Throughout the week, it didn’t seem like there was anything that could break the stout resolve and gritty determination of Marcus Ehning, the master of the poker face.

That is, until he cleared the last jump of the FEI Show Jumping World Cup Final and found himself victorious.

Then, and only then, did emotion break through, and the German pumped both fists in the air before reaching down to hug his phenomenal horse, Sandro Boy.

It all came down to the last round, with three of the world’s best riders battling it out on horses who had jumped flawlessly all week, with just 1 point between them.

Beat Mandli and Ehning stood tied for first, with clean slates. Jessica Kurten breathed down their necks with just 1 fault to her name. Kurten amped up the pressure by jumping yet another sparkling clear round to finish. But then Mandli broke the tension by picking up 4 faults at a vertical. It was all up to Ehning–perfection would win it; any mistake would cost him the title.

But they don’t come any more bulletproof to pressure than Ehning. He cantered in on the talented Sandro Boy and jumped yet another picture-perfect round. His victory this year, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, April 27-30, joins his 2003 World Cup win on his already stellar resume.

In commenting on the performance of Sandro Boy, a dark bay stallion with seem-ingly limitless scope and a cheeky personality, Ehning showed glimpses of even more emotion.

“There are no words to describe this,” he said of the feeling Sandro Boy gives him over a fence. “It’s unbelievable. If he’s in this shape, it doesn’t matter how big or wide the jumps are or how short or long I get to them. He can do anything.”

Ehning started the competition with a smooth, efficient round in the first leg–the speed round–to win. In the second leg, the jump-off round, he did just enough to hold onto the lead by placing fourth. But Mandli’s second places in each of the two first legs tied him with Ehning for the lead going into the last day.

Sandro Boy (Sandro–Wiadora, Grannus), a 13-year-old, Oldenburg stallion, jumps with such ease and power that it’s difficult to imagine why he hasn’t been winning international championships all along. But Ehning has only ridden him for three years, and Sandro Boy has a reputation for being difficult.

A national-level rider competed Sandro Boy until 2003, showing him up to the 1.40-meter level. But when Ehning took over, it wasn’t easy.

“We had a few times out when he stopped between the fences, or in a turn, or did silly things. But now, he’s better and better, and he’s an amazing horse,” Ehning said.

Ehning believes that the German selectors for the World Equestrian Games won’t soon forget Sandro Boy’s past unreliability, despite his World Cup win. Consequently, he’s going to concentrate his efforts to qualify for the WEG on his mounts Gitania, Noble Savage H, and his 2003 World Cup Final winner, Anka.

In contrast to Ehning’s foot-perfect week on Sandro Boy, the U.S. riders didn’t fare so well. Margie Engle led the charge with an 11th-placed finish and clear goes in two rounds on Quervo Gold. Beezie Madden and Judgement placed 13th, with Laura Kraut, Alison Firestone and Richard Spooner claiming 16th, 17th and 18th, respectively. Joie Gatlin rounded out the field in 23rd.

The U.S. riders started the week with bad news when Rich Fellers’ mount, McGuiness, contracted shipping fever and couldn’t compete. Then Kent Farrington’s Madison jumped uncharacteristically badly in the first round (see sidebar).

Second Horses Surprise
In contrast to Ehning’s quiet and restrained manner, there was no mistaking Kurten’s delight with Castle Forbes Libertina’s second place.

“I congratulate Marcus; he’s an unbelievable rider and his horse jumped amazingly. But in my eyes, Libertina is also a winner. She jumped five clear rounds, and it’s just outstanding what she did here. Words can’t begin to describe what I feel here,” she said.

Kurten and Libertina, a 10-year-old, Westphalian mare, placed fourth in the first leg, the speed round, with a clear round just 1 second off Ehning’s pace. That lower placing in the World Cup Finals system, which converts placings in the first two rounds into points, and then faults, gave Kurten a one-fault score going into the last day of Rounds 3 and 4.

But Kurten must be wondering what might have been. In the speed round a split-second mistake cost her precious time. She and Libertina landed off one jump, and it looked as though Kurten was going for a turn inside an oxer close to the landing side. But she didn’t quite get the message through to Libertina, and the bay mare almost crashed into the fence.

“I think I wasn’t concentrating enough, so I kind of half-heartedly asked for the turn and missed it. At the end of the day, it’s no harm. It made me concentrate and not go mad over the rest of the course,” Kurten said.

Regardless of the outcome, Kurten was thrilled with Libertina. “To be quite honest, and it’s not being in any way big-headed, I didn’t feel, not once, in danger of having a rail,” she said. “A couple of times in the first round, I felt a little bit in danger that she was going to take everything into her own hands and do the job herself, which she sometimes likes to do. But the more I put her under pressure, the more she responded. It’s really quite an honor to have the opportunity to ride a horse like this.”

Libertina (Achill-Libero–Polydor) isn’t Kurten’s top mount–that honor is reserved for Quibell. But Quibell has issues with traveling by air, so Kurten chose to not bring her to Kuala Lumpur.

Another second horse who stepped up to the challenge was Mandli’s Ideo du Thot. He’s a 10-year-old, Selle Francais gelding that Mandli’s been riding for 1 1/2 years.

“He did surprise me a bit. He jumped all the second classes last year, and that got him very confident and gave me confidence in him,” said Mandli.

“He’s a French horse, and he’s actually quite easy to ride. He doesn’t always look it because he carries his head high. He’s unbelievably careful and has a super mind,” he added.

In the speed round and the jump-off leg, Mandli chose to add strides to the last fence, costing him seconds that might have put him in first. But Mandli knew it was a chance he was willing to take. “A few times I’ve had a fence down in a jump-off when I took a long stride with him. I thought I was very quick all the way around until then, and I thought I’d be fast enough,” he said.

But in the final rounds, Ideo du Thot made just the one mistake, catching the top rail of a vertical in front, putting them into third. “I think I had a bit too much pressure on the red oxer just before, and he was running away from me a little bit, and I was holding too hard with the hand. I think it was my fault,” Mandli said of the rail.

Not To Be
It’s an inside joke at the World Cup Finals that to place sixth in the opening day’s speed leg is a blessing–three of the last four Final winners started the competition in sixth. So when Engle rode Quervo Gold to that spot, the omen looked good.

But it was not to be. Quervo Gold has only been to a few indoor shows, and his inexperience in that setting caught up to him. “I was happy with how he went the first night. I haven’t used him in any speed classes before,” Engle said.

“He’s naturally not real fast. That was the first time I’d gone a little faster with him. As I was jumping out of the lines, he was thinking he was supposed to land and turn again. He was cutting the turns a bit, and got me to a few fences too early. He handled it well, but it caught up with me in the rounds after.”

Engle and Quervo Gold returned for an eight-fault score in Round 2. Then Quervo Gold caught two more back rails of oxers in Round 3. But then they redeemed themselves with a clear round over the last course to finish 11th.

Also just off the pace were Madden and Judgement. They had a quick speed round, and if two rails hadn’t fallen they would have been ahead of Ehning. But those 8 faults moved them down to 18th, and when they followed that with 13th place in Round 2 after another 8 faults, they started the last day in 17th.

Two consistent rounds with just a rail in each pulled them up to 13th. “I’m a little frustrated. I feel like the horse has jumped really well, but things just haven’t gone our way,” Madden said.

Those were also the feelings of Kraut, who rode Anthem into 16th. “I was very happy with him the first night. He was good–I was just too slow to one jump and he had it down,” she said.

“The second night, I was disappointed; I thought he could have been clear. He just let down on the back rail of the one oxer. His last competition was all outside, for the WEG trials, so it took a few days to get him back in the swing of things indoors.”

It’s All About Experience
Firestone traveled to Kuala Lumpur looking for mileage for Secret Love, who took 2003 and ’04 off to recover from an injury. “He’s 11, but very short on experience,” she said. “I feel like he has all the talent. He just needs some of this mileage. I wasn’t coming here expecting to win the World Cup Finals, so I’m very happy with how he’s gone. He did his first 1.60-meter class in June last year. I think he’s going to come out of this a much better horse.”

Their 17th place put them right in the middle of the pack. Just behind was Richard Spooner, on Camaron Hills Shanroe, a new ride for him. Spooner won the U.S. West Coast League on his mounts, but he wasn’t sure they were ready for Kuala Lumpur.

“Live Fire would have been my best option, but I’ve only been riding him since mid-January. Although I have a lot of faith in Live Fire’s future, I wasn’t comfortable enough in his present to bring him here,” he said.

Fellow Californian Molly Talla had ridden Shanroe to multiple World Cup-qualifying placings but a broken collarbone last year kept her from accruing the needed points to qualify. Then, she discovered she was pregnant and decided to scale down her competing. She and Shanroe’s owner, Tim Calandra, decided to offer Spooner the ride on Shanroe for the Final.

“It makes me feel good that someone would be willing to give me that opportunity, both owners and rider,” Spooner said. “And that the owner would think about the team as well as his individual interests. This horse does a tremendous job, and hopefully in the future–with Molly or with me–the horse will be an asset for the team.”

Spooner and Shanroe had a few unlucky rails in each round and finished 18th, but they seemed to have a remarkable partnership for their short time together. Spooner credited Talla and trainer Ginnie Bryant. “It’s nice to enjoy some of the benefits of their labors,” he said.

In contrast to most of Spooner’s mounts, Shanroe has a conventional, quiet style. “I have to sit very still because Molly sits very still. It’s a bit of a challenge for me, to keep my leg down, and my body not so quick, and to slow everything down. But it’s a good exercise for me. He’s certainly a pleasant horse to ride. He wants to do his job, and he does it well,” said Spooner.

Why Can’t We Win?
Each year, the FEI Show Jumping World Cup Finals seem to be an exercise in frustration for U.S. riders. They have occasional breakthroughs into the top 10, but usually they’re bunched together in the middle of the pack.

U.S. Chef d’Equipe George Morris blamed this phenomenon on a combination of factors. And this year, the U.S. contingent started out behind the eight-ball, since several of the country’s top horse/rider combinations skipped the Final, with this summer’s World Equestrian Games in their sights.

“Firstly, once you get past a very narrow layer at the tip-top, we have very, very little depth to our A team. We have a lot of B- and C-team depth,” Morris said. “We came here with a three-quarter team, and to add insult to injury, we lost two of our best shots–McGuiness and Madison.

“Secondly, you could say the indoor/outdoor thing has become a problem. We’re less and less having indoor exposure with great standard. Charlotte [N.C.] and Syracuse [N.Y.] were shows with great standards, but it’s not like the old indoor tour in the ’80s, when the best of Europe came and competed.”

But the biggest challenge to U.S. riders is balancing their teaching, training and selling businesses with their international aspirations. Unlike European riders, who support themselves through riding for a vast network of owners and by virtue of competing at self-supported shows, most U.S. riders have to teach and train to pay the bills.

“It’s very difficult because they all have businesses, and there are lots of conflicts. It’s not an easy fix for America today. The sport has now crystallized in Germany and Holland. It’s their breeding programs, their horse shows, their competition. It’s become a very small area of the top. It’s narrower now even than in my day. Unless you’re in that little circle, you have to play catch-up,” Morris continued.

Morris wasn’t terribly thrilled with the U.S. riders’ results in Kuala Lumpur. “Of course I’m disappointed. I’m not a very good loser at a horse show,” he said.

“There are so many things that have to be addressed to upgrade our elite standard. My contribution has been getting them over to Europe on a regular basis and exposing them to their weaknesses. They get over here and learn, ‘Is it horse weakness? Is it management weakness? Flatwork? What’s your weakness?’

“A horse show is a barometer of where you stand,” he added. “We ended up at the back of the pack. That should tell them something. If I’m participating, I’m saying to myself, ‘George, you need a better horse,’ or, ‘George, you’d better manage your horses better.’ Or ‘George, you’d better start getting dressage lessons.’ “

Morris noted that if he has his elite, A-level riders participating, the U.S. team is a force. “But, if there are one or two missing, we’re out of it,” he added. “And this is a good example of that.

“The country and the professionals that have the desire, they have to figure out the difference between what I call elite international riding and national riding,” Morris continued. “I’m doing the best I can to steer them, and lead them, and prod them. I have great sympathy for how difficult it is with their businesses. But some of their shortcomings and management mistakes, I don’t have sympathy for.”

Madison Makes A Comeback In KL Grand Prix
Kent Farrington traveled to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for his first FEI Show Jumping World Cup Final full of anticipation.

But his hopes fell as Madison jumped in the first round, the speed leg. The normally game bay mare faltered, and then she had three rails down at the end of the course. The heat of Malaysia and the stress of travel caught up to her.

“She just wasn’t feeling well,” Farrington said.

So, he pulled Madison out of the World Cup Final competition and chose to start her in the KL Grand Prix, April 29. The decision paid off with a commanding victory.

“It’s nice to leave on a high note. I would have liked to have still been in the hunt in the World Cup Final, but that wasn’t in the cards,” Farrington said.

Farrington had been the pathfinder in the first round, jumping clean as the eighth to go out of 23 starters. Five more joined him in the jump-off. And Farrington threw down the gauntlet with the speedy Madison, slicing the turns and galloping to a clean jump-off in 39.51 seconds.

“I knew the horses behind me were very fast–I’d seen some of them go earlier in the week. So, my goal was to lay down a fast trip. She’s a naturally fast horse by herself. I took a couple of shots early on and kept going,” he said.

They all chased him, but none could catch him. Norway’s Geir Gullickson came closest on the rapid Clear Round’s Than Party, but they were still more than a half a second off the pace.

While this was Farrington’s first time riding at a World Cup Final, he didn’t feel out of his element. The first Final he attended was in 2001, in Gothenburg, Sweden, when he won the U.S. Equestrian Team’s Maxine Beard Award. The award recognizes a young, up-and-coming rider who would benefit from the education of traveling with the U.S. riders to the World Cup Final, walking the courses and watching the competition.

Charlie Jayne earned this year’s Maxine Beard Award, and he walked the courses with U.S. Chef d’Equipe George Morris, studied the riders, and made himself part of the U.S. riders’ efforts. He even got Margie Engle involved in an ongoing poker game back in the stables, using horse cookies as chips.


Almohdzar Scored His Own Major Victory
Usually, crowds don’t cheer much for riders when they’re not challenging for the lead. But even though he didn’t go home with any prizes, Syed Omar Abu Bakar Almohdzar received the most enthusiastic crowd reception of any rider in the FEI Show Jumping World Cup Final.

Why? Because he’s from Malaysia, and he carried not only his own hopes and expectations on his shoulders, but also the faith and hopes of a nation of fans.

Malaysians were thrilled that Kuala Lumpur was chosen for the 2006 World Cup Finals, and they were over the moon about Almohdzar qualifying to compete. He’s been interviewed more times than he can count, photographed more than he cares to think about, and asked for autographs more than he ever thought possible.

Almohdzar is a realist–he claimed his goal was to secure a placing in the top 15. He had the misfortune to draw first in the order in the speed leg, but he put in a solid round that first day with two rails. But his World Cup bid fell apart on the second day. His horse, Lui, collected 29 faults for seven rails and 1 time fault.

“He was very tired and not trying hard at all,” Almohdzar said. “I was hearing all the rails fall and thinking I might retire, but then I thought that would be worse for the crowd, so I just kept going.”

With his World Cup dreams dashed, Almohdzar took on the KL Grand Prix. There was no doubt the crowd wanted him to win, as they cheered him on vociferously. But Lui just barely touched a toe to the front rail of the very last oxer, toppling it.

“When I finished, I was sure I was clear. He’d jumped so well, and the crowd was so loud, I didn’t hear the rail fall. But as I was pulling up, I saw the looks on the faces of my friends at the in-gate and realized what happened,” he said.

It was a crushing defeat, but Almohdzar considered his time competing in his first World Cup Final, in his home country, to have been the experience of a lifetime. He grew up riding in Malaysia, but has been based in Europe for the last three years.

“It was very, very exciting. It was an amazing feeling to ride into the ring and hear the crowd cheering. It was nice to be recognized,” he said. “Everywhere else, I go in the ring and there’s absolute silence, and they’re just wondering if I’m going to crash,” he added with a wry smile.

Lui is the star of his string, but the 12-year-old Bavarian-bred isn’t a schoolmaster. Almohdzar found him a year ago in a farmer’s yard, a green horse with little showing experience. He and Lui progressed up the levels quickly, however.

“He’s a wonderful horse, and in a year, he’s going to be even better,” Almohdzar said.

The World Cup Final was Lui’s third indoor show. “He wasn’t exactly in his best form, and I haven’t been riding at the top level for very long, so we had a big mountain to climb.”

Almohdzar enjoyed riding in front of his home crowd, but there was a downside. “If I didn’t do well in Europe, no one really knew about it. But here, I’m not doing well and I’m in all the papers and everyone knows,” he said.

But he handled the pressure with aplomb. Since he’s qualified to compete for Malaysia in the World Equestrian Games in Aachen, Germany, this summer, that experience on the world stage will come in handy.

For daily results, a colorful photo tour of Malaysia, and more action photos see www.chronofhorse.com and click on archives.