A record crowd of 69,474 show jumping fans enjoyed two big and exciting classes today at the Masters with the BP Cup, a speed class using some of the natural obstacles in the International Ring, and the BMO Nations Cup in which course designer Leopoldo Palacios set a difficult but fair course which US Chef d'equip George Morris said 'asked all the questions.'

Rich Fellers started in today's BP Cup as the reigning champion from last year's meeting.  On his first trip over the course on Colgan Cruise, he went clear but his time of 95.060 put him into 8th place.  On his second horse, McGuinness with which he won last year, he put in a sensational ride of 84.433 seconds with no rails down, a full four seconds faster than the third place finisher.  Beezie Madden,  the last rider in the class, was the only one with a chance to catch Fellers,   She pulled out all the stops,  but but that lead to pulled rail - even with four faults, she was still fast enough to claim 2nd place in the class with 88.508.  

 Rich Fellers and McGuinness went full tilt in the BP Cup

Then, changing into a different gear for the BMO Nations Cup, Fellers delivered a four-fault round as lead-off rider for the US team.  Richard Spooner's 4 faults and Beezie Madden's clear round left the US team tied with the Netherlands on 8 faults for the first round.  Close behind were Ireland and Canada with 9 faults.   

There were a couple of particularly difficult parts of the course - another  'masterful design' from Leopoldo Palacios.  The Canada planks came down several times while the last line, which which involved a roll-back to a vertical at #9, a wide triple bar fence #10, to a very careful  yet 'scopey' vertical to oxer combination, #11a and b, that was set at an angle looking directly into the grandstands which can be a distraction for the horses.  A lot of rails came down there and at the last oxer as well.

In the second round, the course still proved to be tough and only two riders had a double clear score:  Canada's Eric Lamaze riding Hickstead, his team silver and individual gold medal winning mount from the Beijing Olympics, and Jeroen Dubbeldam of the Netherlands who won individual Olympic Gold in Sydney.

Eric Lamaze and Hickstead cleared the water jump with a great effort

The second round proved challenging for the rest of the Dutch  team when two of their riders had more than ten faults each.   So despite Dubbeldam's perfect score and Gerco Schroeder's solid 4 fault round, the Netherlands dropped down the board into a tie for 4th with Switzerland.  

The Irish kept their second round total to twelve with three riders having 4 fault rounds and they moved up to second place with 21 faults.  Canada hung on to third when Lamaze's clear round allowed them to drop one 8 fault score for a total of 25 faults.  

A clear second round from Fellers gave the US team a strong  start in round two.   Ashlee Bond had an unfortunate parting of the ways when her horse Cadett7 enthusiatically overjumped one fence  and she went one way and he went the other on the landing side; this meant elimination for her and the US team did not have a discard score.   However,  the next two US riders contributed good enough scores to give George Morris' team the gold medal:  Richard Spooner riding Cristallo had 4 faults and Beezie Madden on Coral Reef Via Volo had one rail down and a time fault  to give the US a total score of 17.

Eric Lamaze's double clear performance was even more remarkable considering that he broke bones in his foot while winning the Grand Prix of Aachen in July which required surgery to repair.  He is still walking around wearing a cast.  He had a special stirrup made to help keep his foot from moving from side to side and wraps the foot to stabilize it while riding.

Tomorrow is the CN International which should prove to be exciting as the riders vie for the biggest prize of the tournament.