Nayel Nasser and Lordan, winners of the $129,500 Nations Week Finale Grand Prix

PRESS RELEASE

Langley B.C. – Sunday was the last day of the 2016 BC Open at Thunderbird Show Park. The $129,500 Nations Week Finale Grand Prix presented by Domino High Voltage and Amperage Energy fielded 31 riders. Canadians were well represented with Brian Morton, Lisa Carlsen, Amy Millar, Vanessa Mannix, Eric Lamaze, Yann Candele, and Tiffany Foster.

It was a tough course of thirteen jumps with only one clear from Canadian Brian Morton after the first ten rounds. Amy Millar put together a beautiful, tidy round to become our second clear. Eric Lamaze and Coco Bongo had a refusal coming out of the line for a total of seven faults. The first round continued with Jonathan McCrea retiring after having a couple of rails down early in the course. Tiffany Foster was last in and had a lovely, smooth round but unfortunately caught a rail on the last jump when Victor kicked out behind. The class finished with five coming back for the jump-off, Brian and Amy, plus Conor Swail, Nayel Nassar, and Alberto Michan.

Brian Morton put together a fantastic jump off but had one rail coming out of the one stride. Amy Millar caught a vertical coming into the line after coming in at a bit of an angle. Nayel Nassar was clear to take the lead in the jump off, followed by Conor Swail who got a rail at jump two after a tight turn. It was left to Alberta Michan who went clear with a time of 36.91 seconds but couldn’t catch Nayel’s fast time of 35.6 seconds. Peter Holmes, Thunderbird Course Designer said “It was a great competition. The course was big and needed precision riding. The opening line was solved in both eight and nine strides and the triple combination was big coming in. A number of riders were so close to a clear and I was cheering for them, the closest being smooth rider Carl Cook with a fraction of a second over the time. It was exciting to see Canadians Brian and Amy ride beautiful rounds with their fabulous horses and achieve a clear. I thought it was a very tough competition set for the super high caliber of entries we had at Thunderbird.”

Final Results:

1st – Nayel Nassar and Lordan

2nd – Alberta Michan and Gigolo van de Broekkant

3rd – Brian Morton and Atlantis T

4th – Amy Millar and Heros

5th – Conor Swail and Grafton

6th – Karl Cook and Tembla

7th – Tiffany Foster and Victor