Irish rider Daniel Coyle got some good advice from his countryman, Conor Swail, before heading into the jump-off of the $250,000 Longines FEI World Cup at the Royal Winter Fair last night.
After Daniel asked whether his main intent should involve going for a clear round or “do I need to be quick as well?” Conor told him “you need to be fast,” and it paid off in a victory at the Toronto competition, where it was an all-mares game in the tiebreaker.
Two weeks ago, Daniel had taken the slower approach in a class and it didn’t work, “so tonight I was hungry for more,” he noted.
“There wasn’t a whole lot you could do in the jump-off,” observed Daniel, referring to the difficulty in getting a fast time because of the way it was laid out, with an extreme rollback to the next-to-last fence, a vertical, and then a long run to the final obstacle, the Longines oxer.
He saw the distance early to that last fence, and while that sort of gallop is something that he hadn’t done much with his mount, Legacy, “she went all the way.” The Zangersheide he rode certainly was up to the challenge of covering ground for Daniel, who was clocked in 37.02 seconds.
Another Daniel, Bluman, followed him in the tiebreaker on the durable Gemma, but an early rail put the Israeli rider one placing down, in a slower time of 39.21.
The tiebreaker was led off by a favorite of the sold-out house, Tiffany Foster, who got support as the only Canadian with a chance to win after the initial round. The tenth of 21 riders to compete, she was the first to leave all the fences standing with Northern Light.
That plucky Swedish warmblood was a fill-in for Tiffany’s top mount, Figor, who is recovering from an injury. But even though Tiffany took it slow, Northern Light already had given all she had in the first World Cup of her career, and wound up with two rails down and a time penalty in 44.23 seconds to finish third.
Speaking about his first-round route, course designer Michel Vaillancourt said, “We had some silly little rails, we could have had a few more clear.”
Only two U.S. riders, Laura Kraut on Calgary Tame and Kent Farrington with Landon, made the top 10, finishing eighth and ninth respectively with four faults, as McLain Ward lost his bid with Callas for a tenth win in the class.
Michel conceded he would have liked to have five or six in the jump-off for the audience who filled every seat in the coliseum. Even so, they got their money’s worth of excitement.
The course designer, who was the 1976 Olympic individual silver medalist, made his Royal debut as a rider at the age of 15 in the open jumpers, 53 years ago, so few know the show as well as he does.
He noted there’s a big difference “between performing in front of a sold-out packed house that encourages you to go, versus hardly anybody in the stands. It’s a special, special event for sure.”
Canadians were a bit frustrated because they could have had one more to cheer for if Ali Ramsay, who rode after Tiffany, had not logged a time fault with Bonita VH Kezershof Z after keeping all the rails in place in the first round. Ramsay earned the Canadian national championship the first week of the show, an honor that also gave her an entry to the FEI weekend.
For Daniel Coyle, it’s been a hard week, with “one down, one down, one down.”
Legacy is owned by Ariel Grange, who is based locally “and that’s maybe why I was trying so hard to get something to happen, and nothing was. From the first fence forward tonight it was real difficult. It seemed like you were always turning. It wasn’t simple at any point.”
The mare came from 2000 Olympic individual gold medalist Jeroen Dubbeldam of the Netherlands, who is training Daniel. They made it to the world championships last summer, where the Irish qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympics “but no medals,” so Daniel said, “I want to keep going.”
Like many riders, he is shooting for next April’s Longines FEI World Cup Finals in Omaha.
Daniel Bluman is now leading the North American League for the finals, despite “too many seconds.” He has never been to the finals, and plans to go only if he has two horses who are up to the task.
Tiffany, who wound up as leading Canadian rider, said every rider she talks to considers the Royal “their favorite show in North America,” citing the energy the crowd imparts.
The bubbly equestrian’s fond memories of the show include winning the Canadian medal finals and Jump Canada class in her youth. For financial reasons, she couldn’t compete very often, so the opportunity came about because her trainers paid for her to ride at the Royal and a client groomed for her.
Despite not winning the Longines class, she did realize one ambition at the show, sitting next to the whip on one of the coaches in the Pemberton Green Meadows division, renamed in tribute to a Canadian who was a pillar of the driving sport.
Tiffany had mentioned to Cawthra Burns, whose family had ridden at the Royal for generations, that her dream was to ride on a coach at the Royal.
“We can make that happen,” said Cawthra.
The rider looked incredibly glamorous, and when I asked what she had done to herself, she laughed and responded, “I brushed my hair,” then admitted she had gotten it done at a salon. She wore Cawthra’s jewels and fluffy wrap as she accompanied John White on his coach, which won Friday night’s class.
Coaches are only one part of what makes the Royal what it is. The variety in the type of competition ranges all the way from hackneys to the six-horse hitches in the draft division. Seeing an arena filled to the brim with brilliantly turned out Percherons, Clydesdales and Belgians is a something to be remembered for a lifetime.
The exhibitions are always special, and this year it was the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, in their scarlet tunics, who thrilled the crowd with their precision on the black Hanoverians specially bred for that purpose.
The Royal is unlike any show in this hemisphere; the closest comparison would be the London International (formerly Olympia). If you ever have the chance to see the Canadian competition, take it. You’ll be thrilled.