The British team – here represented by Matthew Sampson, Joe Stockdale and Donald Whitaker, together with technical advisor Stanny Van Paesschen – topped last Saturday's CSIO5* 1.60m BMO Nations Cup at the Spruce Meadows ‘Masters’ 2025 in Calgary, Canada.
Teams from Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands and USA came to start in Saturday’s CSIO5* 1.60m BMO Nations Cup at the Spruce Meadows 'Masters' 2025 in Calgary, Canada.
Leopoldo Palacios’ track – counting 12 fences and 15 jumping efforts with the time-allowed set to 82 seconds – saw many rattle the vertical at number one, while the blue wall at fence number three, the Rolex-double at 4ab, the open the water at fence number five, the Canadian plank at fence six and the BMO triple combination at fence 9abc all demanded bravery and scope, as well as sharp focus until the very end. With the final fence on a bending line being the heartbreaker at the end, the faults spread out, while the time proved to be no issue.
With these images, we return to the course walk ahead of the competition – with some serious game faces.
All photos © Jenny Abrahamsson for World of Showjumping. No reproduction of any of the content in this article will be accepted without a written permission, all rights reserved © World of Showjumping.com. If copyright violations occur, a penalty fee will apply.
Full house in the International Ring!
Otto Becker, Daniel Deusser and Christian Kukuk.
A bit of a Dutch touch...
Big enough... Kevin Jochems inspects the Belgian oxer at fence number two.
The youngsters... Roy Van Beek and Thibault Philippaerts for Belgium.
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Photo © Jenny Abrahamsson/WoSJ.
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Photo © Jenny Abrahamsson/WoSJ.
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Photo © Jenny Abrahamsson/WoSJ.
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Photo © Jenny Abrahamsson/WoSJ.
Otto Becker's German team finished second in the end.
The Canadians; Ian Millar, Gail Greenough and Tiffany Foster.
Irish chef d'equipe Michael Blake having a chat with Bertram Allen.
Dutch chef d'equipe Wout-Jan van den Schans with Kevin Jochems and Harrie Smolders.
Who would you take directions from? The U.S. chef d'equipe Robert Ridland and Aaron Vale.
Eugenio Garza Perez was the Mexican anchor.
The pathfinder for the Dutch; Michael Greeve.
Team Vale in full focus-mode.
Harrie Smolders with Belgian chef d'equipe Peter Weinberg, Roy Van Beek and Olivier Philippaerts.
A small part of the stunning decorations at Spruce Meadows... Four tons of flowers were flown in from the Netherlands.
Donald Whitaker – who ended up jumping double clear – in deep thought.
Team Austria – Markus Saurugg, Katharina Rhomberg, Alessandra Reich and Max Kühner with chef d'equipe Angelika May.
The Allen-brothers, perfectly synchronised.
Tiffany Foster and Mario Delauriers having a chat.
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Photo © Jenny Abrahamsson/WoSJ.
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Photo © Jenny Abrahamsson/WoSJ.
Stanny Van Paesschen with the French chef d'equipe Edouard Couperie.
Brazil's chef d'equipe Piet Raijmakers with Luiz Felipe De Azevedo Neto.
Striding aheard... Brazil's Yuri Mansur.
Team Mexico.
The 2024 Olympic Champion Christian Kukuk in deep concentration.
And off we go... Richard Vogel leaves the arena.
Then