IRISH riders Shane Sweetnam, Andrew Bourns and Jordan Coyle teamed up to win the first leg of the new Major League Show Jumping $200,000 Team Competition CSI5* at Traverse City in Michigan, USA.
The newly introduced 2021 Major League Show Jumping tour, hosted at North America’s premier equestrian venues, will feature eight teams of six high performance show jumping athletes from across the globe, and will offer over $6 million in prize money throughout the 10 events.
Sweetnam (Indra Van De Oude Heihoef), Bourns (Darquito) and Coyle (Picador) set the standard after their first round performances, with all three riding clear and quick to sit in first place with a combined time of 196.79.
In the third round jump-off, Coyle was chosen to go against the clock and had the best draw as last to go. Leaving nothing up to chance, Coyle and Picador blazed around the arena, completing the course 38.27 seconds with no faults to claim the top podium position.
Speaking about the team strategy, Shane Sweetnam said: “So obviously three strong combinations from the start — my mare has a bit of experience. I knew Andrew’s horse is a good horse and would be very close to clear or a clear round, if we needed a fast round at the end, Jordan is naturally a very fast rider and I thought he could add something at the end even in the first round.
“Then in the jump-off, I personally felt Jordan was the fastest, as he proved, he was three seconds faster than every other rider in the last round and I thought I was going pretty fast. Paul O’Shea, who I thought for sure was going pretty fast and then Jordan took two and a half seconds off me and Paul so it just shows how fast he is. I thought it was a good tactic and it worked out for us.”
Andrew Bourns added: “Like Jordan said, in a normal Nations Cup Jordan would have had to jump two rounds and then do the jump-off as well. I think this set-up and style of competition was good for Jordan because he can save his horse effectively in the second round and then really go for it in the jump-off.”