Great Britain won a hard-fought BMO Nations’ Cup on British Day, Sept. 6, watched over by the Duchess of Edinburgh, the Royal Patron of Spruce Meadows.
Eleven teams started in round one of the competition over Leopoldo Palacios’ sweeping course on the International Ring, with Germany, Great Britain, USA, Ireland, Belgium and Brazil advancing to round two.
The reigning Olympic team gold medalists were ready for victory with a powerhouse crew under chef d’équipe Di Lampard: Matthew Sampson / Ebolensky, Ben Maher / Enjeu de Grisien, Joseph Stockdale / Ebanking and Donald Whitaker / Millfield Colette. The foursome pulled together a final team score of 0 faults after two rounds, with three of the four teammates fault-free in both rounds, ending a 29-year drought of BMO Nations’ Cup wins for Great Britain in front of a huge crowd.
“The spirit of this team is second to none; it’s come together so well this year,” remarked Di Lampard after the victory. “Three members of this team were European silver medalists. And we’ve been building, building, but to have the win here, I’m so proud of them all.”
Tiffany Foster had the best result for Canada, a clear round, with Electrique. (Cealy Tetley photo)
An unfortunate final rail in the second round for Richard Vogel (GER) and Cloudio put the German team into second place with a score of four faults and an accumulated time of 232.56 seconds. The United States also had a four-fault final score, but a heartbreakingly close time of 234.34 seconds.
Team Canada started strongly with an encouraging clear round from Tiffany Foster aboard Electrique, but three rails from Susan Horn and Dominika van de Lucashoeve, eight faults from Erynn Ballard and Dior, and the shocking fall of team anchor Matio Deslauriers when Costa Quick PS quit at the third fence resulted in the team racking up 20 faults and finishing a disappointing 9th out of 11 teams.
Results here.
Competition continues on Sunday with the $5 million CPKC ‘International’.
More information on the ‘Masters’ HERE.
Livestream/broadcast info HERE.
~ with files from Spruce Meadows Media
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