Germany collected the trophy for the first final of the new Longines League of Nations Sunday in Barcelona, but the clever course by Santiago Varela didn’t make it easy.
The Germans had a total of 12 penalties over two rounds. Can you believe the worst score in the second round was two knockdowns from Checker 47, ridden by Christian Kukuk, who just won individual gold at the Paris Olympics? (and where Santi was the designer, with Gregory Bodo of France).
The Netherlands was second on 16 penalties, while the podium was completed by Sweden with 20, which included 0/4 for two rounds from world number one Henrik von Eckermann and King Edward.
The U.S. wound up sixth of nine teams with 28 penalties and no clean rounds, just a bunch of 4 fault trips and one 8 fault round.
Coach Robert Ridland called the team of Alex Matz (Ikigai/4), Lucy Davis Kennedy (Ben 431/4 and 4), Aaron Vale (Carissimo 25/ 4 and 4) Spencer Smith (Keeneland/4 and 8) “relatively inexperienced.”
“It was one of those days that we fell victim to four-fault rounds,”he said.
“Everyone put in solid rounds and dug deep to deliver a good result. Our primary target this year was the Olympic Games, where we won team silver. None of the team medalists from Paris were on the podium here (gold medal Britain did not compete in the final), which shows just how many talented nations there are in jumping and that everything has to go your way on the day.”
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