Caroline Pamukcu and HSH Blake. Photo by Mariusz Chmieliński.
U.S. eventing followers tuning in for cross country at the LOTTO Strzegom Horse Trials in Poland were treated to a showcase of next generation skill from riders sent to Europe as a part of the new USEF European Development Tour. The efforts of the U.S. team, anchored in individual second position by Caroline Pamukcu and HSH Blake and bolstered by clear jumping rounds from Jenny Caras (Trendy Fernhill) and Cassie Sanger (Fernhill Zoro), saw them hang on to the silver medal position in the FEI Nations Cup competition.
Both of the other Nations Cup shifted, with the Netherlands taking over the gold position and Austria moving up into bronze. Originally holding gold, Germany’s wheels fell off with the elimination of two riders on cross country, dashing their hopes of completing a team.
Nations Cup competition carries Olympic weight this year, with the winning country earning a berth in the upcoming Paris Olympics (2024). Belgium currently holds the points lead, but the Dutch are 85 points behind in third position currently. A win this weekend, coupled with the potential of Belgium finishing off the podium — they’re currently in fourth, 11.6 penalties behind Austria — would edge the Dutch closer to securing Olympic qualification with five Nations Cup legs remaining.
The Dutch certainly have some talent to be excited about as they seek out that Olympic berth. Notably today Merel Blom showed off the promise of the 8-year-old Holsteiner gelding Chinuk R (Clarcon – Believe, by Heremes d’Auth) with a confident clear round, making marked improvement from the gelding’s first 4*-S here at this venue earlier this year. Experienced World Championships pair Sanne de Jong and Enjoy (Cartano – Next Joey, by Haarlem) also delivered a clear round to sit third overnight. Janneke Boonzaaijer and ACSI Champ de Tailleur (Quidam de Revel – Vera, by Oberon du Moulin), another pair with a long list of experience at this level, moved up from 11th into fourth individually with a strong clear. [Click here to view current FEI Nations Cup standings]
For the U.S., the weekend is not about qualification but rather team building and exposure. Led by chef d’equip and Olympic gold medalist Leslie Law, the USEF Development Tour provides a chance for developing riders to gain valuable education in both overseas competition as well as team pressure. And on a day where cross country riding was paramount and the Marcin Konarski-designed questions just kept coming, the U.S. riders rose to the occasion and provided an exciting validation of the patience-demanding process of creating a pipeline.
Under team instructions to take the long route at an early combination as well as the internal drive to ensure the 8-year-old HSH Blake‘s confidence was in tact elicited the handful of time penalties for Caroline Pamucku, ultimately causing her to yield the individual lead to Austrian Olympian Lea Siegl and van Helsing P. But taking into consideration the priority of the team’s result and the fact that she was riding a young horse who is still early in his Advanced career, Caroline was proud both of her horse and of her ability to ride well under pressure.
Caroline Pamukcu and HSH Blake. Photo by Leszek Wójcik.
“I think I just can’t be greedy, I have to keep thinking about the big picture,” Caroline, who owns “Blake” along with her mother Sherrie and Mollie and Lizzie Hoff said. “I’m so competitive and I want to win — but how upset would I have been if I hurt him or did something to wreck his confidence? He deserves to be produced nicely. And it’s more important for us to be in silver medal position.”
As for the growth she’s felt with HSH Blake, who was originally sourced by Caroline’s friend and business partner Kelley Hutchinson and ultimately secured for Caroline’s string thanks to the help of the Hoff family after the gelding won the 6-year-old 2*-L championship at Morven Park in 2021, Caroline can’t say enough good things. “He’s going to be a five-star horse,” she enthused. “I said all along this track was going to ride like a five-star Short, and it definitely did. Some of the things out there he hasn’t even seen, and he just looks for the flags.”
It’s a challenge, though, to balance the ambition that comes with having such a consistent and talented horse that is also still quite young in his career. Here, Caroline, gives much credit to the time she spent with British Grand Slam winner Pippa Funnell, who preached the value of low-intensity conditioning work. Caroline has spent most of “Blake’s” time building slow fitness through trot sets and road hacks rather than frequent schooling and drilling — and she says that has paid off not just in his mental wellbeing, but his physical health. After running the 3*-L at TerraNova in the spring to pick up a final MER needed to be in the running for the upcoming Pan American Games, Caroline gave the gelding a long break and a slow build-up to this trip.
“We brought him back, trotted the whole time, jumped once before Devon [Arena Eventing at the end of May], one flat school with Leslie, a Combined Test at Essex and that was it,” Caroline explained. “So I’m really excited that what Pippa told me, how much you can do with just trot sets carries over. We’re not drilling him, we’re keeping him happy. Pippa taught me a lot about road work, and so leading up to this we were trotting on the roads, up and down hills, lots of walking, for two hours. No spurs, a snaffle bit — that’s how all the horses go, which has really improved on basics. On trot sets, you do good transitions, stretching necks, lots of pats. It keeps the pressure off, and it was huge.”
Cassie Sanger and Fernhill Zoro. Photo by Mariusz Chmieliński.
Cassie Sanger sits in individual 20th place with Fernhill Zoro with a strong chance to move up on Sunday if they can jump a clear round. At 19, Cassie is the youngest member of Team USA this weekend — but the grit and maturity she showed on cross country today go well beyond her age. This weekend marks Cassie’s fourth Advanced/4* event, all of which have come with the 15-year-old “Zoro”.
“It was a huge step up for me,” Cassie said. “Doing some tough tracks — at Maryland [CCI3*-L] and I did the Chatt Hills Advanced as my second one and that was very tough — was a really good warm-up and prep for this. I also did the three-star Long at Bromont with my other horse, and that was a really tough track. It got me ready to go and because it went well, I felt confident in how my cross country riding was going.”
Despite that confidence, Cassie says she still felt herself get a bit rattled. Following her dressage test on Friday, she felt herself focusing on the mistakes she’d made — “mistakes are bigger here, when they aren’t just yours and they affect the whole team” — and feeling out of balance about her confidence for cross country. “But when I woke up this morning, I felt oddly really calm,” she continued. “We had to wait all day to go, so I stayed a little to myself and went to walk the course again with Leslie.”
Here Cassie gives much credit to the team environment at Strzegom this weekend. The support she felt from her teammates would launch her out of the start box on a mission, and she delivered a strong clear round with time to help cement the U.S’ silver position.
“The one word I would use to describe it is it’s an electric feeling,” she said. “The entire day you’re worried about yourself, your teammates — you want them to come home just as well and I think after today and after we all left cross country coming through the finish flags…the camaraderie makes me hungry to do more.”
Jenny Caras and Trendy Fernhill. Photo by Leszek Wójcik.
Also delivering a confident clear round were Jenny Caras and Elyse Eisenberg’s Trendy Fernhill, who will be in 18th position going into tomorrow’s final phase. With the course’s intense, motocross feel, Jenny knew the challenge would be stiff for “Joey”, who she calls a stronger, long-striding type that would generally prefer to have more galloping lanes and letup fences. Despite some disappointment with her time penalties, Jenny was pleased with the outcome of the day, especially considering her horse’s type.
“Joey was fantastic today — I was really pleased with him,” Jenny said. “There weren’t many letup fences or galloping lanes to let go and kick because you were always sort of seeing up for the next combination. But he’s as honest as they come and I am privileged to ride him and our partnership is so strong. I know him so well. I’m disappointed to have not been able to go faster and have less time, but I needed a clear round for the team and that was my first priority, so it was going as fast as I could while making sure I went clear.”
After watching some riders on the CCI4*-L — which went early in the day and shared several key combinations with its Short counterpart — the team opted to go under orders to take the long route at fence 4, a tricky turning question with multiple MIM-clipped obstacles. “I tried to be as efficient as possible around the long route and I don’t think there was much time in it really, and definitely much safer,” Jenny elaborated.
She echoed the strength of the team camaraderie this weekend, and how much the support bolstered her confidence in her own performance. “I’ve really enjoyed being a part of the team,” she said. “It really felt different than competing in the U.S. — it felt like a different type of course than we’re used to and I really feel like I’ve learned a lot coming out of today. I’m just really proud of everybody on the team and feel really fortunate to be a part of this whole experience.”
Andrew McConnon and Ferrie’s Cello. Photo by Leszek Wójcik.
First to go in the team rotation of riders, Andrew McConnon and Jeanne Shigo’s Ferrie’s Cello did encounter some trouble on course, breaking one of the MIM clips at fence 4D and later incurring 20 penalties at the C element of fence 21.
Lea Seigl and van Helsing P. Photo by Leszek Wójcik.
Taking over the lead individually after delivering the quickest turn of foot today are Austria’s Lea Siegl with the 13-year-old DSP gelding van Helsing P (Van Gogh – Carisma P, by Carismo). Despite being quickest of the day, they still collected 3.2 time penalties, indicating the toughness of the track in its difficulty to make up time. Lea’s score of 33.3 does not give her a rail in hand over Caroline Pamucku (35.7). Dutch rider Sanne de Jong and Enjoy also remain a strong threat to move up from their third-ranked score of 35.8.
“It was quite fun, Van Helsing was in a good mood, he was galloping very fast,” Lea commented. “Some parts were a bit difficult, and it was not an easy course. Sometimes you had to take the horse out of the rhythm and do some sharp turns, that made it demanding, but overall, I’m very happy with my horse and how he managed it. I’m very thankful for what he does for me every time I ride him in cross country.”
While this weekend’s ultimate goal isn’t necessarily to medal — the Development Tour is designed for education and experience above all — it would be silly not to think that a podium finish in Poland would be the ideal ending. The U.S. doesn’t have much room to breathe — both Austria and Belgium lay within striking distance should any rails begin to fall. The U.S. does, however, still have one score to drop, while the Netherlands, Austria, and Belgium are all left with just three scores to count after each losing one team member today.
Full team standings can be found here.
Michael Jung and Kilcandra Ocean Power. Photo by Leszek Wójcik.
Looking to the CCI4*-L division, which fielded several riders hoping to secure points contributing to their FEI Olympic Group rankings (the top two ranked riders in each FEI Group will secure one individual berth for their country in Paris), Germany’s Michael Jung piloted Kilcandra Ocean Power (BGS Ocean View – Bonnie Dolly, Bonnie Prince) to a clear round with time to maintain the lead.
Just five of the 13 4*-L starters completed the course, with six opting to retire after incurring penalties and two eliminated (one for missing a fence, one on refusals). Rerouting from Luhmühlen, U.S. rider Matt Flynn picked up 40 time penalties and finished the day in fourth position with Wizzerd (Wizzerd – Amai, by Oklund).
Show jumping for the Nations Cup division will begin Sunday at 2:30 p.m. local time / 8:30 a.m. EST. You can watch this division jump for the win for free on the FEI TV live stream here. If you’re a ClipMyHorse.TV subscriber, you can also watch the 4*-L division stream here.
Miss the cross country action today? Never fear — there’s a replay! I’ll drop it below:
LOTTO Strzegom H.T. / FEI Eventing Nations Cup (Poland): [Website] [Live Stream] [Timing & Scoring]
