Bologna, March 2015 – Venezuela’s Andres Rodriguez aboard Caballito captured yesterday night in Wellington the first prize at the end of the Csi 3st Grand Prix, counting for week ten of the 2015 Winter Equestrian Festival. After a six-horse jump off he left behind Argentina’s Juan Ignacio Rojo on Percine Dream and Usa’s Meagan Nusz on Sri Aladdin. Usa’s Kent Farrington on Blue Angel scored the fastest time but with a rail down, while the Portorican Freddie Vazquez on Zippo Z came fifth (4 fault) and Usa’s Ali Wolff on Casall sixth (8 faults). “I’m very happy”, Rodriguez said of his victory. “I saw the jump-off start. Juan was pretty fast, but I knew Kent was going to go faster than him. It is a very lucky night when you have Kent in front of you in the jump-off. I was thinking something good was going to happen. He was just in front of me, so I was going to watch him from the gate and he had an unlucky rail down. I had a plan for jump three. That was a hard jump for me in the first round. I rubbed it pretty hard. I knew I needed to take a little bit there and I did. Coming in the last line there was either the seven strides or the eight and I thought I was faster than Juan already, so I went for the eight and then I looked at the clock. This is my first Grand Prix win at WEF and I have been here for six years, so this is a big night for me”. Talking about Caballito he said: “I bought him at the end of his eight-year-old year and I won international classes with him four years ago, and he is still winning. We always try to buy new horses and think that they are going to be way better than him, and then championships and big shows come and we look at the barn, and the one who is ready to go is him. He is the one we can count on.”
March 15, 2015
