Kelly Prather, who was second at the Temecula (USA) FEI World CupTM Eventing qualifier in March, went one better at the recent Kalispell (USA) fixture at Rebecca Farm in the glorious Montana State countryside.

Riding Ballinakell Glory, the 23-year-old led from flagfall, and added 12.4 cross-country time penalties to her leading dressage score of 47.8.

Prather was handed a comfortable 23-penalty margin for her victory when the cross-country runner-up, 19-year-old David Koss (USA) on Candy, had a disastrous stadium round incurring 32 penalties plus 2 for time. He dropped to sixth place (99.8pen).

But Prather herself then began to use up the advantage, incurring only 4pen for a rail down but a considerable 6pen for time to finish on 70.2pen. She wasn’t the slowest though – third-placed Debbie Rosen (USA) on The Alchemist incurred nine time penalties and Tamra (USA) Smith on Chaos Theory, ninth, had 13.

Sara Mittleider (USA) and El Primero rose from fourth place after cross-country to second, when they added eight jumping penalties and four for time to finish on 83.3. The pair were sixth at Temecula and 12th at Lexington CCI**** (USA) this spring.

Ten of the 14 starters finished the competition, and there were nine clear cross-country rounds over Mark Phillips’s course.

The main casualty was the sole Canadian rider, Hawley Bennett, who completed her first Badminton in the spring. She and Livingstone were second after dressage with the only other sub-50 mark (49.8) but slipped down to seventh place with a cross-country stop.

Kelly Prather now goes into joint second place in the FEI World CupTM Eventing rankings with Belarus rider Viachaslau Poita on 160 points. Oliver Townend (GBR) still leads the 2006-08 FEI World CupTM Eventing rankings on 176 points, and Jonathan Holling (USA) is third on 138 points.

The World Cup action now returns to Europe at Schenefeld (GER) this weekend, which will be the final selection trial for Germany before the 2007 FEI European Championship in Pratoni del Vivaro.