I felt like a bit of an interloper here. I own two of Jennifer Crooks' show jumpers, but not the one she rode in the Nations Cup for Ireland.
I was, however, made to feel incredibly welcome by the Irish team and their families. What an awesome group.
Jennifer's husband Mike is in the yellow shirt just under Rupert's front hooves, and her groom Emily is in the white shirt with her back to us. I'm not sure why everyone had their hands on their hips.
I also have to point out that he tagged the front rail.
Great riders, all, but it wasn't to be their night.
Some teams had only three members, which is allowed, although they don't get to drop a score from the first round. This is the Belgian team.
I loved the fact that they all had little Irish flags on their coats, but none of them matched.
I thought the rule was that you could wear a red coat after you had ridden for your country, but apparently there is no such rule; although some countries have a special collar they give to national team riders.
Most riders did the six, but many couldn't bring their horses back that quickly after the water, and ended up over the jump in five. Jennifer did five, but left it up.
The second rider in, Frederico Sztyrle from Argentina, fell off after the wall, and the competition was stopped for about 10 minutes while he was carted out on a stretcher. I heard he cracked a vertebrae, I hope he's OK.
Apparently Conor didn't have an Irish saddle pad for the competition (having flown in from Europe). When Rupert was done his pad (from Olson's Tack Shop, who sponsor Jennifer) was given to Conor to use. Over the next few days Jennifer tried on several times to get it back. I suggested that perhaps Conor considered it a lucky pad and wouldn't part with it.
The boots of each horse were checked immediately after they jumped. Sometimes ground glass is put under their boots to make it hurt more to hit the jumps - highly illegal. Notice that two of Cassandra's boots have been removed, and they're about to remove the other two and check her legs.
Mike Crooks is in the yellow, Eddie Macken in the suit, and Emily holding Cassandra. We are all euphoric with Jennifer's performance.
The only fly in the ointment is that Cassandra overreached and cut her front right foot. She'll later have stitches but tonight she has to be ready to jump again in the second round if necessary.
I love the Nations Cup format. Each team had four rides in the first round, and could drop one score. Jennifer's four faults was used (Connor had 5, Darragh 4, Kevin 0), and the Irish had a total of 8 faults in the first round. The British had 6 faults, only two away.
The second round uses only three riders and no dropped scores. Because of Cassandra's overreach, and the fact that all the Irish riders had decent first rounds, Jennifer was dropped from the second round.
Darragh was the first Irish rider, he had a great second round with 4 faults. Michael Whitaker, the first British rider, had 5 faults; the Irish were only down by one. Connor went next and had a clear round. I was incredibly impressed, it really looked like he had to work for it, what an amazing round. Robert Maguire was next for the British and had nine faults. This meant that Kevin Babington, the last Irish rider, had a rail and 3 time faults to give for the win.
I was feeling a bit overwhelmed at this point. I felt that Kevin had ridden a great first round, and that it was in the bag. I remarked to someone that we had 7 faults to give, and they said "Two rails can fall in a heartbeat. Just look at that combination," and pointed at the triple. I realized that Kevin, on an amateur horse, would need to ride an amazing round to win.
Of course, he did. Standing among the Irish team watching Kevin ride was something I'll never forget. When he cleared fence 11 and made the turn for 12, with plenty of time left, the celebration started. When he cleared 12 and finished a clean round, the fans and the team erupted. No team could catch them, the Irish had won.
What a good time, what great fans!