Christian Coyle and Locato Van Het Kapelhof Capture $40,000 Hampton Inn Grand Prix at
Vermont Summer Festival
A beautiful week of competition under the Green Mountains during Week 4 of the Vermont Summer Festival came to a close with the $40,000 Hampton Inn Grand Prix on Sunday afternoon. Top riders vied for the winning honors over the Ken Krome-designed course, and ultimately Ireland’s Christian Coyle and Locato Van Het Kapelhof earned the leading spot on the podium. Coyle also received this week’s Style Award presented by Everleigh Collection.
Coyle and Locato Van Het Kapelhof used experience to their advantage as they added another win to their partnership. “We got him last March and have done a few FEI3* competitions – he has always been really consistent and actually won a few grand prix here last year, so it is nice to come back here and for him to win again,” smiled Coyle. “He’s naturally really fast, so if I stay out of his way and don’t make too many mistakes, he is usually there for me. He’s also done some Medium Junior/Amateur classes with a client, so he is super consistent and just an overall lovely horse.”
The first round of Sunday’s featured class consisted of 14 jumping efforts, including a double and triple combination. Four horses returned for the tie-breaking round, where they raced to the finish, and three were double clear. For the short course, riders began over a tall vertical before tightly rolling back to a wide oxer. Galloping to another tall oxer off a rollback, riders had to carefully complete a one-stride combination before a bending line to the final fence.
“I think it was a great course today for the number of horses – everything rode pretty much the way it walked. Locato is usually a very careful horse and naturally fast, so I wasn’t worried about the time allowed – so I went in there and stuck to my plan and did the numbers and he did everything I asked of him,” added Coyle. “In the jump-off, because he is quick, he doesn’t spend much time in the air, so I was pretty confident that he could produce a fast time to beat.”
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