Matt Williams has won the $8,000 G&C Farm 1.45m Jumpers Class in the second week of the FTI Winter Equestrian Festival. Matt won the class on his 11-year-old Belgian Warmblood, Bolero van’t Heike. The 2012 FTI Winter Equestrian Festival is a 12 week competition that concludes on April 1, 2012, with more $6 million in prize money on offer throughout the circuit.
The 1.45m class was designed by Luc Musette from Belgium and had 26 entries. Matt, who was listed only this week on Australia’s Olympic Shadow Squad, rode the fastest of the seven clear rounds, finishing in 67.081 seconds. He only just held off second-place getter Daniel Bluman from Colombia riding Fatalis Fatum who finished in 67.381 seconds. Third place went to Irishman Cian O’Connor who rode Sinead and Oonagh Kennedy’s Alligator Alley in 67.843.
Matt, who originally hails from Melbourne and is now based in Florida, only regained the ride on the horse two weeks ago after the horse was with another rider for the year. They had previously competed together in Europe in two Nations Cup events when Matt was living in Switzerland.
“He had been with another rider for the last year,” Matt told Equestrian Sport Productions, “with London coming up, we got offered the horse for the season to see how he goes. I’ve got two horses that I’m preparing, and hopefully one of them will be good enough.”
“He [Bolero van't Heike] is quite a strong horse, but he’s very careful and very brave. I rode him last week in the grand prix, and he was a little different than he was in Europe. He’s changed a little bit. I wanted to give him a little faster round today to get him back into the routine of how I ride him. It paid off.”
Matt is planning to compete for Australia in upcoming FEI Nations Cup in March. Good luck!
Photo Credits: Sportfot, Official Sport Photographer of the FTI Winter Equestrian Festival
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