Final leg of the FEI Nations League in St. Tropez goes to the hosts

A dream day for French show jumping fans at the League of Nations stop in St. Tropez! With just four faults, the team secured the victory at the final stop before the finals on the first weekend of October in Barcelona. The start, however, was rather mixed.

That’s because Nina Mallevaey of France, ranked tenth in the world, had a knockdown at the third-to-last obstacle—a triple bar—riding her 10-year-old AES gelding Destine to Be by Diamant de Semilly. But it would be the only one that counted. After that, Antoine Ermann and Floyd de Pres made up for the slip-up. Simon Delestre and Gatsby du Tillard also had a knockdown, but were slower than Mallevaey and Destine to Be and thus provided the discarded result. The final pair was Julien Epaillard and Donatello d’Auge, who, with a flawless clear round, ensured that only one of the four-fault rides had to be counted.

According to League of Nations rules, only three pairs compete in the second round. Team captain Edouard Couperie opted not to field the strongest pair, Epaillard and Donatello d’Auge, and instead put his trust in the trio of Mallevaey, Ermann, and Delestre. They rewarded his trust by all three jumping clear.

The U.S. team, which also had four errors after the first round, did France a favor by racking up 16 penalty points in the second round and finished in sixth place.

The British team was the fourth-best with five errors, but had as many as 20 errors in the second round, finishing in seventh place.

Tough break for Brazil

Actually, it was the Brazilians who looked like the sure winners after the first round. That’s because the first three pairs all completed clear rounds, meaning the fourth rider, Stephan de Freitas Barcha on Chevaux Primavera Imperio Egipcio, didn’t even have to compete. He was able to save his energy for Round Two—but still had a knockdown there.

The man with the long name, João Victor Castro Aguiar Gomes de Lima, and his wonderful Holsteiner Casall son Cashpaid J&F both recorded two clear rounds, but the Grand Prix winners, Marlon Zanotelli and Charly Heart, were unable to manage a second clear round. A clear round would have forced a jump-off. But a knockdown at the second-to-last vertical jump resulted in four faults that counted—eight in total—and second place for Brazil.

Beaten by a good second by Belgium

Peter Weinberg’s Belgian team, like Brazil, had eight penalty points and delivered three clear rounds in the second round—but was slower than the Brazilians and therefore ended up in third place.

Among the heroes of the day was Jérôme Guery, who seems to have found a successor to his longtime successful partner, Quel Homme de Hus, in the ten-year-old Quito de Mariposa (by Comme il faut-Air Jordan Z), as two clear rounds today demonstrated. The double clear round by Abdel Said and his incredibly athletic Wathnan Bonne Amie came as no surprise at all.

Rounding out the Belgian team were Niels Bruynseels on Oaky Flandria, who made up for their eight penalty points from the first round in the second round, as well as Jos Verlooy and Nixon Van’t Meulenhof, who, with twelve penalty points, had their first-round score discarded and did not compete in the second round.

And Germany?

The German team made some unlucky mistakes. A total of 28 penalty points and an eighth-place finish sound worse than they actually were. Richard Vogel kicked things off in the first round on the 10-year-old Gangster de Montdesir and made the Nations Cup look like a style competition. It wasn’t until the last oxer that he didn’t quite hit the takeoff perfectly, and the bar came down.

Maximilian Weishaupt and Zuccero showed just how well they work together. But the final line proved to be their undoing as well—they also had a knockdown.

Janne Friederike Meyer-Zimmermann’s 11-year-old Saxon Colestus son, Cellagon Cascais, clearly established himself in St. Tropez as a horse capable of tackling bigger challenges —especially on the final line of the first round, where, after a massive leap over the triple bar, he landed much farther out than Janne had planned. Consequently, things got tight heading into the next steep jump, number eleven. But Cascais showed here that he has everything one could possibly want in a show jumper, and that he didn’t want to repeat the mistake at the takeoff of the triple combination, where he had also come in a bit too close and knocked down the bar. So it remained at just that one knockdown in round one—and another in round two, where a careless mistake occurred on the takeoff of the double combination 3ab.

It was this combination that caused a rail to fall for the fourth German pair, Marcus Ehning and Coolio. After that, the horseman from Borken decided to call it a day for his World Team Champion and raised his hand to signal that he was giving up. It wasn’t a mistake because Coolio lacked the strength, etc. Apparently, the gelding’s focus was more on the water beneath the steep jump than on the top rail. He cleared it perfectly, but then flew over the “b” element of the combination—an oxer—with a huge leap, and with that positive feeling, Ehning sent him home. In any case, the pair didn’t have to compete in the second round.

As mentioned, Janne Friederike had started the round with four faults, and Maximilian Weishaupt and Zuccero followed suit—for what was probably the most frustrating reason imaginable. The stallion jumped fantastically. Only at the water jump was he perhaps a centimeter short, causing the Zuccero son to step on the boundary. But even that one centimeter counts. So four penalty points for the two of them as well.

This time, Richard Vogel and Gangster Montdesir were the final pair for Germany. Even with a clear round, they wouldn’t have been able to significantly improve the team’s standing. They, too, were penalized for a water fault just as frustrating as the one made by Max Weishaupt and Zuccero. Another knockdown occurred at the exit of the triple combination.

Overall Standings

With its second victory of the season—following its triumph in Abu Dhabi —France now heads into the final in Barcelona as the leading nation. Germany is now tied with Great Britain for second place.

However, the season’s standings in Barcelona no longer matter anyway. Here, everything starts over from scratch. Unless, that is, you’re the nation ranked ninth or tenth. Because then you’ve missed out on qualifying for the finals. This year, that applies to Switzerland and the Netherlands, both of which squandered their chance to reach the finals today by failing to even make it to the second round of the final stage. A bitter blow for these two major show jumping nations.

While the Swiss can take comfort in Steve Guerdat’s world championship title, it was a season to forget for the Dutch. Already after the World Equestrian Games in Aachen, the Dutch Equestrian Federation (KNHS) had announced that it would part ways with national team coach Wout-Jan van der Schans at the end of the year due to a lack of success.

You can find an overview of all the results and the rankings here.