What an incredible day of sport Saturday afternoon at the Spruce Meadows ‘Masters’ Tournament. An international roster of 32 riders comprising eight national teams, all of which were eager to claim victory over the prestigious two round competition designed by Leopoldo Palacios of Venezuela. Thrilling from start to finish, the typical two round competition would continue into a tie breaking jump off in front of a massive crowd of over 86,000 captivated spectators on the Spruce Meadows grounds.
In the end, it would be Team USA [Lauren Hough, Charlie Jacobs, Lillie Keenan and Beezie Madden] who’d reign victorious, sending American super star Madden to the Jump off against Brazilian rider (Friday nights’ ATCO 6bar winner) Pedro Janqueira Muylaert. Riding Darry Lou, an incredibly talented 9 year old Dutch Warmblood Stallion, Beezie Madden finished on an impressive triple clear scorecard with a time of 39.21 seconds to capture the jump off victory. Madden expressed this about the jump off, “I thought I had some very good turns planned and good foot speed – though I know I could most likely be beat by some of those others with really big gallops. My plan going first was to put in a real solid round that they [Team Brazil] had to go fast to beat. In hind sight, I think I may have left the door open a little bit but still left enough pressure to really make him go.” Team Chef d’Equipe, Robert Ridland was very pleased with the team who all managed to perform solid rounds in what was described as a difficult but very fair track.
The Silver medalists, Team Brazil [Eduardo Menezes, Pedro Junqueira muylaert, Yuri Mansur Guerios and Pedro Veniss] performed an incredibly competitive Nations’ Cup after team lead off rider Eduardo Menezes took an unfortunate and spectacular fall off of Quintol. Both horse and rider were okay but due to concussion protocol were not deemed fit to continue into the second round. Pedro Junqueira Muylaert aboard Prince Royal Z MFS would represent the team in the jump off against USA but fell slightly short, crossing the finish line 0.54 seconds behind.
Bronze Medalists, Team Germany [Philipp Weishaupt, Holger Wulschner, Patrick Stuhlmeyer and Marco Kutscher] also posted good rounds but fell short of the jump off by one time fault.
