PrintWith plenty of cheering from their many supporters, Team Canada jumped to the top of the podium in the $75,000 Nations Cup CSIO**** tonight, March 5. With only two rails and a time fault between them, Canada beat out an impressive Mexican squad, with Ireland taking third. The United States finished fourth, with Kent Farrington and United scoring the single faultless round.
This marks the fifth time in nine years that Canada has won the Nations Cup in Wellington, Fla., held in conjunction with the Winter Equestrian Festival.
Yann Candele on Pitareusa, Beth Underhill on Top Gun, Mac Cone on Ole and Eric Lamaze on Ronaldo rounded out the seasoned Canadian squad. Candele, Underhill and Lamaze managed clear rounds the first go around Anthony D’Ambrosio’s course, with Cone picking up 4 faults.
“There was a lot to the course,” said Underhill. “There was a long distance between the [3.90 meter-wide open water] to the [1.55-meter vertical]. Then a triple bar right before the triple combination—that took a lot out of the horses.”
Canada’s record not withstanding, clean and clear rounds were hard to come by, with only Jaime Azarraga on Celcius joining the Canadians and Farrington. But Ashlee Bond on Apache, Venezuelan Pablo Barrios aboard G&C Blanche Z and Argentine Jorge Zamudio on Lord Spezi each incurred just a single time fault.
By the time the second round came around, the 15-fence course had clearly taken a toll on many of the horses, and rails started falling more readily. But not for the Mexican riders. That team, seated third after the first round with a score of 9, saw Antonio Chedraui aboard the scopey Don Porfirio and Nicolas Pizarro on Crossing Jordan jump double clear, to the excitement of their enthusiastic fans. Anchor rider Azcarraga came back to tick a single rail to clinch silver.
“There’s a lot of momentum in Mexico,” said Chef d’Equipe Norman Dello Joio. “Everybody seems to be trying to pull together. We’re looking forward to the next two or three years and keep pulling ourselves up higher. We didn’t want to jump all of our horses that we think are contenders for the WEG, because we’re trying to save them and maintain them. But we also wanted to make a little bit of a statement that we’re here and we’re serious and we’re trying our hardest.”
With the top U.S. horses focused on the U.S. Equestrian Federation’s Show Jumping World Equestrian Games Trials, the U.S. fielded a team of up-and-comers, with the exception of veteran pair Lauren Hough and Casadora.
U.S. Chef d’Equipe George Morris congratulated the teams on the podium and explained that though the competition was an important world-class event, the plan wasn’t to field the strongest team in the country.
“Our big focus is the [World Equestrian Games Show Jumping Selection] Trials, and the timing is off,” he said. “We need to produce in the Nations Cup League in Europe and at the World Equestrian Games.”
McLain Ward and new partner Amarosa posted the drop score of 12 faults in the first round and didn’t return for the second go.
Hough scored 4 faults in the first round, then suffered an unexpected refusal in the second, to a very tall white gate heading into a boisterous crowd. She finished the round with 10. Bond faulted twice in the second round, as did United, leaving the U.S. with 31 faults.
