Lexington, KY – May 16, 2024 – An international field of athletes gathered at the Rolex Stadium on Thursday night to compete in the $62,500 Spring Classic CSI3* during the Kentucky Spring Classic at the Kentucky Horse Park. Forty-four combinations were narrowed down to nine for a test of speed and accuracy during the technical jump-off. Ali Ramsay laid it all on the line with Conrado 12, speeding through the turns and galloping home for the night’s victory. Sloane Coles and Ninja JW Van De Moerhoeve placed second, just 1/100th of a second ahead of third place finishers Cathleen Driscoll and Arome.
Ramsay was excited after her win, expressing, “I felt like Conrado was with me tonight and he’s so careful, that’s never the issue – he’s going to try to jump clear, so it’s just getting the delivery proper. He felt a hundred percent, so I knew that I could take some risk and do what I can do!”
Course designer Guilherme Jorge asked questions throughout the 13-obstacle track in the Rolex Stadium. An early triple bar was followed by a vertical-oxer double combination directly to a delicate vertical liverpool. The final line proved to be the most challenging, beginning with an oxer-vertical-vertical triple combination to the penultimate oxer, and riders finally did a bending line past the gate to the last oxer. Nine combinations had all the answers in the first round and advanced to the tiebreaker where they had to jump the double combination again, before jumping to verticals with a tight rollback and galloping home over the same final oxer.
Cathleen Driscoll and Arome
Five of the jump-off qualifiers were able to produce a second clear round, the first of which was Cathleen Driscoll and Arome, who left all of the rails intact and stopped the clock at 40.33 seconds. Her early lead did not hold up for long, as Ramsay and Conrado 12 took to the track next. A very tight rollback to the penultimate verical before a fast gallop to the final oxer did just the trick as they dash across the finish line in 39.10 seconds to move to the top of the leaderboard. Only the final pair in the ring would come close to taking the top spot. Sloane Coles and Ninja JW Van De Moerhoeve were smooth and accurate as they quickly made their way through the course, following Driscoll’s path perfectly. They broke the beam in 40.32 with all the rails in place, edging out Driscoll by 1/100th of a second to earn the red ribbon. Driscoll took home third place, while Ramsay returned to lead the lap of honor.
Sloane Coles and Ninja JW Van De Moerhoeve
“I thought the course walked big enough,” noted Ramsay. “I was excited to see how Conrado would do. He jumped the first round pretty phenomenally, so I thought I had a good shot in the jump off. He felt careful, but he felt very on it, so I knew that I could ride my plan and take some risk.”
Conrado 12 is an 11-year-old Zangersheide gelding that has been in Ramsay’s program since he was 5 years old. “In theory it was supposed to be sell him,” she explained. “After a few weeks on him, I realized the quality and I wanted to keep him. He’s 11 now and he just started jumping consistently at this level last year. We had a really good winter in California and I feel really good about him.”
Ramsay was thrilled to be back at the Kentucky Spring Horse Shows, concluding, “I love it here! I came for the first time in 2021, during Covid when everything in Canada was shut down. It was like a last minute decision, and now I’ve been every spring since. It’s one of my favorites that I look forward to every year!”
The next event for Ramsay will be Saturday night’s $125,000 Mary Rena Murphy Grand Prix CSI3*, presented by Hagyard Equine Medical Institute. Riders will also have the opportunity to showcase their mounts during Sunday’s the $35,000 Commonwealth Grand Prix, presented by Sterling Equestrian/Forest Hill and the $15,000 U25 Grand Prix.
For more information on the Kentucky Spring Series please visit www.kentuckyhorseshows.com.