Kent Farrington takes world rankings in his stride
Wellington International continues to host top ranking show jumpers in the wake of the Winter Equestrian Festival [WEF], not least USA’s Kent Farrington who is hovering on a reclamation of the title of world number one.
“I think that would just be exciting for my whole team to say that we got back there again,” said Kent, who led the rankings in part of 2017 and 2018 and who is currently shadowing world number one Sweden’s Henrik von Eckermann who holds 3278 points ahead of Kent’s 3227. “You try not to think about it at all, but it would be nice to do again, with a whole new group of horses. It’s not something that we think to chase. I think that’s when you make poor decisions in management. We set out our calendar on what we’re going to do, and hopefully if we do end up getting world number one, it’s just a consequence of great results.”
Kent won the $62,500 FEI 3* Grand Prix qualifier aboard Myla on Friday on the Derby Field at Equestrian Village, where there was an unprecedented depth of top riders, in the second week of the post-WEF ESP Spring Show series.
Myla, a 10-year-old Holsteiner mare, is one of several horses in Kent’s string whose talent is coming to fruition. “For the last year or two I’ve had some younger ones that could dabble at that level,” Kent said. “And now I have a nice group that has experience enough to actually be able to target certain shows – that the horse has gone to that show before or jumped that level consistently enough that I can expect more of them.”
Aside from Kent and Henrik, this week sees other familiar WEF faces, who in past years had likely left the Florida climes for other parts of the world by this stage of the spring. Kent returns to the grass field today aboard Myla for the $120,000 FEI 3* Grand Prix – also entered are notably; individual Paris Olympics gold medalist Christian Kukuk, world number four Britain’s Ben Maher, USA’s McLain Ward and Ireland’s Conor Swail, currently ranked 10th and 11th respectively worldwide.
“I think that’s the evolution of what South Florida has become,” Kent said in explanation of the lingering field of top riders. “You’ve got multiple venues, which in a way helps strengthen all of the venues because it gives people a reason to come to Florida and multiple places where they can base and show, run a business, have a great lifestyle and have high level sport. It’s quite cold up north – I think it’s still pretty cold in Europe. So, when we’ve got great weather here and great conditions like today, I think it’s an easy choice for people to stay.”
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