Hampton Classic

Stephanie Danhakl gave it her best shot but couldn’t quite repeat her clean sweep of the top three places in the $10,000 Hermès Hunter Classic from 2018. She had to settle for first, second and sixth instead, in the final hunter competition at the 44th edition of the Hampton Classic horse show.

The 44th edition of the Hampton Classic Horse Show ended in spectacular fashion Sunday, with two-time Canadian Olympic veteran, Mario Deslauriers, capturing the $300,000 DOHA.INC Grand Prix on his mount Bardolina.

The derby course set by Michel Vaillancourt of Aiken, SC, included the natural obstacles of the bank and open water, which had given many riders trouble throughout the week. Faults were spread out over the course, and of the 18 riders who started the class, just three posted clean rounds to advance to the jump-off. Representing France, Agathe Van Gysel and Duc Des Tourelles Z were first to jump-off. They had the first fence down to ultimately finish second with four faults in 41.521 seconds. Next to go was Chloe Field with Tess de Jalesnes, they too lowered the first fence, had a refusal and time faults, to finish third with 11 faults in 47.661 seconds. Last to challenge, Gray-Rochon entered the ring with the plan of having a calm and consistent clean round in the class they had planned their entire show season around.