Horse Illustrated Magazine

Yesterday was all about the home team, Team Canada. The format for the show jumping medal rounds was, as always, Nations Cup; every horse and rider pair did two rounds over identical courses to determine the medals. Canada and several other countries were also looking to qualify for the Rio Olympics next year.

With the United States and Brazil already slated to make the trip to Rio (through qualifying elsewhere), Canada and the other hopefuls for next year just had to finish at the top of the nations not yet qualified. But perhaps more than that, Canada really wanted to win gold at their Pan Am Games. In the first round the Canadian team had two riders jump clear (Yann Candele and Ian Millar), but each of them racked up one time fault. Eric Lamaze and Coco Bongo took down one rail for four penalties which gave them a team score of six points. The Canadian team drop score was Tiffany Foster riding Triple X III; they had a miscommunication before fence 10 (the hockey fence) which caused a stop and earned them a total of seven penalties.

Colombia and Argentina had their own aspirations as well. Both teams turned in stellar first rounds of jumping with Colombia only having one time fault for exceeding the time allowed after all four riders had completed the course and Argentina carried only two time faults from the first round. This placed these two teams at the top of the rankings after round one.

In round one the U.S. team riders each had a rail down for four faults and a team total of 12 ending that round in a disappointing sixth place. McLain Ward explained in an interview that having four faults in the first round of a Nations Cup was “death” to the team’s chances to win, so the American riders and fans had pretty long faces by mid-day.

A couple of hours later when the dust had settled from round two things looked quite different at the top of standings. Colombia’s riders all had bad luck with three riders taking down a rail and their fourth taking down two, plus several time faults for good measure, to make their final team score 15.

Meanwhile the Team Canada saw their lead rider, Yann Candele on Showgirl, jump clean, but accrue one time fault. Their next two riders, Eric Lamaze riding Coco Bongo and Tiffany Foster on Triple X III both jumped double clear rounds. Their anchor, Ian Millar on Dixson earned their drop score by taking a rail and a time fault. Their final team score was seven points.

Canada was now neck and neck with the Argentinean team. Team Argentina’s first three riders had one double clear round, another jumped clear with an additional time fault and the third round was one rail down with two added time faults. By this time, with one more Team Argentina rider to go, many people were counting in their heads, on their fingers or on paper to see try to figure out how it was all sorting out. Canada knew by the time their fourth rider finished that they would either win or jump off with Argentina to break the tie.

Then the final Argentinean rider, José Maria Larocca Jr. riding Cornet du Lys, entered and jumped clear, but exceeded the time allowed by less than a second chocking up one time penalty. The gold went to Canada. Red and white flags were waving wildly and strains of “Oh Canada” broke out at random. It was fun to watch the home crowd enjoy the win and the qualification for Rio.

Happily for Argentina even though they had to settle for silver, they did qualify for a spot to compete in Rio next year. On the other end of the spectrum the fans from Mexico got the unwelcome news that for the first time since 1960 they will not be sending a show jumping team to the next Olympics.

The U.S. team had a super second round with all four riders going clear and within the time. This added zero to their first round score of 12 and picked up the bronze medal to take home. Two of the U.S. team riders, Lauren Hough and Kent Farrington were both mounted on young, less experienced mares. According to Georgina Bloomberg, her mare Lilli has been her “back up” horse so far too, although she certainly earned respect during the week. McLain Ward and his well-seasoned Rothchild served as the “wise old men” on the U.S. team.

For complete results or an order of go for Saturday’s individual finals go to www.toronto.org and click on “Schedules and Results”. Three American and three Canadian riders are moving on to the individual finals. The finals are scheduled for broadcast in the States on ESPN 3 and in Canada on CBC. We will have a final wrap-up and photo gallery for you following the completion of those medal ceremonies.

See all Toronto 2015 PanAm Games news and photos from dressage, eventing and show jumping >>