By Jean Llewellyn
Photography: Peter Llewellyn
The 50th anniversary of the Spruce Meadows Masters’ in Calgary unfolded as expected, with royalty, pageantry, and novelties, with its usual world-class showjumping from the top-ranked riders competing to share the CAD$5 million prize purse for the CPKC International Grand Prix presented by Rolex.
The first three days of competition provided the warm-up acts for a spectacular weekend when all eyes landed on Saturday afternoon’s BMO Nations’ Cup. And, of course, with Venezuelan Leopoldo Palacios once again at the helm as resident course designer, the class met all expectations.
Eleven nations lined up, with six qualifying to contest the second round, including, in first-round starting order (with chef d’equipe names): Great Britain (Di Lampard), Canada (Ian Millar), Austria (Angelika May), Belgium (Peter Weinberg), France (Edouard Couperie), Germany (Otto Becker), Netherlands (Wout-Jan van der Schans), USA (Robert Ridland), Brazil (Piet Raijmakers), Mexico (Mark Laskin), and Ireland (Michael Blake).
The course took a long 320-metre route winding around the International ring with the majority of faults occuring towards the end and where home team, Canada, failed to qualify for round two. Relying on anchorman Mario Deslauries riding the Paul Schockemöhlde bred Costa Quick PS (Conthargos - Quick Palm x Quick Star), to eradicate Susan Horn’s 12-fault round wuth Dominka van de Lucashoeve, the 60-year-old Quebecois suffered a nasty fall on the landing side of fence three – thankfully without injury – after his 11-year-old gelding came to a sharp stop.
Other surprise exits came from France, whose most experienced team member, Kevin Staut riding Queen’s Balou B (Balou du Rouet - Sibylla x For Feeling, bred by Isabelle Karlsson) incurred the 21-fault discard score. The Netherlands also came unstuck with their second rider, Kevin Jochems riding Camilla van de Helle (Crumble - Alexa x Casall, bred by Klaus Thiedemann) being eliminated, and anchorman Harrie Smolders and Mr. Tac (Non Stop - Tactique des Fusains x Toulon, bred by E. Meyers) unable to contain the damage with an eight-fault round.
The six teams contesting the second round were, in reverse order according to first round scores: Brazil (12), Belgium (12), USA (4), Ireland (4), Germany (0), Great Britain (0). Remarkably, given the enduring strength of British showjumping, they’d suffered a 29-year drought in the BMO Nations’ Cup – their last win being in 1996 with Nick Skelton, Geoff Billington, alongside Michael and John Whitaker. It was perhaps destiny therefore that a member of the 2025 team was Donald Whitaker – the nephew of Michael and John who was carrying the next gen flag.
The second round unfolded for the lower qualified teams much like the first, with few clear rounds. The first came from Belgium’s Thibault Philippaerts, the younger brother by some eight years of Nicola and Olivier who have already established themselves among the world’s elite jumping riders. Riding Lyandro (Grand Slam VDL - Shariena x Ahorn, bred by Mr. de Boer) he emulated Nicola’s first round zero faults, to post the only second-round clear for his team which maintained their fifth place overall.
The Irish went won better, recording two clear rounds: Daniel Coyle riding Legacy/ex Chavantele Z (Chippendale Z - Regina D x Bon Ami, bred by Romain Rotty), and Tom Wachman with Tabasco de Toxandria Z (Thunder vd Zuuthoeve - Chablis de Toxandria Z x Cento Lano, bred by W. Dierckx)...
CLICK HERE TO READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE IN THE ONLINE EDITION OF BREEDING NEWS
