Wise riders save their horses at World Cup SJ final

Julien Epaillard took a chance.

The Frenchman, who led after Thursday’s opening round of the Longines FEI Show Jumping World Cup Final, decided not to compete in what would have been a six-horse jump-off for Friday’s second leg of the championship in Basel, Switzerland. He wanted to save the strength of his horse, Donatello d’Auget for Sunday’s two-round final.

Julien Epaillard

But he didn’t have the hard data to assure that he would stay in the lead without participating in the tie-breaker, because the math was too difficult to do by hand. So he could only guess.

“It’s complicated to calculate this. So we take the risk,” he explained.

“It was not an easy decision. We think a little bit with the staff of the (French) federation.”

As it happened, he guessed right.

Marcus Fuchs, riding “my incredible unicorn” Leone Jei for the host country, won the class with “two risky turns.” But because the Swiss campaigner was tenth the first day, he is four points behind Julien in the overall standings. Julien figured it would be something like that, but couldn’t be sure when he withdrew from the tiebreaker.

A former European champion, Marcus was clocked in 40.77 seconds over a challenging jump-off course. Austria’s Max Kuhner with Elektric Blue P was second in 42.32, while Alessandra Volpi became the second U.S. rider of the show to make the podium. She was third on the clever mare, Gipsy Love in 45.78 seconds.

Gerard LaChat’s course.

Rather than spending the evening celebrating after his win, Marcus planned on going back to his hotel room to study the tapes of his rides and “see what I can improve on Sunday.”

Marcus Fuchs and Leone Jei.

Alessandra had said beforehand that she wouldn’t go all-out in the tiebreaker, with a thought process similar to Julien’s, that her mare needed to have reserves of strength for Sunday’s stringent test.

“It’s hard to catch these guys.. But I wanted to make sure she was in good shape for Sunday,” commented Alessandra, who trains with Markus Beerbaum of Germany.

“I couldn’t have asked for more. That’s what you dream of here,” continued Allessandra, praising her Silesian mare.

“It’s taken us a bit of time to get to know each other, because she is tricky and she really likes things the way she wants them, but I feel like now that we’re coming together as a combination, we’ve put in a lot of solid rounds, and it’s helped us build a lot of confidence and that’s paying off,” the Californian added.

“She still tried her hardest. I knew a solid clear round could get you pretty far. I didn’t expect to be in such a great position. That lack of expectation has gotten us this far. We still have a job to do on Sunday, so stay focused.”

The USA’s Lilllie Keenan, who was third on opening night, had a rail in the first round to finish ninth with Kick On and is tied for fourth overall.

The biggest U.S. show jumping names, Kent Farrington, McLain Ward and Laura Kraut, aren’t competing in Basel. But U.S. Coach Robert Ridland is proud of the riders who are.