Waylon Roberts Wins Record Ninth Indoor Eventing Challenge at Toronto’s Royal Horse Show
Waylon Roberts of Port Perry, ON, broke his own record with a remarkable ninth win in the $20,000 Mad Barn Indoor Eventing Challenge on Saturday evening, November 8, at the Royal Horse Show, held as part of the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto, ON.
Roberts had only ridden his winning mount, Lakeside Park, for the first time 48 hours prior to Saturday night’s final. Roberts was sitting second after the opening round on Friday, nipping at the heels of leader Holly Jacks of Hillsburgh, ON. He made good use of the up-and-coming talent of Lakeside Park, an eight-year-old Canadian-bred Thoroughbred gelding owned by Penny Rowland, to go penalty free again on Saturday and finish on a combined winning time of 186.29 seconds.
The Mad Barn Indoor Eventing Challenge is a title Roberts last won—for a record eighth time on that occasion—in 2015. This year, he was hopeful but set few expectations.
“I was only trying to do right by Penny, but what a horse,” he said of the horse regularly ridden by fellow Canadian eventer Jamie Kellock. “Jamie and Jessica [Phoenix] worked together this week to prepare him. I showed up Friday morning, rode him at Jamie’s, then rode him a little here in the afternoon, and we did the class. I was trying to draw on all the good training I’ve had from my great coaches over the years, and that’s all you can try to do.
“Indoor eventing always gets your heart racing,” continued Roberts, a member of Canada’s bronze medal eventing team at the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto. “It gets your blood pumping, and this atmosphere is second to none.”
The Coca-Cola Coliseum welcomed record numbers on opening weekend of the Royal Horse Show.
“It’s great to see this place jam-packed, and I think the horses love it,” said Roberts, who has been coming to The Royal with his family since he was a child. “They see all those eyes on them, and they hear people cheer for them. I know it gets the riders going but the horses love it too.”
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The Royal Horse Show • The Royal Agricultural Winter Fair
