Horsesdaily News: Sally Cousins Claims Jersey Fresh CCI** Title

Sally Cousins Claims Jersey Fresh CCI** Title

By Nancy Degutis

Like Preakness winner Smarty Jones did the day before, Sally Cousins and the Daniel O'Brien's The Mistress II stalked the leaders before turning in a double clear stadium round and bursting out of the pack with a 49.6-penalty-point victory in the Jersey Fresh CCI**.

"I thought Saturday night (after her 2.8 time penalties on cross country) I had a chance to win. The scores then were so close that even a time fault would have made a difference" in show jumping, said the workaholic Cousins who guided three entries for a total of 25 miles on the John Williams' cross country route. So the Pennsylvania horsewoman focused on keeping her New Zealand-bred mount happy and clean over the Sally Ike-designed route the final day.

What the big bay crossbred (Jaguar x Jessica) lacked in beauty she had in heart and talent, said Cousins. The West Grove, Pa woman ranked the Jersey Fresh win right up there with one she had at a Bromont (Canada) two-star on another horse a few years go. The three-quarters Thoroughbred/one-quarter Selle Francais mare, nicknamed Roxy, "is a very good jumper but you never take anything for granted. My mare could have just dropped a leg at a bad moment."

The 10-year-old mare's 46.8 dressage test put her and Cousins in fourth going into cross country. The nine-mile route took its toll on dressage leaders Kellie McMullen Temple on Paris who retired after completing about a third of the 35 jumping efforts. Linden Weisman moved up to the top slot then on Trooper Tobin (by Button Bright) but the bay stubbed his toe. His broken striding put the Thoroughbred too close to the second element of the Hay Rack combination, and "we just couldn't get our left front leg out of the way, so we fell down on the other side of the angled table," said Weisman. Six others retired on course while three withdrew and five were eliminated out of the initial 65 entries.

Cousins sailed over that obstacle on "Roxy," who got "a lot of her power and movement comes from her background," said Cousins. I loved the course and how much the grounds crew did to take care of the footing," working almost every inch of course footing for 16 hours before cross country.