Cara Raether and Pedro Out Race Bloomberg and Fernandez for Victory in Amateur Owner Jumpers

Wellington, FL– March 3, 2005 – Thirty-three top Amateur Owner jumpers took the field in the early Thursday morning feature at the 2005 Winter Equestrian Festival at the Palm Beach Polo Equestrian Club in Wellington. When the results were finalized and the cards were marked, it was Cara Raether racing to victory on Pedro, one of the newest additions to her string of horses.

The Cosequin Wellington Open is the title of the sixth of seven weeks of show jumping action at the nation’s largest and longest running equestrian series. Following next week’s CSIO United States-CN Finale, the equestrian community will pull up stakes in Wellington and move to Florida’s west coast for two weeks of action in Tampa at the Bob Thomas Equestrian Center at the Florida State Fairgrounds. The festival’s grand finale is the $200,000 Budweiser American Invitational at Raymond James Stadium at 7 P.M. on Saturday, April 2, 2005.

The Amateur Owner Jumpers were just the beginning of what promises to be one of the busiest Thursdays in the history of the Winter Equestrian Festival with close to 90 entries expected to go to the post in the $25,000 WEF Challenge Cup, Round Six, at 7 P.M. in the Internationale Arena. The WEF Challenge Cup will be the first opportunity for many of the international show jumping stars, here from around the world for next week’s Samsung Nations Cup, to jump under the lights and on the grass in Wellington.

Today’s class was scored under Table II sec 2(b), Time First Jump-Off. This week’s Internationale Ring Course Designer is Germany’s Dr. Arno Gego.

Of the 33 starters, 11 produced first round clears and five of those horse and rider combinations went on to be double clear. Thirteen riders came home with four faults while ten had eight or more faults.

One of this year’s most successful riders, the red hot Cara Raether, qualified all three of her horses for the tiebreaking jump-off against the clock. She would face stiff competition from Georgina Bloomberg, who advanced with both of her mounts and Federico Fernandez, also with two for the speed round.

Raether had knockdowns with her first two mounts and faced a clean round challenge from Georgina Bloomberg, who led the class with Action, owned by the Gotham Enterprises. Bloomberg was atop the leader board with no faults and a time of 34.056 seconds.

Raether’s final chance came aboard the Trelawny Farm’s Pedro, one of newest additions to her talented stable of jumpers. Raether blistered the jump-off course, knocking almost two seconds off of Bloomberg’s top time. Raether flashed across the finish line in 32.075 seconds to take the lead.

Bloomberg had one final shot at Raether. With La Movida, another mount owned by the Gotham Enterprises, she fell just short of the mark, breaking the beams in 33.484 seconds, 1.409 seconds off the pace.

Having more than one shot at the top prize was an obvious benefit for Raether. “Georgina went before me on Action and I know that horse is always very, very fast,” Raether accounted. “I had gone before Georgina with my other horse, early in the jump-off, and was three or four seconds slower than Georgina, so I knew I really had to pick up the pace with Pedro. And Georgina still had another one to go after me, so I knew I had to be fast. But Pedro is such a fast horse that I ended up making up all that time and coming home with the win,” she said.

It appears that Pedro will fit in nicely with Raether’s speedy style of riding. “He’s a horse I bought this past summer in Spain and down here is the first time I’ve really gotten a chance to show him,” she said. “Today was the first day that I actually turned him loose, let him go fast and tried to win. And we did win! The Amateur Owner division is the perfect spot for him to start. It’s a great division, with great competition and we jump out on the big field,” she added.

Raether knew that the competition and the courses this week would be some of the toughest yet, with Course Designer, Dr. Arno Gego setting the tests. “It was a tough course because it was Arno (Gego),” Raether laughed. “This was the first time we had the water jump all season and it was the opening class of the week. Plus it wasn’t a great approach and there was no rail, so that got to a lot of people today. It was typical Arno; tough, very technical with options for adding or leaving out and while it wasn’t crazy big, it was certainly hard enough,” she said.

The Amateur Owner Jumpers take center stage again on Saturday morning in the $10,000 Show Jumping Hall of Fame Amateur Owner Jumper Classic at 8 A.M.

Official Results - #1028 – High Amateur Owner Jumpers, Table II 2(b) – 03-03-05 – Internationale Arena

• 1 – Pedro, Cara Raether – 0-0/32.075
• 2 – La Movida, Georgina Bloomberg -0-0/33.484
• 3 – Action, Georgina Bloomberg -0-0/34.056
• 4 – Garibaldy, Federico Fernandez -0-0/36.242
• 5 – Kenay, Federico Fernandez -0-0/39.535
• 6 – Quarnak De Longpre, Meghan Moran – 0-4/36.983
• 7 – Hippie De Blagni, Cara Raether – 0-4/38.777
• 8 – Zizou, Nathalie Mathers – 0-4/40.336
• 9 – Campezino, Lara Gay – 0-8/37.574
• 10 – Quilano De Kalvarie, Cara Raether – 0-8/38.562
• 11 – Roche Bobois Cobra, Aurora Rangel De Alba – 0-12/38.555
• 12 – Ronan, Alexa Weeks – 4-65.076

PHOTO CREDIT: Pedro and Cara Raether win in Amateur Owner Jumpers at Winter Equestrian Festival. Photo by Randi Muster.