News

June 29, 2005
LAS VEGAS WORLD INVITATIONAL TO FEATURE MOST CHALLENGING
COURSES IN SHOW JUMPING
World’s Top 25 Riders To Compete Oct. 14-15 For $1 Million Purse

LAS VEGAS, June 28, 2005…. Befitting the talent of the world’s top 25 riders and a $1 million purse, the Las Vegas World Invitational will feature the most challenging courses ever designed for an international showjumping event Oct. 14-15 at the Thomas & Mack Center.

“The LVWI will be one of the most important Grand Prix events in the world this year,” said Simon Brooks Ward, executive in charge of event management, last week during a site visit to Las Vegas. “The best riders in the world will go after the richest purse ever. Whomever wins this championship will truly earn it.”

Olaf Petersen, one of the world’s leading show jumping course designers from Munich, Germany, will create the LVWI’s four event courses, including the Grand Prix. He designs most of the Federation Equestrian International (FEI) courses and designed all the equestrian event courses for the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece.

“These will be the toughest and most challenging courses I have ever designed in North or South America,” Petersen said during the site visit. “The Grand Prix course on Saturday, October 15, will feature 14 to 18 fences ranging from five to six feet in width and at least 5’3” in height because the LVWI is the only show in the United States rated a five-star event (CSI 5*), the highest rating, by the FEI.”

International show jumping champions from the United States, Europe and South America will match riding talents in four events over two days at the Thomas & Mack Center, on the campus of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas (UNLV). World-ranked riders who will compete include FEI point leaders Rodrigo Pessoa from Brazil; Ludger Beerbaum from Germany, formerly the number one ranked rider in the world; his sister-in-law, Meredith Michaels Beerbaum, currently the world’s top-ranked rider; Elizabeth (Beezie) Madden, the American champion from Cazanovia, N.Y., and Nichole Simpson, a top U.S. rider from Thousands Oaks, Calif. The remainder of the field will be determined later this summer by FEI and United States Equestrian Federation events in the U.S. and Europe.

They will compete in the $100,000 Vegas Stake, a speed event that features one round, plus a jump-off against the clock; the $50,000 Double Slalom, where riders will race against each other on identical courses; the $100,000 Ride and Drive, a unique event where riders first complete a jumping course on a horse, then finish an obstacle course in a car, and the $750,000 Grand Prix.

“We will bring a new dimension to show jumping with this event and create one of the most challenging show jumping competitions ever. We want the winner of this event to feel as if they conquered Mount Everest,” said David R. Shriner, Chairman and CEO of Equus Entertainment in Sport, the Las Vegas-based company that is producing the Las Vegas World Invitational.

Tickets, $75, $85, $175, $225 and $1,000 for two-day VIP packages, are available at the Thomas & Mack box office in Las Vegas, by telephone at 1-866-388-3267, at unlvtickets.com or at the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel, the official host hotel and a sponsor of the LVWI. Tickets purchases are subject to transaction fees. Room reservations at the Hilton are available by calling 1-800-442-4002 or at i4vegas.com.

The Federation Equestrian International (FEI), headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, and the United States Equestrian Federation (USEF), headquartered in Lexington, KY, are the sanctioning bodies for the Las Vegas World Invitational.

Equus Entertainment in Sport of Las Vegas is the parent company of the LVWI. Its mission is to take show jumping to a new level in the U.S. As the sport’s worldwide popularity increases in the U.S., Equus is playing a major role in that growth by presenting the sport on television as never before. Equus’ coverage includes cutting edge techniques that utilize moving cameras at close proximity and low angles to show the extreme athleticism of both horses and riders.

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