The Desert International Horse Park Roadrunners made their first win of the 2025-2026 Major League Show Jumping season a particularly memorable one as they sealed the Leg 7 victory in front of the home crowd on Friday. Representing the DIHP Roadrunners on their way to the win in Friday’s $200,000 MLSJ CSI5* Team Competition were Erynn Ballard, Kaitlin Campbell and McLain Ward.
“We play to win!” said Ballard. “You have a very strong group of winners riding on this team, so there’s nothing better than a win. There’s nothing better than a win at home. I think all of us rose to the occasion tonight.”
In MLSJ format, after all eight teams take on the first round, the top four teams advance to the first jump-off. There, each team selects two riders to represent them as they try to clinch a spot in the gold-medal podium jump-off round.
“Our strategy was to put McLain and I [in the first jump-off] to get us into the winning round,” explained Ballard of the approach taken by the Roadrunners and team manager Alex Wilson.
That strategy proved quite successful as both Ballard on Her Game Ball BG (Carambole x Burggraaf) and Ward on First Lady (Don diarado x Lordanos) produced clear rounds, with Ballard also earning the distinction of turning in the night’s fastest lap.
From there, it was Campbell’s turn to crank up the speed for the Roadrunners, as the gold-medal showdown came down to her and Maccabi United’s Daniel Bluman.
Bluman returned first aboard Hummer Z (Harley vdl x Hemmingway), and the pair threw down the gauntlet with a time of 44.95 seconds. However, Campbell and her top mount COSM Castlefield Cornelious (Cornet Obolensky x Contender) were ready to rise to the occasion. Thanks in part to some extra encouragement from teammate Ward, they blazed through the timers in 44.14 seconds to clinch the win for the Roadrunners.
“I’m absolutely terrified of letting McLain down!” said Campbell. “I heard him yell after jump number three, and I was like, ‘I am more afraid of McLain than pulling on the reins, so I’m just going to go!’ I think the advantage also I had tonight is I was on my best horse. I trust that horse so much. We’ve done so much together. I knew Daniel was maybe on a good horse, but not his best horse. I had my best horse in there, so I knew I could just let him go.”
With the win in Leg 7, the DIHP Roadrunners currently sit in third place in the overall MLSJ team standings with just two more legs remaining.
