Great Scott! The Brits Take Barcelona

And we have a jumpoff!

We are in Barcelona at the Longines League of Nations Final. Eight nations plus the host country, Spain, are battling it out for the 2025 League title.

It’s been a day of sport! In the first round, some thought course designer Santiago Varela of Spain was giving it away, with so many near-perfect rounds. But near-perfect was the most anyone could hope for. With so many four-fault rounds, no team ended with a zero score, and only one—Netherlands—finished on four.

We had Belgium and Spain at the bottom, with scores of 10 and 20 respectively. The rest of them—Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, USA, and Ireland—were all sitting on eight, with less than a second separating all but one team.

But a Nations Cup format is nothing if not a test of endurance, and with the Longines League of Nations, we add a twist: the second round calls back only three of the four riders, with all scores counting.

Varela has looked over his course and makes one adjustment for the second round: he’s put a tall skinny after the water jump, and he moves it from 1.59 meters to 1.61. Two extra centimeters. Two extra notches of difficulty.

Me, I love the course. Rails come down at various places, which is the mark of a well-rounded course. We start with a lofty vertical, which comes right near the ingate and catches more than a few. We have wide oxers and a rollback to the water, which sports a short wall with wavy openings that find the horse’s eye and flatten the jump. Then comes that skinny. Later, we have a lofty vertical over a liverpool, looking straight at the VIP. A triple bar as the first part of a triple? I didn’t even know that was a thing. It’s a triple bar-oxer-vertical triple and man you need scope as well as the ability to sit back and be careful at the end. Speaking of being careful at the end, the last jump is an enormous vertical topped by a flimsy little plank. That plank rains down all afternoon!

A course made for good sport.

Going in, Belgium is a favorite. Their team is awash with stallions-I-have-a-crush on, plus that fiesty mare Katanga, who ends up giving one of only two double-clear performances (the other belongs to Bertram Allen and Qonquest de Rigo).

But my stallion loves are just a little less than perfect today, with both Ermitage Kalone and Impress-K putting a foot in that tricky water. Team Belgium ends up just off the podium in fourth.

Team USA has great rounds from Laura Kraut and Bisquetta, with just barely a foot on the plasticine of the water jump in the second. It is so close the judges have to bend over and use a spyglass (only a slight exaggeration) to find a hoofmark. Callie Schott fights like a warrior with Garant and is only foiled in the end by that last, plank-topped fence. Karl Cook misjudges a distance with the divine Caracole, taking off early and landing nearly on top. Team USA ends up fifth.

Italy came to play after their hard-fought and spectacular second place in St. Tropez, but somehow disaster strikes for Guilia Martinengo Marquet and Delta Del’Isle, who seems to have not seen the fence at all until he stops in front of it, and Italy ends up eighth.

Germany, who is sporting Richard Vogel and United Touch, starts the second round with an uncharacteristic eight faults from Sophie Hinners. They’re still in the game until Marcus Ehning and Coolio notch up one stupid time fault, which leaves them after two riders on a score of 17.

But here we are, with one rider to go. Ireland and Great Britain are in the lead and tied on 12. France and Netherlands trail them just one rail away at 16.

Ireland is first up with its third rider, Billy Twomey on 10-year-old stallion Jumping Jack van de Kalevallei, a gleaming black looker by Kannan. They knock the liverpool vertical and bring the team to a score of 16.

So here we have Great Britain and the even-greater Scott Brash and Hello Jefferson. All they gotta do to win the whole thing is lay out a clear round, certainly possible as they did it the first time around. But they decide to keep things interesting by taking out the oxer in the middle of the triple, bringing Great Britain to a score of 16, equaling Ireland, France, and the Netherlands.

We know we have a jumpoff, but we still have two riders from two teams to go. France is on 16. If their last rider throws down a clear, they’ll join the jumpoff. Instead, Olivier Robert contributes a 13-fault round that includes a strange miscommunication that leads the horse to go left when he needed to go right, adding time to two knocked fences for a score of 13.

So France is out of it, ultimately finishing seventh, but where will Team Netherlands, leading after the first round, land? In the jumpoff or..?

It’s an 8-fault score and Team Netherlands finishes 6th.

Two teams are left to battle it out for the win. Team Germany is in bronze-medal position on 21 faults, with Vogel and United Touch adding four faults with the last fence.

How do we determine the winner in the LLN when two teams are tied on equal scores? Well, pick your best pair and send them into the ring on a short course. Varela has designed a tricky thing, all individual jumps and looping rollbacks—no less than five of them—with just one little double added in. We end with a delicate vertical heading towards the ingate.

Ireland has picked Billy Twomey and Jumping Jack as their representative and wow, do they put down a beautiful round. They are all smoothness, angles. They carve up the course. I imagine them like a voluptuous woman embracing her curves. They swing out just a bit to hit that fifth jump—a wide oxer—straight, head through the double and gallop at the last vertical. It is so gorgeous. It can’t be beat.

The Irish are all smiles and cheers under the glittering Spanish sun. The only problem? We have Brash and Hello Jefferson left to go. We have a partnership of 8 years, fresh off a win in the richest Grand Prix of the year up there at Spruce Meadows.

It’s eight years versus eight months, the Jumping Jack-Twomey partnership being newly minted.

“I don’t know if he can gallop at the last jump like Billy did,” says Jessica Kürten, the FEI commentator. “There’s not a whole lot he can do. That turn back to number five…”

She catches herself: “Why did I say that? ‘I don’t know if he can turn back’—we’re talking about Scott Brash here!”

Yeah, that’s who we’re talking about. And if I weren’t already the most Brash-ionate fan after watching his forays with Folie, I am now.

Because he does it. They do in 38.19 what Twomey and Jack did in 38.42.

Britain has the gold.