Mill Spring, NC – September 23, 2019 – Tommi Clark (Tryon, NC) piloted Extraordinare to win Saturday’s $2,500 USHJA National Derby after earning a two-round score of 167 to take the win at Tryon International Equestrian Center (TIEC). Clark also piloted her own entry, Chosen, to a third-place finish with a two-round score of 159, while Robert Stucky (Waxhaw, NC) piloted Allie Rae Hayes’ entry, The Girl From Ipanema, a 2009 Hanoverian mare (Clinton I x Vorbuch), to a second-place finish with a two-round score of 166.
“Extraordinaire is a longtime derby partner,” Clark shared of the 2007 Hanoverian gelding (Stolzenberg x Cleopatra) owned by Stephen Borders. “In fact, we won the last derby he did here, and then Chosen is my personal horse. So it was pretty cool to have a good day on my own horse, too.”
Eight pairs challenged both the first and second tracks set by JP Godard (Aiken, SC). Clark, went into the handy round in second on Extraordinaire and fourth on Chosen, the 2005 Warmblood gelding. “With Chosen, he was kinda coming from behind since I got a little deep into the two-stride line. [With Extraordinaire], I was trying to come back so I really went all out with him and normally he’s usually really good in the classic round, so I just kind of coast in the handy. It was really fun to see what he had for the handy round.”
Clark, whose farm is only a mile from TIEC, explained that she moved her entire operation from California to live in the Tryon region. “The horses just live differently here. They get to go out on green grass and things like that, which isn’t as popular in California, just because it’s so overpopulated. It’s really fun to see the horses get to be horses.”
Clark concluded, “We’re coming back for every derby [during the Tryon Fall Series]. We’ll go up to Capital Challenge, Pennsylvania National, and Washington [International Horse Show] but we will just do our three days there and come right back for the derbies here.”
