Chawke and Jenkins Share the Glory in $10,000 IDA Development Welcome Speed
The weekly $10,000 1.35m Welcome Speed attracts riders of all levels every time it runs, and several riders have had their names at the top of the results list more than others. Perhaps the two winningest riders in the class since Desert Circuit began each took home wins in the class to open Desert Circuit 5, presented by IDA Development and Barnwalkers.
To start the day, the first half of the $10,000 IDA Development 1.35m Welcome Speed took to the grass field and James Chawke very convincingly took the win. Aboard a horse that’s still brand new to him, Daido Van’t Ruytershof Z, he beat the rest of the field by a margin of about six seconds, which was a hefty margin even for a speed rider of his caliber.
“She was supposed to go third in the order, but we had to send her to the farrier,” Chawke said of his change-up in the order with his first of two rides in the first half of the class. “The course was very open, you could just run along. It was a little opposite from last week when it was all connected. There were big gaps between the jumps so it was footspeed, and she’s very quick.”
They came in at a blazing-fast time of 57.314 seconds, which was quite a bit ahead of second-place finisher Georgina Harvey with Crystal Clear North Star, who finished in 63.268 seconds. Kassidy Keith and Havana were just barely behind for third.
“I tried her at the end of November and got her here at the beginning of January,” Chawke said of the 10-year-old Zangersheide mare (Dieu Merci Van T&L x Bamako de Muze). “Last week was the first week we showed her. I really like her. She’s very fast, very careful. She’s jumped some 1.45m so she’s jumped a bit bigger, so hopefully I can start moving her up a little bit.”
Initially, Chawke didn’t envision himself on the horse, but he liked her so much he made it happen so he could build a partnership with her.
“I actually didn’t try her for myself, I tried her for a client,” he explained. “I liked her but we weren’t convinced she was the horse for the client. After I left I thought about it and decided she was a useful horse for me. She obviously is going to be a bit of a winner, so I went back and bought her with a friend of mine. Ideally I’d love to see if she could jump ranking classes, maybe jog her the last week [of Circuit].”
As for the change of scenery onto the field, it’s something Daido Van’t Ruytershof Z didn’t blink an eye at. “It’s lovely to jump on grass,” Chawke said. “I’m sure it’s nice for the horses as well to get a break. I looked up a lot of her videos and she’s jumped a lot on grass. I figured she would be fine out there.”
Benefiting the most from the split class on Wednesday morning was Savannah Jenkins, who scored another win with the incredibly fast Kainville VDS, a horse owned by Proper 12 LLC.
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