Kent Farrington and Up Chiqui Win Rolex/USEF National Show Jumping Championships Presented by Equine Motorcoach
12.14.2007 - part 1
Photo by Randi Must, MustPhoto, Inc.
Story by Joanie Morris, USEF High Performance Communications Manager

Wellington, FL – The only clear round in the second leg of the Rolex/USEF National Show Jumping Championship presented by Equine Motorcoach wasn’t enough to wrestle the title away from the consistently impressive combination of Kent Farrington and Up Chiqui. They were the fastest of the four faulters on Sunday, but their stellar performance in the first round on Friday compounded into the best score over the two days. Last year’s winner, McLain Ward, riding the stylish 9-year-old Dutch mare Phillipa, was relegated to second place by one point. Ward won the $100,000 FEI World Cup Qualifier (which served as leg two) but the new Rolex watch and the national championship title belong to Farrington.

An incredibly consistent duo, Farrington and the diminutive Up Chiqui (owned by Alex Boone, James McNerney and Craig Dobbs), looked like they were going to force a jump off with Ward after easily negotiating nearly all of Pierre Jolicoeur's challenging course. Up Chiqui thought very quickly through the difficult related line from fence 11 to the triple combination at 12, and the pair was clear through there but got to a long distance at the penultimate fence. Up Chiqui reached as far as he could but it wasn't quite enough to make the back rail of the oxer, leaving them with four faults at the end of the second round. That meant they lay fourth in Sunday's portion of the championship but beat Ward by one point overall.

“My horse tried his heart out,” said Farrington who hails from Chicago, IL. “He really wanted to win today. I'm thrilled with my horse but disappointed in myself. I was coming around the corner and thinking about the time, I went to move up and he was a split second behind my leg and had it down. It's great to have a national championship but I really wanted to win
today.”

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