Top Jumper Alex Granato Wins Triple Crown® Nutrition’s Excellence Award

Alex Granato and Carlchen showing off their winning form, racking up wins in the $20,000 Welcome Stake, the $70,000 Ariat Grand Prix and the Triple Crown Excellence Award week V of Summer in the Rockies. (Photo: Cathrin Cammett/Showfolio)

During the fifth week of the popular Summer in the Rockies hunter/jumper show series at The Colorado Horse Park in Parker, Colorado, Triple Crown® Nutrition presented the Triple Crown Excellence Award to Alex Granato riding Carlchen W, owned by Page and Sarah Tredennick. Not only did the duo win the $20,000 Welcome Stake on July 6, two days later they took home the $70,000 Ariat Grand Prix for the Mayor’s Cup.

The Triple Crown Excellence Award is given to the horse and rider that exemplify the ideals of dedication and achievement in horse sports as well as showing exceptionally good health and fitness. No one fits the criteria better than Granato and Carlchen. Granato, 35, has been a professional rider/trainer since he was 17. His hometown is Salt Lake City, Utah, and that is where his love of horses began. He has gone on to represent the U.S. at the Nations Cup in Lisbon, and won more than 40 Grand Prix events across the U.S.

Alex Granato flashes that million-dollar smile after being awarded the Triple Crown Excellence Award. (Photo: Cathrin Cammett/Showfolio)

Granato and “Carl,” as the horse is known at the barn, have been a team since Page Tredennick imported the now 10-year-old Mecklenberg gelding (Chacco-Blue x Continue) from Germany in 2013. Granato says he has purposefully brought Carl along slowly. Our success “has been in the development of our partnership,” he says. “I’ve been riding him for four years now and developed him to this level, so we know each other really well.” This is the horse’s first year at the FEI Grand Prix level.

To keep Carl fit, Granato says he does a lot of endurance and flatwork. “We don’t do a ton of jumping between competitions. We focus on flatwork. He is an aggressive and driven horse so he is easy to keep fit. Between competitions we just keep him relaxed and focused on daily work like cavaletti and grid combinations and work in fields, up and down hills."

Granato’s favorite thing about Carl is his dual personality. “In the barn he is a relaxed, calm horse with a sweet personality. In the ring he is driven and aggressive, which I love in a horse because it makes him a tough competitor. Carl tries to fight for a win as much as I do.”

Sarah Tredennick says she rode Carl when he was five and six “but he turned out to be much more of a match for Alex than me. What makes Carl and Alex a great team is that they just have a huge respect for one another that they have developed over time.”

Granato says he and the Tredennicks plan to show Carl through week seven of the Colorado Horse Park series. Then they plan for a bit of down time this summer when they head back to his home base in Lexington, Kentucky. “In the fall, we’ll step back up to FEI competitions to get Carl fit and strong before heading to Wellington, Florida, for the winter Grand Prix shows.”

Three back-to-back wins for Alex Granato and Carlchen after winning the $20,000 Welcome Stake, the $70,000 Ariat Grand Prix, and the Triple Crown Excellence Award week V of Summer in the Rockies. (Photo: Cathrin Cammett/Showfolio)

The young horseman says he is appreciative of the Triple Crown Excellence Award—a luxurious ribbon and engraved silver platter. “It always means a lot to riders when a show gets top companies to sponsor classes,” he says.

Triple Crown’s own commitment to excellence is apparent in its superior feeds. Triple Crown was the first company to add prebiotics, probiotics, and organic minerals to horse feed and continues today to deliver the very best in equine nutrition. Triple Crown is the official feed sponsor of the U.S. Dressage Team, the Land Rover U.S. Eventing Team, and the Hermes U.S. Show Jumping Team, and it is a proud sponsor of the 2017 Summer in the Rockies and Dressage in the Rockies show series at the Colorado Horse Park.

To learn more about Triple Crown Feed, please visit the company’s official Facebook page or Instagram @TripleCrownFeed, call (800-451-9916), or visit www.TripleCrownFeed.com.