December 13, 2025 
“The horse jumped to win tonight, the rider rode to lose.”
The spotlight is on Kent Farrington, world number one, making his blue eyes glow in the darkened arena.
“That was stupid riding. That was stupid riding.”
But you have won this class twice before, protests the interviewer. We cannot see him, only Kent and the tip of the microphone, which catches his words and relays them from Geneva, Switzerland to a bedroom in Wellington, Florida, where sits your intrepid reporter. That’s me.
I apologize, dear reader, for having left you as long as I have. My editor has let me know I’ve been neglectful to my public, those masses of readers that look to me to define, in some small way, the sport we all love: show jumping.
And now a confession: over the summer I became a Scott Brash superfan. Someone told me this isn’t true, that what I really am is a Hello Folie superfan, but although that IS true, the rider himself got me, because I had cause to admire him not only atop Folie, but atop Hello Jefferson at Spruce and tonight atop Hello Chadora Lady.
And tonight Brash and Hello Chadora Lady are the winners.
It is the IJRC Top 10 Final, which takes place every year at CHI de Genève. The IJRC is the International Jumping Riders Club, the official voice of show jumping riders within the FEI. The class aims to showcase the top ten riders in the world, but you do have to be a dues-paying IJRC member. Let your dues lapse, or never pay them at all, and you’re out, a fate that has befallen more than one rider occupying the top ten.
This year I was excited, even more excited than usual, for this class that I have watched for nearly a decade. I thought I would finally see a woman compete in an event that I refer to routinely as a “sausage fest.” Whenever I say this, I always get protests and references to Meredith Michaels Beerbaum, who won the class twice in 2004 and 2006, and Jessica Kürten, who won in 2007. The last female participant was all the way back in 2016, Penelope Leprevost.
So why is number 7 in the world Laura Kraut out? Can it be that she’s indifferent to a BDC (you’ll have to work out what that stands for on your own)? The CHI de Genève website states: “Though out of action for health reasons since September, Guerdat will also be lining up, following the withdrawal of the USA’s Laura Kraut, whose horses are either unfit to compete or unavailable.”
Meanwhile, she’s winning nearly everything out in the deserts of California. It could be a withdrawal is strategic.
So let’s review who we have before we get more into the meat of this thing: Switzerland’s Steve Guerdat, returning to sport with incredible rapidity after back surgery; Ireland’s Daniel Coyle, making his first appearance; France’s Julien Epaillard, Netherland’s Harrie Smolders, Germany’s Richard Vogel and Christian Kukuk; another first-timer Gilles Thomas of Belgium; Britain’s Ben Maher and Scott Brash; and American and world number one Kent Farrington.
And back to my confession: with Kraut’s withdrawal, I switched from rooting for the sole female rider in the world’s top ten and shifted my allegiance to Brash.
I know, I know. First, I am a journalist (of a sort) and should maintain objectivity. Second, I am well-known as the Secretary-General of the Kent Dolls, the super-secret, ultra-exclusive Kent Farrington Fan Club.
In the wash rack this morning, we are throwing loose talk back and forth, going over the class. Someone says, “Kent needed to be perfect. Brash can lose his reins, lose his stirrups, halfway fall off and still win the class.” That someone was me, and writing it out sounds monstrously uncharitable, or pathetically indulgent, depending on whose side you’re on.
But let’s be honest: Brash’s helmet strap could disengage, and still!
Now the class. Two rounds, 1.60m. The first round, 12 obstacles, 15 efforts. Guerdat starts us off with a clear on Venard de Cerisy, igniting the hope that a Swiss just back from a significant medical intervention and sitting at 18th in the world might best them all, and in his home country. Guerdat has been the winner of this class three times previously.
Next goes Epaillard on Donatello d’Auge scoring 4 faults. So does Coyle on Incredible, Smolders on Monaco, and Vogel on Cloudio. Our next clear comes with the young Gilles Thomas aboard the also-young nine-year-old Qalista Dn.
Next comes Kukuk on Just be Gentle. He earns one stupid time fault, but puts down a clear round. Maher on Dallas Vegas Batilly knocks a fence.
And then we have number two in the world aboard Hello Lady Chadora, who gives the fastest clear up to that point, followed by world number one on Toulayna, who gives an even faster one.
This is significant because round two brings the riders back in reverse order of their scores, so the clearest and fastest has the advantage of going last.
The second round has 9 obstacles and 10 efforts. We start with a couple of big oxers, jump a cow wall, a unique obstacle that has a set of cows lined up atop an expanse of green holding even more cows, rollback 360 degrees and tight to a vertical and then to another oxer. This is followed by the nastiest part—a rollback to the 6th obstacle that would be simple and easy if you rode to the outside around that second oxer, but no one is doing that. Everyone is taking the tight inside turn, which puts you at an almost impossible angle to that skinny, flanked by two brightly-lit Christmas trees. (Christmas trees, dozens of them, decorate the arena.) Then we loop around again to a double and head to that IJRC skinny, which looks innocent, but turns out not to be at all.
The last jump is the iconic Rolex oxer.
We start with Smolders. Clear in 48.53. He ends 5th.
Next is Ben Maher. His attempt at the inside turn to the 6th obstacle ends with a refusal from the horse (she wasn’t feeling it) and fall from the rider. He is eliminated.
Vogel and Cloudio lay it out in a beautiful display of speed and precision, clocking the best time of the night, 44.24, but he is relegated to third by the 4 faults he scored in the first round. He is beaming in his post-round interview, suspecting his second round will prove to be unbeatable and happy to have bested his 10th-place finish last year.
And it is after the second round that riders are required to hop off their horses and head to the interviewer. This delights both the crowd and the English commentator, who states that in an interview procured so soon after the execution of a round, “They just open up. You see their soul, don’t you?”
A rider with a soul? The owner in me laughs.
Ah, stop it, Erica. You go from intense admiration to scorn in an instant.
But I do get what he’s saying. It’s been a constant argument between me and my editor that I should make at least some sort of attempt to get rider quotes, to attend press conferences. If everything said is boring it is the writer’s fault, not the athlete’s. Shouldn’t you ask better questions?
Well, I’m not there to ask questions. The commentators speculate that Maher will not even consent to grant the interview after his tumble, but they are wrong. This is a sport where losing is a daily occurrence, no rider is immune, and you don’t get to the top without being able to take it, again and again and again and again.
Were I to fall as Maher just has, and has doubtlessly done many times before, I would still be on the ground and then after, rather than have my wits about me for an interview, would be so hopped-up on FEI-banned substances, I would fail in coherency. If you’re wondering how I’d manage that, I’d instruct the banned substances to be administered via IV as I lay on the sand of the arena, under the lights, under the gaze of the how-ever-many spectators packed into the Palexpo Genève.
“It happens,” says Maher.
Next comes Epaillard, who begins the saga of the IRJC skinny. He knocks it down and ends 8th. He’s followed by Coyle, who also knocks it. Coyle is particularly irritated by the jump and suggests the show organizers “get rid of it for Sunday.” He ends in 7th place.
Christian Kukuk, burdened with that annoying single time fault from round one, goes slow and steady to try to get the clear. He doesn’t want another time fault, and takes out the vertical that must be approached at an extreme angle when doing the inside turn, which, as stated, no one can afford not to do.
Now I can admit that I have a slight fetish for Kukuk in an interview. I see him as a depressive who can be absolutely florid in his disappointment. But although he is disappointed in his riding performance, I am too with his interview performance, when he is not nearly half as emotive as I was hoping.
So here comes Guerdat to win it all despite his back and just being back. But his luck does not hold in the second round, he takes out two fences and finishes 9th.
Gilles Thomas follows his clear first round by also being cursed by that IJRC skinny. He ends 4th, just off the podium.
Now here comes another confession: I have fantasized about a Brash and Kent match race. Someone told me to pitch it to a show organizer and try to raise the millions necessary to get them to show up. So far I have failed to do this. Now I don’t have to, because here it is, right in front of me!
Brash was slower than Kent in the first round. Here he is. It looks good, but don’t you think they go a bit jittery in that inside turn? I think there’s space there. Well, there’s definitely space there for Kent to take it, because Scott stops the clock at 45.63, and Vogel gave us a time of 44.24.
And then there’s Kent, and the aforementioned stupid riding. Was the riding really that stupid? I don’t think so. He mentions in his glorious post-ride interview being spooked by that nasty IJRC skinny. Afraid to knock it, was he too cautious? He stops the clock at 45.79.
Some people start texting me after the result comes in, saying I “won” and I was “right” in picking Brash as the winner. But I have utterly forgotten him after Kent’s interview, I didn’t even bother listening to the winner.
I grab my computer to start writing this up so I can communicate the utter joy I feel at Kent’s interview. “I don’t care,” I say to Kent in my head, “about anything but how you don’t care about anything—but THIS.” I practically growl it. I think I’m a sucker for any kind of obsessive, how passion and some sort of inner necessity requires an extremity of action and effort in pursuit of a goal.
It’s competition. It’s sport. And for me—it’s beautiful.
