Showjumping Spruce Meadows, Bucks County and Henley
A Northern Ireland-based Egyptian lands the sport’s richest prize, while Germany earn Nations Cup glory
Spruce Meadows Masters, Calgary, Canada
EGYPT’S Sameh El Dahan catapulted himself into showjumping’s front ranks by winning the “world’s toughest grand prix” — the $1m (£583,000) CP International presented by Rolex, at the Spruce Meadows Masters — with three perfect clear rounds on the Irish-bred Suma’s Zorro.
Course-designer Leopoldo Palacio has built this enormous grand prix track on 24 occasions and this is only the fourth time there has been a jump-off (see box, right). Seven first-round clears were whittled down to two partnerships remaining on a clean sheet — the Dutch combination of Maikel van der Vleuten and Verdi TN, and the young pretenders Sameh and Suma’s Zorro.
Verdi, 16, won team gold at the 2014 World Equestrian Games (WEG) and team silver at the 2012 London Olympics, and the dark bay retains all his power and assurance round a showjumping track. He knows it all — a stride after crossing the finish line, he gave a huge buck of exuberance, yet his round itself was immaculately smooth.
His jump-off time was 42.98sec, and he and Maikel seemed the likely winners. But the 14-year-old chestnut mare, by Ard VDL Douglas out of the Horos XX mare Vixen’s Frolic, threw her heart into it and rocketed round, also clear by a marginally faster time of 42.21sec.
“The feeling is indescribable — I need to take a few days to make sure everything sinks in and then I can believe it actually happened,” said Sameh, 33, who studied
medicine at university in Cairo but moved to Northern Ireland to concentrate on showjumping. He shares a yard there with Joanne Sloan-Allen, who owns Suma’s Zorro (see box, p58).
The winning pair now head for WEG, then will concentrate on trying to win more legs of the Rolex Grand Slam.
The latter is not an easy thing to do, as Germany’s Marcus Ehning discovered. He was the only member of his country’s WEG squad to come to Spruce Meadows but, after his Aachen grand prix victory, a hefty Rolex bonus for becoming the first person since Scott Brash to win more than one stage of the grand slam lured him here.
However, the flamboyant Cornado NRW didn’t appear to enjoy Spruce Meadows’ unique fences. He dropped the first part of the upright green double at
8a in the first round, then with Marcus chasing a place in the second round as the fastest fourfaulter, cocked his jaw and ran past the wall three fences later.
Beezie Madden jumped the other double clear of the grand prix for the USA with 10-year-old Coach, but a single time-fault kept her out of the jump-off.
Fourth went to Portugal’s Luciana Diniz and her electric chestnut mare, Fit For Fun 13, second in this class last year. In the first round, it was initially thought she’d put a foot in the water, which a replay seemed to confirm, but the four faults were removed and she went through to the second round. However, they hit fence four, a skinny upright on a very tight three strides from a massive double of Liverpools.
Luciana did taste success at the show, however; she won the 1.60m Tourmaline Oil Cup on Camargo 2, a 10-year-old by Canturo out of Fit For Fun 13.
Last year’s grand prix winners, Philipp Weishaupt and LB Convall, had two fences down in the first round.
UNBEATABLE GERMANY
NONE of the nine nations contesting the BMO Nations Cup were fielding proper A teams, due to the proximity of WEG.
The Germans were comfortable winners on a first-round score of zero, but the Canadians and Irish fought back in the second round to take the remaining two places on the podium.
Philipp Weishaupt was rather shaken to pick up 17 faults in the first round on Sansibar 89, with whom he had won the 1.60m CANA Cup earlier in the week. However, although the 12-yearold Stakkato Gold mare — whom Philipp rides for her owner, Saudi Arabian showjumper Kamal Bahamdan — put a foot in the water again in the second round, it didn’t appear to rattle her in the same way as it had earlier, and she stayed clear from then on.
Holger Wulschner and the handsome black BSC Skipper were faultless in both rounds, while Andre Thieme and
Aretino 13 just collected a single time-fault in the second round.
“I knew if I had one down, we could probably still win, so I took my time — but a bit too much as I got a time-fault, and I have just heard about the bonus for jumping double clear!” said Andre.
Anchorman Marcus Ehning, clear on his home-bred chestnut Funky Fred in the first round, didn’t have to jump in the second as victory was already assured.
“This is quite an emotional win for me — I first won here in 1999 on For Pleasure, who is Funky Fred’s sire,” said Marcus, who bred Funky Fred out of his grand prix mare, Panama.
The 62,000-strong crowd are affectionately partisan, and each Canadian rider was applauded each time they jumped a fence cleanly — they yelled their heads off when Eric Lamaze posted a double clear on Coco Bongo.
Eric had taken the AKITA Drilling Cup earlier in the tournament on Chacco Kid, his WEG mount, and the Canadian squad’s newbie, 22-year-old
Kara Chad, landed a first Spruce Meadows Masters win in the 1.50m ATCO Founders Classic aboard the nine-year-old Polish-bred mare Viva.
The team were fourth on 12 faults after the first round, but Kara rode with real verve to secure a second-round clear in the Nations Cup with her WEG partner Carona — an 11-year-old Untouchable mare — after four faults in the first round. Lisa Carlsen, who rode for Canada in the 1988 Seoul Olympics but who was jumping on her first Spruce Meadows Nations Cup
team for more than 30 years, had eight faults in the first round and just a time-fault, while “Captain Canada”, 70-year-old Ian Millar, was the discard score with eight faults in both rounds on 15-yearold Dixson, with whom he won the grand prix here in 2014.
The USA dropped from second to fourth; Beezie Madden’s double clear on Breitling LS couldn’t make amends for four
faults from Lucy Deslauriers and Hester, who had been faultless in the first round, and eight faults from Andrew Welles and Brindis Brogibo.
But Ireland, who had finished the first round on 10 faults, pulled its act together to take third. In the first round Conor Swail and the pony-like Rubens LS La Silla were clear, while Daniel Coyle and Cita had a time-fault and Dermott Lennon (Galvins Touch) had two down and a time-fault. Gelvins Touch soared round for the only Irish clear this time, and Capt Brian Cournane, the discard score in the first round with 13 faults on Dino, only collected a time-fault. Daniel and Conor dropped a rail apiece this time.
Dermott had shared a win in the ATCO Six-Bar on MGM Pursuit with Holger Wulschner (Zuckersuess D’Argilla), while both Conor and Daniel were runners-up in big classes in the international arena. H&H