USA’s Laura Kraut landed victory in week seven’s five-star $425,000 Lugano Diamonds Grand Prix at the Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington, Florida, where Ireland’s Shane Sweetnam was on the podium in third place with James Kann Cruz (ISH).

It was a full house for Saturday night’s five-star competition, the second of the circuit at the venue. Steve Stephens built a big jumping and challenging track for the 38 starters, however seven made it through to the jump-off.

Shane Sweetnam and the Gizmo Partners LLC’s 10-year-old Irish Sport Horse gelding (Kannan x Cruising), bred in Co Galway by Patrick Connolly, set the standard with a clear round in 42.45 seconds and that was eventually good enough for third place and $63,000 in prize money.

Coming at the end of the class, Kraut and her Tokyo medal-winning partner, Baloutinue, showed the time was beatable, going almost two seconds faster, breaking the beam in 40.26 seconds. She had a nervous wait as her friend and teammate, McLain Ward, was last to go aboard Contagious, also part of that silver medal-winning team in Tokyo.

They came so close, but ultimately were just hundredths of a second slower in 40.56 seconds to take second place. Kraut earned $140,250 in victory. Jumping to fourth, Co Derry’s Daniel Coyle piloted Gisborne VDL to a career-high finish at five-star level for the 12-year-old Dutch Warmblood stallion (VDL Zirocco Blue x Goodtimes) owned by Ariel Grange.

Scope

“I knew it was going to be difficult,” Kraut commented afterwards. “The track he built was big and the oxers were really wide. For me, I thought it was probably the scopiest course we had this year, and I was happy with what I saw.

“I’ve not had many successful jump-offs and I’ve not jumped very many with him,” she added about the 13-year-old Balou du Rouet gelding owned by St. Bride’s Farm.

“I always try to go faster than I probably should, but he’s fast enough on his own, and tonight I just let him go his speed and that seemed to work better. He’s a trier, he’s elastic and he’s very careful.”

Sweetnam was once again delighted with James Kann Cruz, commenting: “I’m very happy with him. Every time I jump with him, I feel I have a chance, and every class I can go a bit quicker. We’re sat up here with two Olympic horses, so I couldn’t be happier.”

Speaking of the talent in course designers at WEF and the depth of field the venue attracts, Sweetnam concluded: “All the five-stars have different course designers that come over here and they want to prove something.

“Two weeks ago was an incredibly tough course and the standard was very high. Same again tonight, I thought there would be only three clear but it showed how good the standard was of the horses and riders. It proves that these are top five-star Grand Prix and you better bring your A-Game.”