Articles: Horse News
Georgina Bloomberg Rides Metropolitan to $30,000 WEF Challenge Cup Victory
Photo Credit: Georgina Blooomberg of New York City piloted Metropolitan to
victory in Round 1 of the $30,000 WEF Challenge Cup series at the Winter
Equestrian Festival in Wellington, Florida on Thursday, January 14,
2010. Photo 2010 © by James Leslie Parker.
Contact:
Kenneth Kraus of
Phelps Media Group, Inc.
at (561) 753-3389 or at pmginfo@phelpsmediagroup.com
Wellington, FL - January 15, 2010 -- New York City's Georgina Bloomberg
piloted her 10 year-old Selle Francais stallion Metropolitan to victory in
the $30,000 WEF Challenge Cup, Round One, topping a starting field of
twenty-two and a jump-off roster of five for the victory. Bloomberg was
competing at the first week of action at the 2010 FTI Winter Equestrian
Festival in Wellington, Florida.
Bloomberg raced past Russian equestrian Ljubov Kotchetova and her mount
Aslan for the win.
The margin of victory was 8/10ths of a second.
Among those Bloomberg defeated in her first win of the 2010 season were two
members of the U.S. Olympic Gold Show Jumping Team at Hong Kong, McLain Ward
and Beezie Madden and two-time Olympic medalist Leslie Howard who finished
third in the class.
It was just over a year ago that Bloomberg defeated one of the largest
starting fields in the twenty year history of the WEF Challenge Cup series
in Florida. She topped a colossal starting field of eighty-six top
equestrians to win on that day. Today's starting field was twenty-two.
"It's a great way to start out the season," Bloomberg said following her
victory. "We had a number of horses we wanted to get in the ring early on
the tour, to see where we were for the rest of the circuit. With
Metropolitan, it's really nice to get my first win ever, and I think today's
performance indicates he's ready to be a grand prix contender for the
balance of the season."
"I haven't done any of the really big stuff with him yet. He just turned ten
this year, and I've only had him for a year and a half, so I've been taking
my time with him, building him up slowly, and today he showed me some very
nice confidence out there. I'm very pleased with the progress," Bloomberg
said.
Bloomberg, who has been studying Sports, Sports Media, Sports Business and
Media Art for four years at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at
NYU, wraps up her college career this weekend with final exams. "I've been
concentrating on school for a long time, and that has always come first for
me. But Saturday, I take my finals and it's all over," she laughed. "So,
with the horses going well, it will be nice to have this to look forward to
when I get back to riding next week. And, it will also be nice to finally be
able to concentrate on riding full time after this weekend."
As she looked ahead for the balance of the tour, Bloomberg noted, "My goal
this year is to show a little less, but do some better quality shows
throughout the year. Last year, with the string of very young horses that we
had, we went to every horse show we could possibly find to compete at," she
laughed. "This year, I want to take my time more, and do some better events
as the horses get better."
"I'm going to make the WEG Trials my goal," she went on to say, "but I know
what I've got and where we're at right now, so realistically, I know I don't
have much of a chance of going to the World Equestrian Games. The horses
that I have are still a couple of years away from that kind of competition,
but, I'd like to do well enough in the trials to make the top fifteen and
maybe get a spot on a team or two this summer in Europe."
Bloomberg returns to action at the FTI Winter Equestrian Festival next
Wednesday in Wellington, Florida.
Phelps Media Group, Inc. (PMG), based in Wellington, Florida, is a public
relations firm primarily focused on promoting events and people in the
equestrian world.
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