Europe takes the Riders Masters Cup for the second year in a row

In New York, the last class that was scheduled for today was the Riders Masters Cup. In this class, five riders from Europe competed against five riders from the US for the Riders Masters Cup. Last year it were the European riders who took home to victory so the American riders were very willing to show their worth in front of their home crowd.

In the first round the biggest task of the riders was to jump a clear, fast round because a winning round was scored by 10 points. A rider could win the battle if he was faster than the other rider or if he had less jumping penalties. After the first round, Europe stood on the lead. Pius Schwizer (Ulane Belmaniere) won his battle against Lillie Keenan (Chacolette), Harrie Smolders (Cas 2) lost from Kristen Vanderveen (Bull Run's Faustino de Tili), Darragh Kenny (Sweet Tricia) won from Laura Chapot (Chandon Blue), Olivier Philippaerts (Isolente Des Dix Bonniers) lost from Ward McLain (Rapidash) and Edward Levy (Rebca LS) won his battle against Devin Ryan (Cooper). This results meant that the European riders had an advantage of 10 points entering the second round.

In the second round, a winning round got scored 20 points and a loosing round 10 points. This time only the time counted and a jumping penalty meant three penalty seconds for the riders. LillieKeenan was the only American rider who won her battle against Olivier Philippaerts. All the other European riders won their battles by jumping super fast round, Darragh Kenny created some excitement by almost falling of his horse, but in the end he was still able to win his battle. This brought the team total of the European team on 130 points, against 90 for the American team.

Click here for the results