Catherine Tyree and Bec Lorenzo clear a fence during the jump-off round in Sunday’s grand prix at the Lake Placid Horse Show. The pair won the competition, which gave the 25-year-old rider from Chicago her first grand prix victory in the Olympic Village. (Enterprise photo - Lou Reuter)

LAKE PLACID — Add another name to the long list of athletes who have notched grand prix wins during a half century of show jumping in Lake Placid.

On Sunday, Chicago’s Catherine Tyree became the newest member of the club, capturing first place in the $100,000 Prevost Richard M. Feldman Grand Prix at the North Elba Show Grounds.

Riding her horse Bec Lorenzo, Tyree was one of four competitors who made it through the opening round with a fault-free performance and then came through in the jump-off with another clean ride in a winning time of 41.514 seconds.

Kevin Babington and Brianne Goutal-Marteau also put down clean runs in the jump-off but couldn’t match the speed turned in by Tyree and her 9-year-old Irish sport horse. Babington finished runner-up aboard Shorapur in 42.771 seconds, and Goutal-Marteau rode Viva Columbia into third place in 43.150 seconds.

Veteran Laura Chapot and her horse Thornhill Kate were the other horse-and-rider combination to reach the jump off and placed fourth with eight fault points.

“This was my first grand prix win here,” Tyree said. “I kind of learned how to ride on fields at this horse show. I’ve been jumping the grand prixs here since 2013. It definitely started out a little rough with the terrain but I keep coming back and it’s gotten better every time, so to be able to pull off the win here is really great.

“I have a great horse. That makes my life a little bit easier, especially in the jump-off,” she continued. “He’s got a big stride, and on a field like this when the jumps are a little bit further apart, I can really take advantage of that. I got him to really open up his stride, stay neat to the jumps, and he was amazing.”

Tyree said she has been working with Bec Lorenzo for about a year and a half and started competing with him in May 2018.

“He’s a baby in my eyes,” she said with a grin. “Typically it’s about a year or so you really figure each other out. It’s been a little different with this horse because he was younger. He was learning the ropes and I was trying to ride him in a way that he could get better every time. Really about a year to the day that I first started showing him is when everything clicked. He had a little bit of a break in the fall of last year. When we got to Florida at the end of January, the beginning of February, is when everything seemed to come together.”

Sunday’s opening round included 28 entries who were chasing down $100,000 in prize money. The top 12 finishers earned paychecks, with Tyree collecting $30,000 for first place.

Tyree, who is 25, won’t be around for next week’s grand prix in Lake Placid, and neither will Bec Lorenzo. They’ll be heading to Sweden as members of a young four-jumper United States Nations Cup competition.

“To be able to go and jump on a team and represent the U.S. has been a dream of mine for a long time,” Tyree said. “I’ve been lucky enough to do it three times already, so I’m excited to go and do it again in Europe.”

Eve Jobs, Jessica Springsteen, Wilton Porter and Chloe Reed will join Tyree on the U.S. team.

“One of us will be the alternate. We don’t know how it’s going to work out yet,” Tyree said. “We’re all in our 20s. We have a very young team going and it will be a lot of fun.”

Sunday’s grand prix wrapped up a week of action in the Lake Placid Horse Show.

Competition at the North Elba Show Grounds takes a break Monday and resumes Tuesday with the I Love New York Horse Show.