Spencer Shines at the FEI Furusiyya Nations Cup Final, Barcelona
Saturday 11 October 2014
Great Britain finished in 6th place in Barcelona at the FEI Furusiyya Nations Cup Final this evening with performances from a team of relatively up-and-coming horses making GB’s World Class Performance Manager, Rob Hoekstra a happy man as a result of meeting the objectives he had set them.
The course was an incredibly big one with difficult related distances that left riders having to go forward to some of the fences before needing to sit deep and ride short into others along with many twists and turns.
It was the Dutch Team, only four weeks after securing Gold at the World Equestrian Games in Normandy, that held enough of a lead that to take the title as their own without the need for their fourth rider to jump.
From Great Britain’s perspective Rob, safe in the knowledge that we had already qualified for the 2015 Furusiyya Nations Cup series, had selected a relatively young team with a view to giving them the experience to use as a building block for next year.
Will Whitaker with Elisabeth Fredland’s 11 year-old bay gelding Fandango were extremely unlucky when they picked up 4 faults as a result of back pole of an oxer falling. First to go in the competition wouldn’t have suited many, but Will looked pretty confident and unfazed.
Joe Clee and Utamaro d’Ecaussines, a 10 year-old bay gelding owned by Ludwig Criel, whom have been a mainstay of the British Teams this year had an uncharacteristic 8 faults when they lowered two fences. Their season has been a tremendous one with them notching up many clear rounds across the series, so much so that they were acknowledged as ‘Team Rider of 2014’ at the British Showjumping Awards Ball earlier in the week.
Spencer Roe, aged just 21, made his debut on Top Level Nations Cup teams earlier this year and his career at this level has been meteoric. Jumping a number of clears throughout the season, his most notable of which was when he jumped double clear in Dublin, and tonight was no exception with himself and his mothers (Sally) 11 year-old bay gelding Wonder Why putting in yet another faultless round. Acknowledged as ‘Leading Rider 21 years & under’ at the British Showjumping Awards Ball on Tuesday evening, he proved once again what a tremendous talent he is by putting in one of the very few clears of the competition.
Michael Whitaker with the relatively novice Cassionato, a 9 year-old grey stallion owned by Beverley Widdowson put in some incredibly big jumping and was really unlucky to return 9 faults having had a foot in the water and a fence down just outside the time allowed. This is a horse that Michael rates extremely highly as a Championship horse of the future and it was clearly evident why when you saw the impressive way he jumped and approached the course with scope that looked limitless.
For the other nations contesting the Final, which is now in its second year having been won by France in 2013, it was Canada that sat behind the Netherlands to secure 2nd place on 4 penalties and Sweden that slotted into 3rd a fence behind them.
The British Showjumping Teams are supported by Exchequer and National Lottery funding via UK Sport.
Further information and full results can be found at www.csiobarcelona.com
Results:
1st Netherlands – 0
2nd Canada – 4
3rd Sweden – 8
4th Belgium – 9
5th Germany – 12
6th Great Britain – 12
7th Italy – 13
8th Brazil - 13
