Press release from Thunderbird Show Park

As Tiffany Foster exited the Fort Grand Prix Arena sporting a red rosette and a winner’s cooler, a young fan shouted out to her. “Did you win?” she asked. Foster shouted back at her, “Yes!”

In fact, Foster ran her FEI winning streak to three Sunday at tbird, besting the CSI3* The Keg Grand Prix aboard Electrique (Emerald van't Ruytershof x Voltaire). Foster and the 9-year-old mare won both of the 1.50m classes on offer at the Summer Fort Welcome, and they have won three of their last five international starts. According to Jumpr App, the pair jumps clear at the height 50% of the time.

On this occasion, they outpaced a seven-horse jump-off, crossing the timers of Anderson Lima’s (MEX) short track in 40.56 seconds. Kara Chad (CAN) and Igor GPH (Harley x Crawford 5) finished second (41.31s), with Havana (Cardento x Judgement) and Kassidy Keith (CAN) third (42.09s).

“I think we’ve landed in that good area where we know what each other is doing…In a relatively short amount of time, I feel like we’ve really gelled,” Foster said. “She’s an amazing horse. She’s such a competitor. I have a tendency every once in a while to sometimes decide to pull in the jump-off, and on her, she’s like, ‘No, I’m going to show you the way. You’ve got to keep going. Let’s go. Come on.'”

Foster and Electrique separated themselves with stride, as the chestnut mare positively ate up the ground on a course filled with long, galloping lines and sweeping turns.

“It’s that great combination of a massive stride, an agile horse and a careful horse,” Foster said. “She’s really competitive, because she turns left, she turns right, she drops strides—she does everything you ask her to do. I honestly couldn’t be happier with her. I just love her.”

Depth certainly defines Foster’s string at the moment. Seventeen-year-old Brighton won earlier in the week in the CSI3* tbird Speed, and 9-year-old Battlecry also jumped double-clear in the CSI3* The Keg Grand Prix. In the coming week at the CSI3* Summer Fort Classic, Battlecry will jump again, and Foster will bring in two additional horses. Another set will compete on the east coast.

“Any time that you have this many amazing horses, you can be a bit strategic in what you do and place them in the right shows and not put them where you don’t think they’re going to succeed,” Foster said. “This year, I’m just getting to know some of [my horses]. I’ve got five that are nine [years old] and under. So, it made really good sense, to do these two weeks here at Thunderbird. This is an incredible place to develop a horse, and this is a really good level of jumping.

“Hopefully I am picking the right things, but I think, so far, so good,” she added. “I hope that next year I’ll be able to go to all the shows all over the world.”