Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 19, 1994 TAG: 9406170259
SECTION: HORSE SHOW PAGE: HS-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY RAY COX STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Grooms have discovered their brushes are losing their bristles.
Riders are finding their britches and boots suddenly are too tight.
Rodney is back.
Rodney Jenkins, a rider who drips Olympic gold, a rider whose stature obscures others in shadow, a rider who has owned the Grand Prix of Roanoke, is making his triumphal return.
"I already have his entry," said June Camper, the co-chairwoman of the Roanoke Valley Horse Show Committee.
The masses rejoice.
"He really has been an idol here," Camper said. "Every time he rode, he got the applause."
The Salem Civic Center rarely is an arena where a true, international, known-by-sight, check-the-fingerprints superstar can be found. The bell rings and the credentials are presented and Rodney is there.
Contestants in the Grand Prix of Roanoke, which now rewards those who finish in the money with treasures of $75,000, wish he weren't.
Rodney, you see, has dominated this affair.
The archives, please: 1985, Rodney wins aboard The Natural; 1986, Rodney parlays a cruise atop Playback to victory; 1987, Rodney gallops to glory on Aerobic with barely a trickle of sweat shed.
In Roanoke, Rodney was a competitor without peer, a horseman's horseman. Rodney was The Man.
Then, he cantered off into the soft sunset over the rolling hills of his Virginia farm.
Even a supernova can burn too bright, and our guy with the riding crop flamed out.
Too many caravans to distant arenas; too many jumps over high fences; too many saddle burns, said our hero.
So Rodney retired.
Years passed.
Then the itch returned. The hunger for the ring was rekindled.
Again, he took mount.
Thus, Jenkins arrives at the Salem Civic Center for a 2 p.m. shot at the June 26 Grand Prix of Roanoke, sponsored for the first time by Rolex. For the first time also, the event will be part of the National Grand Prix League, a qualifying event for the Rolex Leading Rider Series, an award to be bestowed at the Washington International Horse Show in October.
And there is more to the Roanoke show than that.
For one, there is the Grand Prix challenge offered by David Raposa, who won in 1991 while riding Seven Wonder. He's entered. There are the possible entries of last year's champion, Terry Rudd, who took first place and fifth on different mounts and earned something like $40,000 for her efforts. Or Beezie Patton, the 1992 winner. Or any number of other luminaries.
"You never know with the jumper entries," said the show's manager, William M. Munford Jr. of Campbellsville, Ky. "They pretty much go show to show."
As many as 30 riders are expected; 29 entered a year ago.
And starting Monday there is more. Much more.
There will be the hackneys, the hunters, the harness horses, the saddlebreds, the roadsters, the racking horses, the western breeds. A thousand horses may compete. More than 800 stalls will be occupied, as many as 10 tents raised.
There will be Flash Gordon, the multi-world champion saddlebred in the pleasure driving division, trained by Lonnie Lavery.
There will be barrel racers.
There will be the One-Armed Bandit, the Oklahoman who is the acclaim of the rodeo circuit. This is a man who somehow herds four long-horned steers and Jenkins three mustangs atop a goose-neck trailer by means of a pack of yipping dogs and his own quarter horse. This is a man who lost an arm when he received a 7,200-volt charge during an unfortunate moonlighting stint as an electrician.
"It's amazing, I'll tell you," Munford said. "I saw him for the first time at The National [horse show] at the Meadowlands in New Jersey. He's something else."
There will be four $10,000 jumper classes, Thursday and Friday nights and Saturday afternoon and Saturday night, when the nail-biting Gamblers Choice is staged.
There will be the fire-breathing boys and girls in full stride aboard their stick horses for a race.
"We had 70 in it last year," Munford said. "We didn't have enough ribbons. Some of the parents didn't think too much of that."
There will be the Jack Russell terriers careening around the ring Friday night. Hold the dog biscuits, if you please.
There will be seven days and six nights of horseflesh.
And there will be Rodney.
by CNB