Ireland on podium in Barcelona as Belgium claims 2018 Nations Cup title

That was the reaction of Irish show jumping chef d’equipe Rodrigo Pessoa after his squad’s third-place finish in this past weekend’s Longines FEI Nations Cup Final at the Real Polo Club de Barcelona.

The Nations Cup is the most prestigious jumping series for national teams in the world. It is organized by the Fédération Équestre Internationale and in recent years its Final has taken place at Barcelona’s Polo Club venue, which hosted equestrian sports during the 1992 Summer Olympics.

This year, 15 teams of horses and riders faced off starting Friday for a shot at the title: Germany, Spain, Austria, Ireland, Great Britain, Italy, Sweden, Belgium, Brazil, the United States, Canada, France, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates and defending champions the Netherlands.

After the first round, eight advanced to Sunday’s €1.25 million Final, all European: Sweden, the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, France, Ireland and Belgium. Standing in their way was a challenging 530 metre-long track laid out by Spanish course designer Santiago Varela, who commented after the competition that, “the course was difficult, tough and big…. and everything was connected.”

Indeed, just four of the 32 combinations who took it on managed clear rounds with no fences down over the 1.60m-high obstacles. And two of those came from Belgium: Niels Bruynseels (on Gancia de Muze) and Nicola Philippaerts (H&M Harley V. Bisschop). With their teammates Pieter Devos and Jos Verlooy each racking up 12 penalty points and the slowest time dropped, 12 points (in a cumulative time of 228.40 seconds for all the riders) ended up as the winning score, worth €417,000.

In second place was Philippe Guerdat’s France, with 16 points and a time of 223.69s, pocketing €251,000. The Irish – Billy Twomey on Kimba Flamenco, Anthony Condon (SFS Aristio), Michael G. Duffy (Lapuccino 2) and Darragh Kenny (Balou de Reventon) – had the same score as their French rivals but were slightly slower, totalling 231.13s.

While Pessoa regretted ‘not finishing the job’ in Spain, he was nevertheless pleased about the bounce-back from a disappointing Tryon World Equestrian Games in September, and expressed hope for the future of the team. “Overall we have introduced a lot of new horses and riders to our our squad which will be really good for the future,” Pessoa told the Irish Field.

As for winners Belgium, a neighbouring country of last year’s Dutch champions, chef d’equipe Peter Weinberg said, “We call ourselves the ‘Never Give Up Team’ because in the middle we had two with 12 faults already but still we were fighting to the last rider, so this victory means a lot to us!”

For its part, Great Britain, led by team manager Di Lampard, finished sixth in Saturday’s Challenge Cup for the seven nations which had not advanced to the last day. The United States and Canada were also in that group.

Highlights from Belgium’s winning Nations Cup round are here. It is expected by many in the sport that the Final will return to Barcelona for a seventh consecutive time (in its new format) in 2019, with the city’s history with the event dating back even further.