The West Coast based show team of Whitethorne, LLC made the venture to Wellington, FL in mid February to participate in several weeks of the 2023 Winter Equestrian Festival. With multiple client and sales horses in tow, the power team of Georgy Maskrey-Segesman and Mavis Spencer hit the road for the 50+ hour trek across the country.
The team landed at Wellington International just in time for several of their young junior riders to get ring time during the prestigious WCHR Hunter Week while Spencer familiarized her top mounts with the facility. For Spencer, Con Calle and Carrissimo 25 have several big weeks ahead with WEF 7 featuring multiple five-star events and WEF 8 debuting Spencer once again as a rider for team USA during the Nations Cup events.
Con Calle started Spencer’s time in Wellington off on a good note with a top finish in the Bainbridge Companies 1.40m class during WEF 6 and repeated his top performance in the same class at the beginning of WEF 7. Junior riders Katie Smith, Kenda Murray, and Sophia Segesman produced ribboning rounds in various equitation, hunter, and jumper classes throughout WEF 6.
Katie Smith’s accolades included a fourth place in the prestigious ASPCA Maclay class, a fifth place in the Dover Hunt Seat Medal, and a first place finish in the 15-17 Equitation Section B aboard Maskrey-Segesman’s own Cruseon.
Kenda Murray represented her farm well with a third place ribbon in the 15-17 Equitation aboard Jackaroo DTZ and a second place in the $2,500 Modified Children’s Jumper Classic with a double-clean effort of 47.095 seconds on Avalon.
Wrapping the weekend up with two top-twelve finishes in the competitive equitation medals, Sophia Segesman rode Constantinos to fifth place in the Hamel Foundation / NHS 3’3” Medal out of 29 entries, and a sixth in the THIS National Children’s Medal (14 and Under) out of 35 horse-and-rider pairings.
All photos by Sara Shier Photography
