Nick Skelton continued his run of winning form in Florida this weekend, taking the $150,000 ( £95,000) Wellington Equestrian Realty Grand Prix CSIO****.
Nick and Beverley Widdowson’s Carlo beat the USA’s Laura Kraut into the top spot.
The grand prix took place on Sunday (4 March) during the seventh week of the Winter Equestrian Festival at Palm Beach, which runs until 1 April.
Nick and Carlo fought off competition from 47 other entries and 11 riders, including Britain’s Scott Brash (Intertoy Z), representing eight different countries made it to the jump-off.
The pair raced through the course in 36.60s, while Laura and Cedric finished in 37.14s for second.
Nick and Carlo had already won the $32,000 ( £20,000) WEF Challenge Cup Series during weeks two and three and finished second in this week’s $32,000 WEF Challenge Cup Round 8.
And Nick has also won the $32,000 Suncast 1.50m championship jumper classic (26 February) and the $80,000 Adequan CSI** grand prix (4 February) with Big Star.
“I was sweating a bit at the end,” said Nick. “I knew I didn’t have the best draw. I went relatively early and the fast ones were at the end. Carlojumped amazingly; he was absolutely brilliant today.”
Earlier in the day Nick finished second with Unique in the $25,000 Suncast 1.50m Championship Jumper Classic.
Meanwhile Germany won Friday night’s (2 March) FEI Nations Cup, with Ireland second and Britain joint fourth with the USA. Nick and Big Star were the only pair to jump a double clear for Britain, while Cian O’Connor and Blue Lloyd recorded a double clear for Ireland.
And in Spain Peter Charles won a grand prix on the Mediterranean Tour with Murka’s Odie De Frevent.
For a full report see this week’s issue of H&H (8 March).
