Rodrigo Pessoa wins the Speed Derby at Winter Equestrian Festival
Riding his homebred Belgian Warmblood, Brazilian show jumper Rodrigo Pessoa blazed around Sunday's course aboard Palouchin de Ligny, taking the top prize in the $25,000 G & C Farm Speed Derby at the FTI Winter Equestrian Festival.
A three-time World Cup champion and 2004 Olympic individual gold medallist, Pessoa bested a field of 22 starters, topping second-place finisher Leslie Howard and Lennox Lewis 2 by 3.5 seconds. Alexandra Vanderrest on Oxsona M finished third, more than 4 seconds off the winning time.
The derby was the featured event closing out the first week of the 12-week festival at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center.
The 10-year-old Palouchin is by Baloubet du Rouet, Pessoa's World Cup and Olympic gold medal winning mount.
“I knew the horse had a good shot in this class, because he's a very fast horse,” said Pessoa, 37. “There was nothing really too spooky for him, which was good. I didn't want to start too fast because it's a long course, and up and down the banks cuts their energy a bit. So I wanted to start a little bit conservative and, after the water, I tried to accelerate a little bit and put up a good time.
“I wanted to put up a time that was difficult to catch, but not go totally full speed,” Pessoa said. “It's the second class of the circuit for the horse, so there are still a lot of classes ahead of us. I'm really pleased with him.”
The Olaf Petersen-designed course contained 17 obstacles and 22 jumping efforts, which included two permanent obstacles — a table and a derby bank.
“The questions are: speed between the fences so we have longer lines between some of the jumps, and we also have the opposite included in the course — short turns with more risk,” Petersen said before the class.
Palouchin's last show was in October and had been on a break from competition until this week. Pessoa and Palouchin won 10 to 12 classes at last year's festival.
“In long tracks like this you have to be careful not to start too quick, because then at the end you don't have fuel in the tank,” Pessoa said. “The last two fences were really delicate verticles, and you want the horses to still have some spring…. I try to find a good tempo in the beginning and let him cruise around and not get in his way too much.”
The speed derby is a one-round class, with each knockdown adding 4 seconds to the horse's final time.
Going second in the order, Vanderrest took the lead, coming through the timers clear in 99.92 seconds.
Howard, an Olympic veteran with team gold and silver, took over the lead, going 10th in the order. Howard pulled the final fence, No. 17, adding 4 seconds to her time, but still taking the lead with 99.00 seconds. Howard held onto first place until Pessoa, 19th to go, posted the winning time of 95.51 seconds.
Howard would have beaten Pessoa by 0.5 seconds if the last rail had stayed up.
“A lot of people had that last fence down,” Howard said. “It was a little bit tall in a very flat cup. Horses are tired and it's just a hair taller than the rest of the jumps and just took them a little bit by surprise. This horse is a great speed derby horse. We were second in this class last year. He's won a bunch of speed derbys in Spruce Meadows (Canada). He's very good at that particular type class.”