Olympic gold medallist Ben Maher and Ginger-Blue won the Dallamires Stables Cup, the opening ranking class of the 2024 Horse of the Year Show (HOYS), with as fast a jump-off round as you’re likely to see.
Ben and the incredible 13-year-old mare went at a pace blistering enough to take two and a half seconds off the time of Joe Stockdale and Ebanking – whose round had been a super-fast one in itself.
“Ginger-Blue was amazing tonight,” Ben said. “She’s been with me a long time; we know each other very well and she’s an amazing indoor horse. HOYS came at the right time in the schedule; she’s amazing indoors, I’ve got another promising young horse here for the same owner, and it’s always good to win with the owners here.
“This is an amazing arena when it’s full and to go last and win like that – it never gets old.”
Ben and Jane Forbes Clark’s Plot Blue mare were in pole position in the jump-off, having jumped the fastest of only four first-round clears. Joe and the 10-year-old star stallion Ebanking, owned by Joe’s mother Laura and Barbara Hester, had jumped a superb fast round, which next-in Sienna Charles and Valkiry De Zance couldn’t quite catch, so it all came down to Ben.
It would never be wise to bet against Ben, especially when he’s last to go in a jump-off, and he showed why, as the mare showed her phenomenal powers of acceleration, jumping on the turns and finishing with a mighty gallop to the last oxer.
“I was always going to try,” Ben said. “Perhaps I went a bit quick at the end, took a bit of a risk to the second-last but it’s hard to judge on the screen [from the warm-up] what it looks like in real life. But that was a round where everything just came up right.
“Maybe if I’d been a bit earlier to go, I wouldn’t have gone as fast but she was turning, she was with me, every turn and angle. When the horse is following and listening like that, it makes my job very easy, and naturally you’re quicker because it’s smoother. I wish every round was like that.”
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