Canada’s Eric Lamaze sends a victory message with Telegraph
by Jean Llewellyn, Special Report provided by PhelpsSports.com
Calgary, CAN - June 10, 2006 – Saturday afternoon’s $60,000 TransCanada Parcours de Chasse (Table C, FEI art. 239) is always a popular speed class at Spruce Meadows, especially when a Canadian produces an impressive performance to claim victory. On this occasion, Eric Lamaze had some help from down under, thanks to the New Zealand-bred Telegraph. Lamaze said, “He’s already won two derbies with Bruce Goodin riding him. He’s a great speed horse and loves natural fences,” which are attributes that cannot be overlooked when confronting the challenges of a derby-type course.
As always, it was the raised road combination and derby bank that claimed the most scalps, although faults occurred throughout the course given the high speed and adrenaline-pumping determination of the majority of riders. First out of the gate, Mobile, Alabama’s Kyle King set the 660-meter course alight with the nine-year-old Kosta and produced a penalty-free round over the 14 obstacles – in 85.58 seconds. Fourth to go, Beezie Madden stepped on the gas with Play On and the gelding, owned by Allan Shore Jr., gave a textbook performance until he faulted at the final fence. Converting faults to seconds, Beezie’s final time of 86.00 seconds was good enough for 7th place.
At the age of 18, and an extremely seasoned derby campaigner and winner, Richard Spooner’s Robinson looked fresh as a daisy as he launched himself out of the starting blocks, but a series of unfortunate rails, including a fault at the raised road and the obstacle at the base of the derby bank, resulted in a 95.88-second round and put them out of the reckoning. Rich Fellers likewise incurred eight faults at two of the raised road combination riding the Irish-bred Flexible and left the ring with 104.27 seconds.
A good friend and stable buddy of Eric Lamaze, Frenchman Yann Candele, who has now been based with his family in Schomberg, Ontario, for many years, lit the blue touchpaper with Millcreek’s Marco Taere, and the Belgian Warmblood literally cruised at top speed without putting a foot wrong. The pair crossed the finish line without penalties in 82.74 seconds, setting a tough goal for those of the remaining riders prepared to pick up the gauntlet.
Will Simpson and El Campeon’s Tosca certainly took a healthy run at the course and finished less than two seconds off the pace in 84.01 seconds, which was good enough for 4th place. Illustrating the tight race that was unfolding, Leslie Howard’s round in 83.76 seconds with Midnight Hour would have been good for 4th place had it not been for their four-faults incurred at the raised road which relegated them to 11th overall. Likewise, Kyle King’s remarkable second round, this time riding Estival in formula one style, stopped the clock at 77.58 seconds, five seconds ahead of the current leader, but their eight faults converted the time to 85.58 and 5th place, ahead of his 6th place ride with Kosta.
While Telegraph doesn’t look like a typical speed horse, the grey stallion’s ground-covering stride and uncomplicated style gave Eric Lamaze a perfect ride, despite the horse’s gung ho descent of the derby bank which gave his rider a heart-stopping moment. Lamaze later said, laughing, “He’s done this type of course so many times, that I’m thinking of letting him do it by himself next time.” Immediately following, Beezie Madden’s second round employed similar tactics with Conquest II, but the stallion’s reflexes couldn’t avoid a rail at the tricky vertical flanking the bank, so their potential winning round converted to 3rd place with 83.08 seconds.
Last to go, also with his second ride, Richard Spooner’s Quirino 3 has a ground-covering stride that belies his small stature. By Quick Star, another diminutive horse who nonetheless excelled in Grand Prix classes in Europe under the saddle of Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum, Quirino demonstrated the agility of a cat around the course, and took off from a virtual standstill to clear the fence at the base of the bank following a straight-line descent. Slotting into 9th place, Spooner’s result gave U.S. riders six out of the top ten places.
Ironically, although Lamaze took over the ride on Telegraph from New Zealand international Bruce Goodin in July last year, they continued to share the ride for several months, before Lamaze campaigned the horse at Florida’s Winter Equestrian Festival earlier in the year. He confessed that the horse had, in fact, arrived at Spruce Meadows with his student Katie McVane, “who has been riding him throughout the tournament until I stole him for this class,” he laughed. Commenting on his amazing year, Lamaze said, “I have some nice young horses and have come off the European tour which is very strong, very competitive, so I’m at the top of my game at the moment and my horses are in great form.” He continued by saying, “You invest a lot of time and effort and it’s great when so many come together at the same time.”
As the top-placed U.S. rider, Beezie Madden was pleased with her result and said, “Although Conquest is a veteran at this, it was the first time for Play On. But I’m actually planning on putting him in the Derby tomorrow, so this was a prep for that because he’ll have to do the table and the smaller bank.” Recalling what she considered to be the most difficult challenge on the course, Madden said, “Off the bank is always difficult because you can walk the distance but you never know how they’re going to come off it.” She confessed that, “I kind of screwed up with Conquest there because I had to push him, then tried to stuff an extra stride in, so it wasn’t good.”
For complete Spruce Meadows National results, please visit: http://www.sprucemeadows.com/national.htm
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