Margie Engle Takes the Big Prize in Front of a Sold-Out War Memorial Crowd

Syracuse, NY, November 5, 2005: Margie Engle and Hidden Creek’s Perin won the $75.000 Budweiser World Cup Qualifier of Syracuse in front of a sell-out crowd at Syracuse’s War Memorial at the Oncenter. Course designer Richard Jeffrey of Bournemouth, England set a large and technically difficult course for the field of 35 riders.

Argentina’s Max Amaya said after his eight-fault performance, “The course is very big with lots of tricks. You have to ride every fence.” Fence 7, at which the horses had to jump into the corner, was one of the bogey jumps but there were several other challenges as well. Dutch rider Harrie Smolders summed up his impression of the course before his ride saying ruefully, “There is no easy part.”

However, Smolders and seven other competitors mastered the test with faultless performances to put them in the tie-breaker. Twelfth-to-go Gerco Schröder of Holland was the first faultless performance; Engle, Laura Kraut, McLain Ward, Kimberly Prince, Christine McCrea, Smolders, Beezie Madden and Aaron Vale followed with clear rounds.

A buzz was in the air as the jump-off got underway. Engle set the pace with the first clear round. Laura Kraut and Anthem was over four seconds faster than Engle but had a knockdown. Christine McCrea had a fast, clear ride, but missed taking over the lead by just 15 seconds. Beezie Madden on Authentic was well on the pace, but broke her hometown crowd’s heart when her horse clipped the back rail of the triple bar. In the end, it was Engle who took home the $22,500 first-place prize, with McCrea in second, Kraut in third and Madden in fourth.

In earlier action in the $15,000 TK99 Speed Derby, Leslie Howard and Youp were faster than a competitive field of quick horses and riders. Chris Kappler said that it was the fastest speed class anywhere in recent memory. With Michael Whitaker on Mervia Des Heytrs and McLain Ward on Larioso going full-tilt to win, Howard had to shave every corner to edge them out for first place.

The top riders from the week’s competition qualify for the Animal Planet Sporthorse Cup on Sunday at 2:00. The seven riders who will compete are Margie Engle, Beezie Madden, Aaron Vale, Lauren Hough, Leslie Howard, Harrie Smolders and Christine McCrea. Tickets for Sunday’s performance are available through the Oncenter box office and Ticketmaster. For more information, visit www.syracuseinvitational.com.