Will Coleman Slides to the AEC Advanced Final Win with Diabolo, but Halliday is Top of Mind

Much like its Jay Hambly-designed predecessor on cross country yesterday, Bobby Murphy’s show jumping track, which was put to the test about an hour and a half late due to a weather delay this evening, exerted its fair share of influence. This resulted in another shift on the final leaderboard and saw Will Coleman rise to the top with the Diabolo Group’s Diabolo to take the $60,000 Adequan Advanced Final win at the USEA American Eventing Championships.

It’s certainly a testament to the thought Will has put into Diabolo’s (Diarado – Roulett M, by Aljano 2) trajectory as he aims for a 5* debut at the MARS Maryland 5 Star in October: he said at the outset of the week that he didn’t have any grand plans for the 12-year-old Holsteiner gelding, understanding that a couple of months of not competing usually results in some rust and cobwebs to get rid of.

And so it’s icing on the cake to take home the winner’s share of the prize pool, which Will did by finishing with a clear show jumping and one time fault for a score of 36.0. The door had been opened with overnight leaders Boyd Martin and Tsetserleg (Windfall – Thabana, by Buddenbrock) unfortunately lowering three rails to add to their score. Boyd did jump a rare double clear with Yankee Creek Ranch LLC’s Commando 3 (Connor 48 – R-Adelgunde, by Amigo xx), good enough for second overall on a score of 36 (the tiebreaker would go to Will as he was slightly closer to the optimum time on cross country). Phillip Dutton jumped a clear round with 1.2 time to finish on the podium in third with the Possante Group’s Possante (Namelus R – Wendelien, by Otangelo) with a score of 40.6.

While any success in a sport that yields it so infrequently for so many is to be celebrated, Will didn’t have the spoils of victory at the top of his mind. Instead, he echoed the feelings we all have tonight as we await more updates on Liz Halliday‘s condition. She underwent surgery to relieve pressure from swelling in her brain yesterday at the University of Kentucky Medical Center after falling with Shanroe Cooley on cross country yesterday. Shanroe Cooley was uninjured, thankfully.

“I think [the] first thing on certainly my mind all day has been Liz,” Will said. “Just really wishing her [the] best possible recovery and sending her family and all the connections as much support as we can give them. This all seems very small potatoes in comparison. So just hoping she’s going to be back and just really pulling for her. That’s sort of all I want to say.”

We’re going to follow Will’s lead here, as certainly Liz is at the top of all of our minds. There will be stories to tell from this weekend, but it doesn’t feel like the appropriate time in this hour. Instead, I’ll drop a few notes on the show jumping finale below as a quick form of recap for those who weren’t able to tune in. You can also view replays from the live stream on Horse & Country here.

  • Time played a large role in the influence of this show jumping course, and the setting of the famous Rolex Stadium means it’s easy to take a wider turn or get somewhat lost in the vast expanse of the arena and thus take a little too much time on the clock. Just 7 of the 35 finishers produced double clear efforts, and those were rewarded with big moves up the leaderboard. Notably, Brooke Burchianti and Cooley Space Gray jumped all the way up from 38th after dressage to 13th after show jumping, adding just six seconds of time on cross country to their finishing score.
  • Lindsay Traisnel had a banner weekend for Canada, rising from 19th after dressage to finish fourth overall with one of those rare double clear efforts today with Bacyrouge.
  • After falling to eighth due to time penalties yesterday, Caroline Pamukcu fought her way back up to finish fifth in the final standings with King’s Especiale.
  • While poles were hitting the ground all around the course, the A element of the triple combination at question 5 caused the most difficulty, with nearly 30% of the field knocking it down.

All final scores from today can be found here. 

Tomorrow and Sunday, we’ll see the Novice, Beginner Novice, and Starter competitors. We’ll share links to the USEA’s ongoing coverage in our daily weekend Links columns, so stay tuned for much more from AECs.

USEA American Eventing Championships: [Website] [Schedule] [Live Stream] [Timing & Scoring] [Volunteer] [Official Photographer] [XC Courses]

EN’s remote coverage of #AEC2024 is brought to you by Ride Equisafe, who is on site in the vendor fair at the Horse Park this week to help you with all of your safety equipment needs! You can also shop online (and contact them for bespoke recommendations) here.

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