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McLain Ward won the Pfizer $ 1 Million Grand Prix

Sep 12, 2012

While the tunes of concert headliner Michael McDonald played in the background, McLain Ward soaked in another Pfizer $1 Million Grand Prix victory Sunday. After riding to a win in the inaugural event in 2010 aboard the famed mare Sapphire, Ward returned to glory, this time in the irons of Grant Road Partners, LLC's Antares F, who is fresh off the Olympic Games in London. "With being injured and trying to qualify for the Olympics, our schedule was a little unpredictable this year, but I knew that I wanted to be a part of this class and it was a great thing to aim this horse to at the end of his year," said Ward. "The jumps were beautiful and the course was hard. You needed a real Olympic caliber horse to jump a lot of those obstacles."

Ward was one of three riders to produce clear rounds over Olaf Petersen, Jr.'s intimidating track. Petersen tested riders with scope, turns, distances and everything in between. With only two trips behind him, Ward rode clear, but was soon challenged when Irish rider Jonathan McCrea guaranteed a jump-off aboard Candy Tribble & Windsor Show Stables' Romantovich Take One. Twenty-six rounds later, Jill Henselwood who also just returned from another Olympic Games for her home country of Canada, sealed a three-horse jump-off with Brian Gingras' George.

In the jump-off, Ward was the only to jump double clear and set the bar high with a time of 39.87 seconds. McCrea picked up 8 faults in a time of 44.01 seconds for third and Henselwood had a rail late in the course for four faults in a time of 45.36 seconds for second-place.

Rounding out the top five was another Irish rider, Darragh Kerins with a two time faults in the first round on Lisona, owned by himself and Maarten Huygens, and Brazilian Olympian Rodrigo Pessoa with a rail in the first round aboard Pessoa Show Stables, LLC's Winsom.

Source: HITS press release