Canadian riders Keean White and Jill Henselwood were having a good time at a news conference Friday for the $100,000 Front Street Capital World Cup Qualifier that’ll be held late Saturday afternoon at Erin’s Angelstone Farms stadium.

ERIN — Kent Farrington is hoping to add to a successful season during his first appearance at the Angelstone Farms Saturday.

A Chicago native based in Wellington, Fla., Farrington enters the $100,000 Front Street Capital World Cup Qualifier having scored victories aboard Blue Angel at Calgary’s Spruce Meadows and at Dublin, Ireland, and aboard Zafira at Bridgehampton, N.Y., in the last couple of months.

“I’ve competed at Calgary and at the Royal Winter Fair in Toronto, but I’ve never been to this place before,” he said Friday as he gazed out on the stadium at Angelstone Farms, just east of Rockwood. “It’s a new event and for only having been here for two years, it looks great.”

A total of 34 horse-rider combinations are on the for Saturday’s main event which is to start at 4:30 p.m. While neither Blue Angel nor Zafira will be competing, Farrington will be riding Uceko and Willow. He won an event at Spruce Meadows aboard Uceko in the spring and the pair was part of the U.S.’s Pan-American Games gold-medal winning team in 2011 at Guadalajara, Mexico.

“In this sport, like other sports, you always need a little bit of luck, and hopefully with some luck, we can have a good weekend,” he said.

With the top show jumpers travelling across the continent to attend the tournaments, the competitors get to be almost like one giant family.

“It’s like any other sport, the professional tennis tour, golf tour or anything like that,” Farrington said. “You see a lot of the same people. We’re all a group of friends.”

It also means that the riders aren’t usually surprised by performances.

“You know who the heavy hitters are and maybe who has the best horse at the moment,” Farrington said. “It’s pretty easy to follow.”

Farrington figures his chances for victory are ‘OK.’

“I haven’t looked over the list that closely, but you have guys like Ian Millar,” he said. “He’s been one of the best of maybe all time, certainly one of the best from North America. He’s won almost everything there is to win so if I had to pick one person that I’d always watch out for, it’d be him.”

Millar will ride Baranus and Star Power in the World Cup qualifier. Other entrants include Angelstone owner Keean White on Appy Cara and Pironella, August victor Karen Cudmore on Shea and Ceonto, Russia’s Liubov Kochetova on Aslan and Wilford 2 and Ireland’s Andrew Bourns, who’s based at Angelstone during the summer months, on Gatsby and New Boy de Logerie.

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