LAKE PLACID, New York - United States Equestrian team veteran Jeff Welles of Newtown won the Intermediate Jump-Off on June 30 at the 32nd annual Lake Placid Horse Show at the North Elba Show Grounds in Lake Placid, New York.
LAKE PLACID, New York â United States Equestrian team veteran Jeff Welles of Newtown won the Intermediate Jump-Off on June 30 at the 32nd annual Lake Placid Horse Show at the North Elba Show Grounds in Lake Placid, New York.
Welles rode Pasadena to two penalty-free rounds with a jump-off time of 32.075 seconds to claime the win. He finished more than a second ahead of three-time U.S. Olympic veteran Anne Kursinski of Frenchtown, New Jersey, who had two fault-free rides and a jump-off time of 33.296 seconds on Sincere.
Welles, who won the $50,000 Budweiser Grand Prix of Lake Placid back in 2000, had hoped to become the first rider to successfully defend the championship since Leslie Burr Howard in 1985. But Welles fell short of that goal as top-ranked USET rider and Sydney Olympic team member Margie Goldstein Endle of West Palm Beach, Florida, captured her 101st Grand Prix win to take the title.
Welles did collect a bumber of wins at Lake Placid and I Love New York Horse Shows. In addition to his victory in the Intermediate Jump-Off, he also took the top prize in the Lake Placid Lodge NAL Open Speed Stake and another $5,000 Intermediate Jumper, both on Jasmine. He also won a High Preliminary Jumper class on S&L Double Trouble, and two Low Preliminary Jumpers riding Memory and Angelica.
The Lake Placid Horse Show is one of the nationâs largest hunter-jumper shows with more than 1,000 horses competing each week.