Hannah Smith and Adore Amaze in $2,500 USHJA National Hunter Derby

Mill Spring, NC - June 23, 2021 - Hannah Smith (Winston-Salem, NC) and Adore topped the leaderboards in the Tryon Summer 6 $2,500 USHJA National Hunter Derby, winning with a total score of 175. Relevant, the 2013 Hanoverian gelding (Willaglanz NC x Red Wine) ridden by Winn Alden (Bristow, VA) and owned by Oliver Brown, lived up to his name by earning a handy score of 90.75, a total score of 168.75, and a second place ribbon. Third place honors were given to Martin Videla (Aiken, SC) and Double Tap, the 2013 Hanoverian gelding (De Victor x Fein Star) owned by Deborah Snyder, after the pair earned a two-round score of 168.5.

Twenty-eight riders tackled the first round of the Skip Bailey course, with a cutoff score of 76 set for the handy round. Smith and Adore, her own 2008 Warmblood (Hauptstutbuch Carina x Colbert GTI), sat in third place after a first round score of 86 going into the second round of competition. The pair earned a score of 89 in the handy to best the competition and win the first place prize. “There were a lot of fun challenges and opportunities to really show off in the course,” Smith explained, “She’s a great jumper, so it’s really fun to be able to kind of canter up, have those big jumps that were really pretty for them to look at, and jump up great.”

Smith shared her strategy to earn the top spot: “We were bold to the first jump, then had some nice rollbacks. The big challenge was to go inside to the trot jump, she was great and listened. There was the hand gallop to the last jump. Sometimes hand gallops can be hard because you don’t practice that every day, but she stepped right up and jumped the last jump great.”