{"id":15425,"date":"2016-10-06T12:55:32","date_gmt":"2016-10-06T16:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=15425"},"modified":"2016-10-06T12:55:32","modified_gmt":"2016-10-06T16:55:32","slug":"nicole-walker-wins-the-caledon-cup-in-show-jumping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/nicole-walker-wins-the-caledon-cup-in-show-jumping\/","title":{"rendered":"Nicole Walker wins the Caledon Cup in show jumping"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Bill Rea<\/strong><\/p>\n

Aurora resident Nicole Walker started competing at the international level just three years ago, but she\u2019s got a lot to show for it.
\nAs of Sunday, September 25, she is the Caledon Cup champion after the Canadian Show Jumping Tournament Caledon at Caledon Equestrian Park in Palgrave.
\nWalker, 22, and her mount Deko De Landetta Z won the $86,000 Caledon Cup Phase 3 Sunday. She combined that with a second-place performance in the first phase last Thursday afternoon and a fourth-place showing Friday evening in the indoor ring.
\nSunday saw 33 horse-rider combinations enter the event on the course designed by Leopoldo Palacies from Venezuela, and Walker was the last one to go. She was among nine to make it to the jump-off, where again she and her mount were the last to enter the ring. She agreed that was an advantage, because she knew what numbers she had to beat.
\nAnd she did it by just a fraction of a second.
\nThey turned in a clear round in the jump-off in 41.91 seconds, shaving less than half a second off the time turned in by Keean White of Rockwood aboard For Freedom Z, and Ali Ramsay from Victoria, B.C., who was riding Hermelien. They both completed the course in 42.36, tying them for second place in Sunday\u2019s event.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know what the secret\u2019s been,\u201d Walker commented after the award ceremony.
\nShe gave a good deal of the credit to her horse, a 12-year-old bay stallion.
\n\u201cHe\u2019s been jumping well all week,\u201d she said.
\nIn addition to her share of the prize money, Walker also received a $1,000 bonus from class sponsor HEP for wearing its branded saddle pad in all three phases of competition.
\n\u201cI knew what I had to do!\u201d she told Starting Gate Communications after the event. \u201cI think the jump-off suited my horse really well. He\u2019s fast in the turns and he\u2019s fast on the straightaways, so it was a good jump-off course for him. I didn\u2019t want to give a pull on the reins; I know he is fast, I knew I could trust him, and he was super for me.\u201d
\nThe win was Walker\u2019s second career victory in International Equestrian Federation (FEI) sanctioned competition, with the other coming earlier this summer in the \u20ac25,000 CSI2* Prix Hotel Byblos in St. Tropez, France.
\n\u201cThank you to the sponsors,\u201d added Walker, who trains with Irish Olympic medalist Cian O\u2019Connor. \u201cWithout them, these classes wouldn\u2019t exist. Luckily, I had the HEP saddle pad on all week long and got the extra $1,000 there as well!\u201d
\nFriday evening\u2019s $35,000 event was won by Ramsay and Hermelien. She was among eight out of 39 riders to jump clear and make it to the jump-off, and in the final round, she was almost half a second faster than Ian Millar aboard Baranus.
\nRamsay, 24, is just starting her second year at this level of competition, and Friday\u2019s was her first Grand Prix victory.
\n\u201cI\u2019ve been second and third and fourth enough,\u201d she declared with a big grin.
\nHermelien is a nine-year-old Belgian warmblood mare.
\n\u201cThe horse always feels great,\u201d Ramsay said. \u201cI guess she was extra reliable today.\u201d
\nThe first phase of the Caledon Cup last Thursday was a speed event, meaning there was no jump-off. The $10,000 event was taken by Orangeville\u2019s Kim Farlinger, riding Stanley Stone, who\u2019s owned by Alan Chesler.
\n\u201cStanley Stone and I have been together a couple of years now,\u201d she commented after Thursday\u2019s action with her 11-year-old warmblood mount. \u201cHe\u2019s a fast horse. He\u2019s very careful and he\u2019s fast along the ground.\u201d
\nThe previous Thursday saw Farlinger and Stanley Stone complete the clear round in 69.76 seconds, about a second and a half faster than the second-place combination of Walker and Deko De Landetta Z.
\nFarlinger and Stanley Stone were in Friday\u2019s event, but picked up a total of nine faults.
\nThings were looking good in Sunday\u2019s event until a frightening moment about halfway through the course when Farlinger fell from her mount. It took her a few minutes and some assistance to get back on her feet, but she was able to leave the ring under her own power.
\nSunday\u2019s competition saw Beth Underhill get into the jump-off on Count Me In, but they had a rough time in the second round. The horse refused at one jump, and piled up seconds on the clock, emerging with 11 faults.
\nMac Cone from King City made it to the jump-off Friday night and turned in a clear round on Gasper van den Doorn to take third spot. Four jumping faults kept them out of the jump-off Sunday.
\nOlympian Millar won the Caledon Cup two years on Dixson, but they missed getting into Sunday\u2019s jump-off by a faction of a second.\u2013
\nSusan Horn from Bolton was 0.18 seconds faster than Millar, riding Balintore, and that was good enough to get her 10th place for the day.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aurora resident Nicole Walker started competing at the international level just three years ago, but she\u2019s got a lot to show for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5,24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-40N","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-15 04:04:12","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15425\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}