And yet another Irish victory at Devon (UPDATE)

Ireland reigned supreme for the third time this week in the Dixon Oval, as Jordan Coyle took the $226,000 Sapphire Grand Prix of Devon with a bold performance on an equally determined For Gold while a standing-room-only crowd cheered him on.

“My horse isn’t that fast. He always looks like he’s going really fast, but actually he’s not that fast,” said Jordan, as Lillie Keenan, the runner-up in Thursday’s class, chimed in, saying, “I don’t believe that at all.”

And you could easily understand her comment.

For Gold appeared to be simply flying around the route set by Alan Wade (another Irishman!), a performance reflected in a time of 37.45 seconds, ahead of Lillie’s Kick On in 38.12.

The top two finishers had the same odd circumstance propelling their trips. Both executed iffy jumps at the first fence, which worked in their favor.

“A few horses didn’t jump it good,” Jordan said of the unimposing vertical that was set heading toward the outgate.

“But after that, it got me and the horse’s blood up, and from then on, everything came on pretty good.”

Noting that Kick On also wasn’t show his best form at that obstacle, Lillie contended, “that’s almost like a kick in the butt.”

Her mount is relatively inexperienced; this was only his second 4-star.

“I had planned to be a bit quicker than I was,” Lillie conceded. She is familiar with Jordan’s penchant for beating the clock.

“I knew he would be hard to catch,” she said.

“I did what I could without taking too much risk,” added Lillie, who finished in 38.12 seconds,

“In hindsight, there’s definitely a few things I would have changed,” observed the rider, whose initial visit to Devon came 20 years ago, when she was seven and looking for her first pony. Many of the show’s treasured silver trophies have her mother’s name engraved on them, “so I’m honored to be here,” said Lillie, whose own name now will be inscribed on the Style of Riding award trophy.

(UPDATE: Lillie finished Devon on Saturday as its Leading Jumper Rider, while Kick On was Open Jumper Champion. Reserve Open Jumper Champion was Cashew CR, ridden by Alex Matz to victory in the final jumper class, the $145,100 Idle Dice Stake,, where Kick On was second.)

Third place went to Colombia’s Mark Bluman, a member of the family that includes Olympian Daniel Bluman and Ilan Bluman, both of whom were also in the class but failed to make the seven-horse tiebreaker. Mark, who has a friendly rivalry with them, had the only other clear trip in the jump-off, but lost the $74,580 first prize purse on an exceedingly wide turn with Ubiluc to the third fence, a Liverpool. His horse, he explained, has trouble turning to the right, and his time of 38.67 could be explained by that peculiarity, even though he went like blazes around the rest of the course.

Still, he was just happy to make the podium at a show where he considers the atmosphere is “one of the best ones there is in the world. It’s nice to have the motivation of an educated public to make us do our job better and make a show out of it.”

The fastest jump-off round was turned it by Mimi Gochman on Inclen BH in 36.54 seconds, but it came at the price of two rails, which put her sixth.

Jordan is the brother of Daniel Coyle, a mainstay of the Irish team that could well be favored in this summer’s Olympics. Competition for spots on the Irish team is intense, but Jordan isn’t going for it, saying he’ll leave that to the others because he thinks the squad is “done and dusted.”

Another Irish rider, Darragh Kenny, won both the Tuesday and Wednesday classes with different horses.

However, Darragh’s slim Paris Games hope rested on yet another mount, the 17-year-old VDL Cartello, whose slow 4-fault effort in the first round at Devon put him tenth. Darragh’s top horse, Amsterdam, is on the injured list and he said the other night that he thought Irish chef d’equipe Michael Blake might consider Cartello too old for an Olympic spot in any case.

Jordan rode at Devon for the first time because his wife, Kimberly, qualified to ride in the adult jumpers and had always wanted to come.

“I wanted to go elsewhere,” he confessed, “but that won’t happen again.”

Jordan now plans to return annually. He’s glad he accompanied Kim and brought For Gold along.

“This is what America’s losing. This is a proper horse show. The crowd here is amazing, the whole atmosphere. We can jump 5-star grands prix, and there’s 50 people there,” he pointed out.

“This show, for sure, I will be back. I can’t say enough good things. I already told my parents that they have to come here next year.”

Jordan dotes on the very consistent For Gold.

“He’s an unbelievably genuine horse. Maybe he doesn’t have all the talent in the world, but he’s so genuine that he can do anything.”

He had tried to buy the horse three times, but it didn’t work out.

“I’ve never been lucky buying horses.”

However, this time “it was all meant to be.”

Jordan said, “This horse, you couldn’t not love him. If it was possible for a horse to live in the house, he would live in the house and sleep in the bed. He’s the closest thing to a dog that has ever been.”

When I met Jordan in February during the Florida circuit, he revealed that his wife had wondered if he loved the horse more than he loved her. As he recounted the story, Jordan said (with a grin) “it is possible.”

Jordan noted For Gold For FashionXHeraldik) was treated more like a pet than an athlete until he started training with 2002 world show jumping champion Dermott Lennon. He explained everything comes so easily for the beautifully balanced horse that he found it hard to make him actually work.

Crowd favorite McLain Ward’s quest for a thirteenth Devon grand prix victory ended when Contagious had a rail fence 6-C, the last part of the triple combination. He had the fastest 4-fault round to end up ninth.

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