in Jacksonville” Dave began, “Still this is always a tough course to build when you have to gage experienced riders and younger riders together. Strange as it sounds it’s hard to be easy and too easy to be hard.”,he added with a smile. During his description of the course for the audience Ballard hinted that “the meat of the course” would begin from fence #5 with a difficult distance to the 6AB combination, an “ALL WHITE” (which can be optically deceiving to the horse) oxer to oxer combination with a Liverpool under 6A that would make horses look down so riders would have to get a lot of scope from their mounts . The first horse to take on Ballard’s test did fall victim to the predicted trouble of the 6AB combination. Margie and Quervo Gold were only the third out of more than half the starters to make it clear in a time of 76.97.

From the starting field only 7 made it back to compete in the exciting dash for the cash jump off round. An abbreviated course of 8 jumps and a time limit of 46 seconds made round two all about the need for speed. Among those returning were Margie’s teammates at the 2006 World Equestrian Games Beezie Madden riding Play On whose first round finished in a time 77.43 and Thursday’s $25,000 Welcome Classic winner Laura Kraut and Anthem with a first round time of 78.790.

“This helps!” Margie stated after her win, “All three of us, Laura, Beezie, and myself needed these world cup points because we missed the first couple of horse shows because we were over in Europe showing so we were a little behind…and I know my owner really wants to go to Vegas! I love Vegas too!”she added with a chuckle. Based on Gold’s performance one has to believe he too wants to go to Las Vegas. The 13 year old Belgium Warmblood gelding owned by Hidden Creek Farm was shoed merely 2 days before the Jacksonville Winter Series began and had been “bare foot” for the past 3 months enjoying a bit of holiday around the farm. “We did some riding still but mostly trail outings.” Margie bragged about her partner of a little over a year, “I’m really pleased with him, you know speed is not his forte and tonight is first time I’ve really taken a shot at going faster in the jump off. Usually he’s just one big round type. He’s a great Nations Cup horse, he’s a great Championship horse but today’s one of the fastest times I’ve ever gotten with him in the jump off. I think he handled it just super! He’s far exceeded everything we’ve asked of him”

Margie also compared Gold to Olympic champion partner Perin in saying they share the same “sweet laid back attitude. He loves his job but when he comes out of the ring, those ears just lop out and he’s relaxed. So much so that when preparing to leave Europe I was asked if we always have to tranquilize when we ship him and I laughed saying he’s not tranquilized at all.” Gold was golden with a winning second round time of 36.72. Next up for the pair is the Winter Equestrian Festival in their second hometown of Wellington, FL with their goal of making that trip to the World Cup Finals this April in Vegas.

Photo Credit: Margie Engle and Hidden Creek’s Quervo Gold win World Cup Qualifier by Flashpoint Photography