Shane Rose, first and second (luckily he has two feet) and Clarke Johnstone third in the CCI4*
In 2011 Mary King achieved a significant result at Rolex Kentucky with her two horses Kings Temptress and Fernhill Urco finishing first and second in the CCI4*. Fernhill Urco had led the dressage ahead of his stable mate but added eight time penalties on the cross country so it was Mary’s talented bay mare that took the top prize.
Today Shane Rose went into the show jumping phase of the Adelaide CCI4* at the Australian International 3 Day Event in the enviable position of potentially finishing first and second on his own 10 year old bay gelding Virgil and the Wischer family’s 12 year old grey gelding CP Qualified.
Shane and Virgil
Virgil, by the Australian show jumping star Vivant, had jumped clear at his last five CIC3* events prior to this and is well known for his ‘ballooning’ style over the fence. CP Qualified, a Holsteiner by Quite Capitol, another sire with impressive show jumping bloodlines didn’t quite have as good a record leading into today’s competition but had jumped clear for wins at Taupo and Goulburn in 2015.
However Shane was being chased by a combination that had never taken a rail in international competition together so Clarke Johnstone was feeling fairly confident about heading into the arena on his grey horse Balmoral Sensation in third place
Clarke and Balmoral Sensation
Only four combinations out of the 24 left in the competition jumped clear and two of these were Western Australians; the very experienced Sonja Johnson on Parkiarrup Illicit Liaison, finishing in fourth place and Michaela Martindale on Kinnordy Gatow who finished a fantastic fifth place at her first CCI4* event
But it was a battle of the boys at the end of the day. For Shane it was a slightly strange feeling to jump a clear round on Virgil and know that, one way or the other, he had won the event but then he backed it up with just four faults on CP Qualified for both the win on the grey horse and second on Virgil
Shane Rose
Clarke could not beat him but he still put in a very good clear round, keeping his performance record intact and an eye on Rio
With the Adelaide presentations now including the obligatory champagne spray and a victory lap where Shane galloped both horses, we had to bring you a bit of footage and there are plenty more reports, photos, videos and interviews to come ...........
