COLLINGWOOD, ON -- Frankie Chesler of Orangeville, ON and VDL Nuit De Pomme won the $60,000 Kubota Cup Grand Prix Sunday at the Kubota Collingwood Classic, their second win in the Series.

“I really know my horse,” said Chesler, who has been partnered with the 10-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding since he was four. “We’re a great partnership. We can do really tight rollbacks, especially to the verticals.”

A tight turn to the second last jump in an 8-way jump-off is where Chesler picked up the extra three-tenths of a second to put her ahead of Beth Underhill and Magdaline, an 11-year-old Dutch Warmblood mare that she only entered in the grand prix ring last year. “I wanted to be clean but put the pressure on,” said Underhill of Schomberg, ON. “When you’re second in the jump off that’s kind of all you can do and hope that it’s good enough. “I don’t know that there was a whole lot of room for either of us to be much faster.”

Collingwood was the third stop on the Eastern Canadian Division of the Kubota Cup Canadian Show Jumping Series which will crown its champion at the Maritime Fall Fair in Halifax on October 15. Going into Sunday’s grand prix John Pearce, of Stouffville, ON was at the top of the leader board with Archie Bunker, his young 7-year-old Oldenburg gelding. He said he was discouraged when they lowered a rail in the first round. “Maybe I was feeling a little bit of pressure, or my horse was feeling it, but I was a little disappointed,” he said. He soon started feeling much happier, however, when the points calculations showed that he still leads the standings, with Chesler behind him by 31 points. They will take those points into Halifax, an indoor venue which both riders say will suit their horses. “Halifax is going to be one exciting showdown,” said John Gilliland, Kubota Canada’s National Marketing Manager. “We’re going to see a good group of riders in Halifax and we’re going to entertain the crowds and put on a good show.”

Gilliland said that after the excitement last week of the awarding of Western Championship at in Richmond, BC, it was a bit difficult to come back into the middle of the Eastern Series to try to generate the same excitement. “But Collingwood just knocked us over. It was absolutely a wonderful event – competitive, a top group of athletes – it had the crowd hooting and hollering,” he said. “It has just re-energized us to get ready for Halifax.”

Kubota Canada will be awarding a second crystal Kubota Cup and RTV900 utility vehicle in Halifax, plus travel bursaries to the top five finishers to compete at the Royal Winter Fair in Toronto November 5 to determine a National Champion.

Results from the $60,000 Kubota Cup Grand Prix
Kubota Collingwood Classic
Collingwood, ON
1. VDL Nuit De Pomme/Frankie Chesler (Orangeville, ON) 0,0:40.63 $17,000
2. Magdaline/Beth Underhill (Schomberg, ON) 0,0 :40.91 $13,000
3. Noble 1/Jonathan Millar (Perth, ON) 0,0:41.40 $6,500
4. Urioso/John Pearce (Stouffville, ON) 0,4:42.53 $6,000
5. Paradigm/Mario Deslauriers (Bromont, QC) 0,4: 43.07 $4,500

Standings – Eastern Canadian Division
Kubota Cup Canadian Show Jumping Series
1. 470 points - Archie Bunker/John Pearce
2. 439 points – VDL Nuit De Pomme/Frankie Chesler
3. 396 points – Uno/Ainsley Vince
4. 365 points – Alcatraz 34/Michael Grinyer
5. 333 points - Air of Gold/Lauren Hunkin