After a whole week of being spoiled by edenic weather, the clouds finally rolled in today and almost tried to rain on our proverbial parade. Thankfully, they somehow held onto their payload through the entire day, and not one drop fell all the way up through the last class, the $138,600 CSI 3* Agero Grand Prix.  I think it was Sid Wolk, Agero’s incredible chairman that spoke to the powers that be and kept us dry for such an important day.

And what a class it was! Olaf Peterson Jr., the genius behind all of the courses we’ve seen this week, obviously had something special up his sleeve because brilliant riders who were winning all week found themselves knocking rails over the seemingly straightforward 1.60m course! If there is such a thing at a staggering 1.60m.  The first few fences formed into a relatively pleasant serpentine that spanned the entire arena, but by the triple combination after jump five the course transformed into something far more technical, and a tricky mix of verticals and precarious oxers. Only six of the original field of thirty-two made it to the second round.

Once more, Shane Sweetnam found himself on the podium for the last time this week. Although not at the top, he and the big grey gelding Alejandro still found third place. This was an admirable finish considering he was the second trip in the jump-off giving his competitors the edge in finding a way to best his time. Jacob Pope and Kelly Arani did just that, aboard the ten-year-old gelding Highway FBH and found a route that shaved off almost three seconds from the Olympian’s time. Kelly and her slightly younger bay mount, Impossible Dream, found themselves in second place almost exactly one second behind Pope. It was a great way to wrap up what has been such a fantastic week at SOJT.

Before we go, we cannot forget about the Malvern Bank Leading Rider awards! The final results are posted below. Here at Silver Oak, we also like to extend our gratitude to the fantastic grooms who work tirelessly to turn out the horses we all adore. In their honor we have provided “Outstanding Grooms” awards for those whose riders had the most wins throughout the week. A few of their names are also listed below. As we find with each year this has been the best we’ve seen yet! That is, at least until next year! We’ll see you then and we’ll keep you interested and informed about once a month all year as always!