The $150,000 U.S. Open Jumper Championship had a truly international flair, with riders representing 17 different nations in the 47-horse starting line-up. Worldwide stars such as Olympic gold medalists Rodrigo Pessoa and Baloubet du Rouet, veterans Nick Skelton and Arko III, Phillipe Rozier, Ian Millar, and half the gold-medal U.S. team from the Athens Olympics, Beezie Madden on Authentic and McLain Ward on Sapphire, vied for the top prize.

But in the end, it was up-and-coming Kent Farrington who snatched the win on Madison, in just his first weekend wearing the U.S. team jacket. He’d ridden to 4- and 8-fault rounds on the second-placed Nations Cup team effort two nights before. “I kind of thought I’d let down the team in the Nations Cup, so I really felt like had something to prove,” Farrington said.

And prove it he did, guiding Madison to a blazingly fast clear jump-off, in 33.15 seconds, in an extremely exciting 13-horse jump-off. Samantha McIntosh of Bulgaria took second on Loxley, with a clean round in 34.19 seconds, while Anne Kursinski and Roxana jumped into third with a 34.48-second clean go. McIntosh, a New Zealand native, has been based in Germany for 12 years, and took Bulgarian citizenship in 1999, because her owner at the time was Bulgarian. She’s competed for the country ever since. This was her first trip to the Winter Equestrian Festival.

The fastest time of the day by far (31.87 seconds) went to Laura Kraut aboard a new mount, Panic. But she toppled a block off the wall at the next-to-the-last fence, to finish a heart-breaking sixth. Ward also looked to be on target to win, with a speedy round from the powerful Sapphire. But leaving a stride out to the last fence proved their undoing, as the back rail fell, putting them ninth with 4 faults in 33.44 seconds.

Pessoa and the legendary Baloubet du Rouet had an uncharacteristic jump-off effort, toppling two rails. And Madden and Authentic, first to go out of the 13, put in an effort much slower than to be expected of the speedster duo. “The other night [in the jump-off for the Nations Cup], I took a real shot at it, and he slipped around the turn [and stopped at an oxer], so today I wasn’t really on the attack. He felt great today, so I think that mistake the other night didn’t bother him,” she said.

She might have had to settle for fourth place today, but she was mollified by taking home a check for $100,000 after winning the FTI Riders Challenge. The challenge rewarded the riders with the most points accumulated in the international classes over the seven-week course of the Winter Equestrian Festival, and Madden finished far in the lead after consistent performances on her string of horse.

There were a few surprises in the first round of the class. Skelton and Arko’s round came to an abrupt halt when the bay stallion stopped at the B element of the triple combination, and Skelton came off over his head. And the game Viktor, the talented bay gelding who recorded so many wins with McLain Ward, and more recently, Todd Minikus, unfortunately broke down badly after jumping through the triple. He was transported off the field in a horse ambulance, and attended to by veterinarians promptly.

Kim Prince looks to have a phenomenal new mount in Cinnamon 005. They were having a lovely clean round until the very last fence, a wall, where Cinnamon stopped quickly. And crowd favorite Hidden Creek’s Perin with Margie Engle were unable to follow up their double-clean in the Nations Cup-hey finished with 8 faults after two light rails.