Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, June 28, 1993                   TAG: 9306280033
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IT'S TOO BAD MORE DIDN'T SEE FINALE

Fuzzy Mayo has been a professional horse show course designer for 24 years. He showed up with his Sunday best for the finale of the 22nd annual Roanoke Valley Horse Show.

"This is probably the toughest course I've ever done," said Mayo, a bespectacled Tennesseean who was working his seventh Roanoke show. "I know this is the best, the toughest, Grand Prix field I've ever seen."

Of the 29 horses that leaped for the $125,000 purse at the Salem Civic Center, 15 had Grand Prix victories in their histories. Their riders were coaxing and cajoling the mounts for the biggest winner's share - $37,500 - in North American Grand Prix competition this year.

The horses, riders, purse and course made this Roanoke Grand Prix one to remember. As for the crowd, it wasn't there.

At the 4,015-seat civic center, the paid attendance was only 2,551. Show organizers are hoping they are correct in their opinion that it will take time to turn what had been an enthusiastic - if too late - Saturday night event into a Sunday showcase.

After Terry Rudd repeated her 1990 Roanoke Prix victory aboard P.S. Gazpacho, she was correct in saying the spectators were knowledgeable and obviously "had been here before." Still, the edge and the emotion of Saturday nights past were absent.

Despite the fact that 11 horses cleared Mayo's barriers without faults in the opening round - a Roanoke record, despite the tight, twisting course - there wasn't the boisterous cheering provided when the Prix was packaged with the saddlebred championships in earlier years.

Certainly, it didn't help that the first Sunday Grand Prix came on what might have been the nicest weather day of the summer. If you were at your local swim club, you missed a great show.

One reason the performance was superb was the move of the event by the co-sponsoring Junior League of Roanoke Valley and Roanoke Valley Horsemen's Association.

"The afternoon is much better for the horses," said Rudd, a 43-year-old Pennsylvanian, on her richest payday. "It's a more normal time for them. They can be a little cranky when you're asking them to do something and it's not the right time."

Mayo not only designed a course with double jumps, switchbacks and blocks and bars that sat precariously on their cups and ledges. He also gave the mounts distance problems to worry about.

"It's almost like riding an accordion," he said. "With a group like this, you have to do something, or everyone will go clean."

While the Grand Prix didn't sail over its first Sunday jump at the box office, the Roanoke show has more to ponder about the future of its glamour event.

The death last winter of Marion Bradley Via, who graciously funded the jumper classes, will have an impact on a show she made happen and helped improve.

Show co-chair June Camper said that the sponsors have been told that Via's estate does provide for the Grand Prix's future, "but we do not know to what extent."

The sponsors may seek corporate sponsorship to continue funding the Grand Prix, and hooking up with the right backer could help bring television exposure. However, it's also possible Sunday's event was the first and last $125,000 Grand Prix in the Roanoke show's history.

The horse show also must decide whether to align its Grand Prix with a sanctioning organization, enabling riders to win circuit points as well as big bucks. That, of course, would dip into the show's pockets, however.

"I think this is a wonderful Grand Prix," Rudd said. "If it were up to me, I wouldn't change a thing."

Spoken just like someone who had just gamboled her way to $37,500.