Cathleen Driscoll and Casalletto Win $35,000 Bluegrass Grand Prix at Kentucky Spring Classic
Cathleen Driscoll claimed her second grand prix victory in a row on Sunday afternoon to close out the Kentucky Spring Classic. After earning the win in Saturday night’s $125,000 Mary Rena Murphy Grand Prix CSI3* with Arome, she returned to top the $35,000 Bluegrass Grand Prix aboard Casalletto. The day’s highlight event was presented by Sterling Equestrian and Forest Hill. Driscoll and Casalletto led the way with a brilliant double clear. Pathfinders Lorcan Gallagher and Hunters Conlypso II took home the second-place prize, while Quentin Judge and HH Griffin Van De Heffinck placed third.
Driscoll was happy to be closing out the show with two big wins saying, “These two weeks have been great! We have a great group of horses – they’re all on form and they all had good results. It’s always a big confidence booster and good for morale in the barn when we can have weeks like this – all the horses show off and get impressive results. We’re super happy to be finishing like this, going into our little break before the next shows.”
The Guilherme Jorge-designed track featured a liverpool oxer in the middle of the course before a rollback to a vertical-oxer-vertical triple combination. Riders finished with an oxer-vertical double combination to a delicate skinny vertical before bending to the final oxer towards the gate. Three combinations advanced to the jump-off, where they had to begin with a tight rollback before continuing to the skinny vertical and jumping the second half of the triple combination. Riders then finished by galloping to the final oxer at the far end of the ring.
Gallagher was the first to return with Hunters Conlypso II and wore a target on his back after breaking the beam in 40.751 seconds with all the rails intact. Driscoll was next with Castalletto and was focused on continuing her winning streak. Making a tight turn in the first rollback and using her mount’s stride to leave out to last fence proved to be the key as they tripped the timers in 39.746 to claim the victory.
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