February 15, 2025, Myakka City, Florida. The penultimate day of the kickoff week at the TerraNova Winter Series saw perfect conditions for a day of top-tier international show jumping, which was just what the schedule in the Lakeside Arena promised. The venue plays host to five weeks featuring international show jumping action as well as nationally-rated hunter, jumper, and equitation competition against the picturesque background of Myakka City, Florida. In a nail-biting jump-off, Alexandra Worthington scored a home-country victory for team USA as she took the top call aboard De L’oiseliere in the Equestrian Services International $65,000 1.45m FEI CSI2* Grand Prix.
Top course designer Olaf Petersen Jr. (GER) built a brilliantly-designed first round track worthy of its 25 elite contenders. Again, eight nationalities were represented in the start list including yesterday’s Welcome winner Samuel Parot (CHI), Great Britain’s Amanda Derbyshire, and Olympic veteran Rodrigo Pessoa (BRA). Despite many of their best efforts, Petersen Jr.’s course performed as it should and ultimately only five horse-and-rider combinations managed to produce a clear initial effort.
“I think he set a perfect course for today,” commented FEI Show Manager Derek Braun. “Any time you have a tighter time allowed it forces the riders into a speed they may not be comfortable with, and from that they may incur faults.”
Across the short course, Lauren Hayes (CAN) kicked things off to a good start with a clean round on Edgemere Farms’ nine-year-old Oldenburg mare by London x Chacco-Blue, Londora, but dropped out of the winning position two positions later as Derbyshire shaved three seconds off of her time to land in 33.66 seconds with veteran partner, Gochman Sport Horse LLC’s 17-year-old Holsteiner gelding Cornwall BH. As the second-to-last to return, Worthington saw her opportunity and trusted her partner’s talents to stop the clock mere milliseconds faster in a winning time of 33.39 seconds.
“My horse has an absolutely massive stride,” she explained of Turn A Blind Eye LLC’s 12-year-old Selle Francais gelding by Kapitol D’Argonne. “There were two lines in the jump off that were originally pretty steady in the first round and I decided to take, frankly, a pretty big risk and do one less stride in the jump off. I don’t know if anyone else tried that, but I have a lot of trust in my horse and I knew that was where we would kind of make the time back.”
The victory came extra special to Worthington, who has found herself in an ‘always the bridesmaid, never the bride’ position on the podium several times over in the past few years.
“This is actually my first international grand prix win so it’s a really big milestone today,” she admitted. “Over the last couple of years I’ve been second and third in more grand prixs than I can count and today was finally the day!”
“My horse is a very, very careful jumper and quick across the ground so there’s not a lot of classes I feel nervous walking into; he’s just very capable at this level,” she added.
Hailing an all-female podium, Derbyshire took the second place honors for her performance, while Hayes rounded out the top three.
Saturday’s international action debuted with the $500 CSI2* Two-Phase which saw a winning performance from Rodrigo Pessoa (BRA) with his new rising star, Artemis Equestrian Farm LLC’s nine-year-old Selle Francais gelding by Prestigio LS La Silla x Kannan, Giorgio D’Ellipse. The final day of show jumping competition will resume Sunday, February 16, 2025 as national-level competitors take center stage in the $20,000 TerraNova Prix before the junior and amateur jumper classics take over the Lakeside Arena.