The reigning Olympic champions from Great Britain took the lead in the team competition on the opening day of the Longines FEI Jumping European Championship 2025 at Casas Novas in A Coruña, Spain today. And Ireland’s Daniel Coyle produced the quickest round of the day with the brilliant mare Legacy to head the individual rankings at this early stage.

However with scores converted into points, the Team Great Britain go into tomorrow’s first round of the second competition with only a narrow advantage over Germany, while Belgium lies a close third ahead of France in fourth, Italy in fifth and Switzerland in sixth place. It’s really tight at the top, with only 3.14 points separating the top six nations when the action resumes tomorrow afternoon.

Perfect start

Matthew Sampson and Medoc de Toxandria got the British off to the perfect start when clear in 78.36 seconds, and Donald Whitaker blew the competition wide open with a storming fault-free run from Millfield Colette to stop the clock in 75.27 when next to go for Di Lampard’s side. Scott Brash and Hello Folie galloped home in 76.09, and although Ben Maher’s Dallas Vegas Batilly provided the team discount score when clipping the final element of the triple combination, they still put a strong time of 78.63 on the board.

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