FEI World Cup USA: McLain Ward rides to victory to liven-up the duel with Beezie Madden.

An in-form McLain Ward rode to victory yesterday in the latest stage of the FEI World Cup at the CSI4*-W Royal Horse Show in Toronto. By winning the latest stage, the American rider sends a strong message back to fellow American Beezie Madden who won the previous stage in Lexington.
Both riders have emerged as the best performing riders in this edition of the World Cup so far, which for them is extremely important as the final stage is going to be held in Las Vegas, USA.
Jorge Guilherme designed the course which saw Ward come out on top in the Hickstead Fei World Cup with prize money of 100 thousand dollars up for grabs for the second year in a row with Rotchchild. He also won it on 2 other occasions with Goldika 559 and another two times with Rio.
McLain Ward obviously feels at home on this course, whereas the winner of the Greenhaw Canadian Show Jumping last week, Ian Millar, struggled and finished with a very rare 12 penalties on Star Power. Todd Minikus with Quality Girl finished in second place followed by Belgium’s François Mathy on D’atlantique Royale in third.
The rest of the top-ten was as follows:
4th Jonathon Millar – Calvin Klein
5th Beezie Madden – Cortes ‘C’
6th Daniel Bluman – Apardi
7th Conor Swail – Ariana
8th Nicola Philippaerts – Challenge vd Begijnakker
9th Roberto Teran – Woklahoma
10th Katie Dinan – Nougat du Vallet
source: www.royalfair.org