Show jumping world finals set for LV

Tuesday, April 15, 2003 | 10 a.m.

IF YOU GO

Show Jumping World Cup Final (At the Thomas & Mack Center)

NOTE: Nevada residents can purchase special $10 tickets for Wednesday's Invitational, whose starting time was moved to after-school hours to cater to children.

As a 10-year-old, Leslie Howard drooled and daydreamed when she watched show jumping and other equestrian events with her family at Madison Square Garden.

To have taken her pony out on the same dirt stage that the best riders in the world competed on would have been exciting beyond words.

That's the thrill two teams of Silver State riders will experience Wednesday when the first Nevada Team Invitational begins the Show Jumping World Cup Final at the Thomas & Mack Center.

"It's a great idea," Howard said after a press event Monday. "It should help the sport, and it's a good thing for everybody. When you actually get to compete there, it's such a great thrill to be able to mingle and mix, and be a part of it.

"This has always been a big dream of mine. From the time I was 6, I was sure I would ride horses and show jump. And being able to watch the best horses was a dream."

Howard and Rodrigo Pessoa, two of the sport's top riders, will serve as celebrity co-captains of the Nevada teams, comprised of a captain and five amateur riders. One of the amateurs must be a junior.

Howard, known as "Leapin' Leslie" among the world's finest show jumpers, won the top U.S. competition for juniors -- the ASPCA Maclay Finals -- in 1972, and this will be her 18th World Cup Final.

No other U.S. rider has competed in as many Finals, and she was honored for her long and meritorious service when the U.S. Equestrian Team bestowed upon her the prestigious Whitney Stone Cup six years ago.

"For me, it will be fun to meet the younger riders and riders from the area," said Howard, 46. "The grassroots part of our country is so important to the top level. And, for them, it will be a great opportunity to compete in the same ring as the real stars of the sport, especially the ones from Europe.

"It will be a thrill for everybody."

The three stages of the World Cup Final will be Thursday, Friday and Sunday, and Pessoa will be a featured performer.

A Brazilian who lives in Belgium, Pessoa, 30, is the only show jumper to win the sport's premier title three consecutive years. He won in Helsinki in 1998, Gothenburg in '99 and Las Vegas in 2000, all aboard Baloubet du Rouet.

Shy off the dirt, he is the son of four-time Olympic veteran Nelson Pessoa and he married Keri Potter, a Grand Prix jumper from California who now competes for Brazil, in 2001.

The Grand Prix of Las Vegas, barrel racing and a dressage exhibition will take place Saturday at the Mack, the first repeat U.S. venue in the World Cup Final's 25-year history.

Baltimore (1980), Tampa ('89) and Del Mar ('92) have hosted the event, and organizing committee chairman Bob Maxey coaxed World Cup Finals director Max Ammann into giving Las Vegas serious consideration for the event in Geneva in 1996.

Four years later, a competition that has taken place in France, Germany, England, Sweden, Austria and Holland landed in Las Vegas.

"I was very sincere when I said everyone was very skeptical about it," Howard said of 2000. "(But) everybody had the most fabulous time. As (Maxey) said, not only did they put on a great show-jumping event here, but it's such a great town. You can't possibly have a bad time here."

Wednesday's in-state team competition also was Maxey's idea. The hope is to boost the sport in Nevada as Olympic equestrian did in Los Angeles in 1984 and the 1992 Finals did in Del Mar.