Over 35 entries competed in the CANA Cup 1.60m to round out Thursday of the Spruce Meadows 'Masters' CSIO5*. It was a competitive field filled with Olympians, World Champions, and some familiar 5* Grand Prix Champions from the 2022 Spruce Meadows Summer Series. The challenging course was 510m in length, over 12 obstacles (15 jumping efforts) and had to be through the finish line in 77 seconds or less. Six of the horses and riders passed the tests on course by FEI Course Designer Leopoldo Palacios (VEN) and advanced to the jump off.
The 4th ranked rider in the world, Conor Swail (IRL), is no stranger to Spruce Meadows and aboard his partner Count Me In (Count Grannus), took out all of the stops. The pair were the only ones to leave all the fences up in the jump off and sailed through the finish line in a time of 43.46s.
Germany's Daniel Deusser followed on stage aboard Harrie Smolders his former Bingo Ste Hermelle (Number One D'Iso Un Prince), while Marc Dilasser and Chamann HAS (Mylord Carthago) completed the stage.
“Today is a very important day for me. It’s important to get things done early and to get qualified then have a couple of days to relax and think about it ahead of Sunday. I’ll give them another round tomorrow, but it’s important to get those rounds in and getting the horses comfortable and giving them a good rest before we have to pull out all of the stops on Sunday.”