April 11, 2026 
There he is, winning again—a different day, a different horse, but the same result.
And here I am, kicking myself for not heading to Fort Worth, Texas to be there in person. How maddening to hear Lauren Hough, technical expert and livestream commentator, describe her trip to the famous Fort Worth Stockyards to get a gander at those Texas Longhorns performing their twice-daily cattle drive!
And how maddening to see Chilean rider and equestrian influencer Gabriela Reutter “showing a little ass,” i.e. walking around a frolicsome miniature donkey with another equestrian influencer. I am certain, although my follower numbers are much lower and my ass much bigger, that I could have made a third!
And did I just see Martin Fuchs in a cowboy hat?? For Fuchs’ sake!
Talk about FOMO. I watched the whole show being set up for the past month on Insta, where the Split Rock Jumping crew documented the decorating of Dickies Arena and somehow I thought I could be happy sitting at home?
(As a side note, I don’t really believe in FOMO, I’m much more of a JOMO person—joy of missing out. I revel in JOMO on a nearly daily basis, but come on—Fuchs is wearing a cowboy hat!)
But let’s get to the main point. Kent Farrington won. Kent and Greya. Geez, I am hardly off my high from WEF 12, when they wrote us such a wonderful ending to the season. But how can we talk of endings now, when they took a short week off and then headed to Texas where they’re apparently planning a hat trick.
Shut up! Ugh, you’re going to jinx it and then you’re going to hate yourself! Don’t talk about a hat trick!
Let’s review where we are. We are two days in to a three-day competition, the final leg of which will happen on Sunday.
On Thursday we began with the first competition, a speed class. Kent won, riding Toulayna. That gave him 36 points. The other 34 riders are giving points, 34 to 1, descending order of placement.
Then Day 2, Friday’s jump-off class. The riders go in reverse order of their placings on the first day, which, of course, put Kent last to go. First to go was a rider from Uzbekistan, then a rider from the Republic of Georgia, then a rider from Turkey.
It is the rider from Turkey that starts me crying during his interview after his round, something I find a bit unusual. Why are you crying? I ask myself, as the young man expresses his enthusiasm and passion for the sport and his gratitude at being in Fort Worth, competing against so many of the best.
I must be feeling sentimental.
It’s not helped by the interview with Norwegian rider Oda Charlotte Lyngvaer, whose fast, clear round has her in tears in response to the very first question.
“I was already crying!” I shout at my TV. “I was crying first!”
This is World Cup, where you have individuals competing from around the world, so you don’t just see the best, but also get a chance to see up-and-comers and lesser known riders from countries not usually represented on the big stage.
There’s New Zealander Julie Davey, who posted a great two-time-fault round with her 12-year-old horse LT Holst Freda, who she has had since she was two: “My husband is a farrier, he’s the only one who’s ever shod her, we don’t have a groom, so—we’re the only ones who’ve done anything with her.”
That’s partnership!
But back to the competition. It’s not an easy test, there in Dickies arena, but by the end of the first round, we have seven who’ve made it into the jump off. We have one very narrow escape with world number 3 Richard Vogel, who dropped a rail and then took out the last fence in spectacular fashion, even going so far as to fall off his horse, BUT—somehow managed to somersault his way past the timers, so that it was not an elimination, but simply an 8-fault round.
Because in this strict competition where all three classes count, if you retire or get eliminated, you’re out.
The jump off begins with our tearful Norwegian, who lays out a fast clear round to start things off. She’s followed by three-time Olympian, but first time World Cup Finalist for Japan, Eiken Sato.
His jump off is a fast one, but with a rollback tight to a vertical over a liverpool that the horse only sees at the last moment, he struggles a bit to pull off the clear—and does it, beating Lyngvaer’s time by more than a second.
The next two riders, Katherine Dinan of USA and Rene Dittmar of Germany, pull down rails. Then Kevin Staut of France comes with Visconti Du Telman and puts up a clear that slides him into second place behind Sato. Steve Guerdat pulls a rail, finishing fifth in the class, but still second in the overall standings, since Daniel Deusser, number two heading into the second competition, had a rail earlier and didn’t make the jumpoff.
And then all we have left is Kent. Kent and Greya. I have to admit to feeling a slight pang for Sato. I can’t help but wonder what if Greya gets a rail? I can’t help just for like half a second rooting for the underdog!
Underdog! Who is a bigger underdog than Mr. Farrington, who came from a non-equestrian background and started out taking lessons at a carriage-horse stable in downtown Chicago? I find a 20-year-old article musing that the 25-year-old rider is not one to rest on his laurels, despite his second-place finish in a 100k class in Florida.
Ha!
I’m pretty sure Kent’s laurels have never been rested on. Where others may have laurels indented with the shape of their buttocks like a well-worn couch cushion, Kent’s are uniformly spotless.
So here they come, and there they go, carving up the track like a knife cutting butter. They cross the finish flawlessly, stopping the clock at 34.36, beating Sako’s time of 34.90. Staut is third with a time of 35.79.
And now we wait for Sunday, and the possibility that Kent will—shut up! Don’t jinx it!
Just tune in.
