LAUREL, MD. 01-29-15—James Covello, Thomas Coleman, & Doheny Racing Stable’s Majestic Affair served up a dominating performance to win today’s $100,000 Frank Whiteley Jr. Stakes for 3-year-olds, the co-feature on today’s 10-race program.
Month: January 2015
ARCADIA, Calif. (Jan. 29, 2015)—The 48th annual Santa Anita Jockeys vs. Holy Angels School Charity Basketball Game will take place Thursday, Feb. 12, at La Salle High School in Pasadena with proceeds to benefit the Holy Angels athletic program, the Kentucky-based Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund (PDJF) and the Eye on Jacob Foundation.
Blackburn Architects, P.C., will join Animal Planet, Ariat, Fairfield Equine Associates and the Split Rock Jumping Tour as team sponsors of the first Best Performance Team Invitational on Friday evening, February 20, at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center in Wellington, Florida.
THE RIDGE AT WELLINGTON HORSE SHOW SERIES FAST FACTS
The Ridge at Wellington Turf Tour offers their popular 1.40m Invitational Grand Prix for its third year, with an open in gate format taking place once a week at beautiful venues throughout Wellington. The Ridge at Wellington Grand Prix Finale will take place March 27, 2015.
The Turf Tour also will host 1.30
m-1.35m Jumpers every Wednesday beginning January 7, 2015 and running until March 18, 2015.
Young Jumper Classes and both Children’s/Senior Jumper Classics will find their home intermittently throughout the Wellington Turf Tour, running concurrently with the 1.30-1.35m and 1.40m Jumpers.
The Ridge at Wellington offers Equitation Shows every Tuesday of the month from January 6 – March 23, 2015. There will also be a series of schooling shows at the Ridge at Wellington for all experience levels.
Two USHJA International Hunter Derbies will take place February 6, 2015 and March 20, 2015.
Wellington, FL – January 26, 2015 – It’s a bird, it’s a plane-no it’s Superman! He’s riding for his team, faster than a speeding bullet, leaping over tall obstacles on his way to securing the top prize to benefit local charities at the 2015 Great Charity Challenge. The 2015 Great Charity Challenge theme is “Superheroes,” with equestrians and supporters saving the day for a number of worthy charities in Palm Beach County. For the first time, Horses Healing Hearts (HHH) has been selected along with 34 other charities to have the chance to earn significant donations as a part of the 2015 Great Charity Challenge at Winter Equestrian Festival (WEF).
Wellington, FL – January 26, 2015 -The Ridge at Wellington’s Turf Tour is travelling back to the International Polo Club Palm Beach (IPC) for its fourth week of competition. This week’s events will take place on Wednesday, January 28 and Friday, January 30. The wide variety of classes, including Children/Adult, Masters, Junior/Amateur-Owner and Schooling Jumper classes in addition to the Grand Prix on Friday is sure to be popular with riders and horses of all levels of experience.
DENVER, Colo. – After a long drought, bareback rider Bobby Mote returned to the throne at the National Western Stock Show and Rodeo Jan. 25.
The four-time world champion won his first title in the Mile High City since 2003 with a 249-point score on three head before a near-capacity crowd at the Denver Coliseum.
Mote clinched the average crown with an electric finals-winning 89-point ride on C5 Rodeo’s Virgil.
“It feels good, and that was a great horse,” said Mote, who finished fourth last season in the Windham Weaponry High Performance PRCA World Standings. “That’s the best horse I’ve been on in a long time. I was happy to be able to do my job.”
Although Mote has won countless rodeos in his decorated career, he still knows how critical it is to capture winter rodeo victories.
“It’s really important for my season to get started off strong,” Mote said. “I feel like this is the first big winter rodeo of the season and it’s important to get a good start here. It’s a hard place to win; I won this rodeo (in 2003) and I’ve come every year since, so obviously it is not easy to win.”
Mote, a native of Culver, Ore., held off Tim O’Connell and Steven Dent – they tied for second with 247 points – for the Denver win. Mote collected $8,063 for his performance – $7,564 for snaring the average and finals victories.
“I thought I would,” said Mote when asked if he thought he was going to register a great score on Virgil. “It was one of those (rides) that was really nip and tuck and I didn’t know if I was going to be there when the whistle blew. A lot of times, if you’re doing your job right and the horse is bucking that hard, then it should be a good score. I was consistent in the first couple of rounds and it allowed me to come back for the finals and, thank God, I had a good horse in the short round, which allowed me to make up some ground.”
According to Mote, this was his first time competing since the 2014 Wrangler National Finals Rodeo ended Dec. 13 in Las Vegas.
“I took a month off, which isn’t much time, and I’m in good shape, but actually you probably get sorer when you start back because your body is not in riding shape,” Mote said.
Other winners at the $474,801 rodeo were all-around cowboy Dent ($11,403, bareback riding and saddle bronc riding), steer wrestler Beau Clark (12.1 seconds on three head), team ropers Riley Minor and Brady Minor (16.1 seconds on three head), saddle bronc rider Cody DeMoss (249 points on three head), tie-down roper Adam Gray (25.5 seconds on three head), barrel racer Meghan Johnson (45.95 seconds on three runs) and bull rider Zeb Lanham (248 points on three head).
- Tonasket, Wash., bull rider Zack Oakes, a four-time Wrangler National Finals Rodeo qualifier, is back on the rodeo road after a two-year hiatus and looking like he may be ready for a strong comeback run. Oakes won both PRCA rodeos in Florida over the weekend, sharing the win in Homestead with Jimmy Lathero (85 points each) and winning outright in Homestead by being the only contestant to ride both of his bulls. Oakes, 31, qualified for the WNFR in 2004-05 and 2008-09, and cut back his schedule sharply after that last Las Vegas appearance before sitting out while recovering from injuries in 2013-14.
DENVER, (Jan. 25, 2015) — It’s been over 10 years since Bobby Mote won the bareback riding title at the National Western Stock Show, but judging by the way he rode here on Sunday, the veteran competitor can still ride any horse on the circuit and do it well.
Mote won the final round with a whopping 89-point score on C5 Rodeo’s horse named Virgil in front of a near capacity crowd in the Denver Coliseum. He came from behind to win the championship and $8,062. He placed deep in the second round and qualified for the U.S. Bank Championship Finals in a tie for eighth place. His total of 249 points was two points ahead of the men in second place, Tim O’Connel from Zwingle, Iowa and Steven Dent from Mullen, Neb.
RCADIA, Calif. (Jan. 25, 2015)—Texas-bred Pure Tactics rallied from off the pace to take Sunday’s $75,000 Clockers’ Corner Stakes by a half length under Mike Smith, negotiating 6 ½ furlongs down Santa Anita’s hillside turf course in 1:12.28. Trained by Doug O’Neill, Pure Tactics shortened up out of a sixth place run in the Grade II, 1 1/16 miles turf Seabiscuit Handicap at Del Mar Nov. 28 and notched his second win from five tries down the hill.
LAUREL, MD. 01-22-15—Stakes restricted to 3-year-old sprinters make Saturday’s program twice as appealing, starting with the 7-furlong $100,000 Frank Whitely, Jr. Stakes, followed two races later by the 6-furlong $100,000 Marshua Stakes.