July 6, 2026 
“Look at the aggression!”
Mark Bluman is flying at full speed, without a pause, without a thought, towards the fearsome permanent double liverpools that mark the penultimate obstacle in the 2026 Sun Life Derby jump off.
The newly-minted Israeli is aboard 16-year-old Claron CR, his catch ride of the day, who gave one of only two clears in the lengthy first round.
The other belongs to Faultless star and new Canadian Kyle King aboard 15-year-old Odysseus.
It is rare enough to get a clear in the fearsome Spruce Meadows Derby that a jump off is not usually in the offing. If Spruce Meadows delights in their “thrills and spills,” the Derby has been, historically, the most notorious for giving footage.
But times have changed a bit, and compared to the Queen Elizabeth the day before, this derby is a genteel display of crack riding and horsemanship.
The course, over the years, has become a little more forgiving. The height came down from 1.60 to 1.45 and the notorious Spruce Meadows bank, the dizzying height of a small skyscraper, has been replaced with a smaller hill and a more gradual approach.
(It does, however, have the disadvantage of being right at the ingate, something Lillie Keenan’s horse Emerlon pointed out to her as he attempted an exit rather than head up the slope. Keenan corrected him and ended her near-perfect round with only a foot on the tape of the water jump.)
Of course, there were a few eliminations, as is only proper in a class where horses and riders used to smooth sand rings and the usual poles-and-standards fences suddenly find themselves faced with a dry ditch, built-in liverpools, a closed combination under a four-piece set of shadow-throwing trees, and the fright-and-stop-inducing Devil’s Dyke!
The delight for the spectator is seeing these poor show jumpers face down frightening obstacles that I assume are lightweight and de rigueur to an eventer.
The most dramatic elimination comes not at the Dyke, however, but at the water jump, when Juan Carlos Alvarez del Castillo Barragán approached with his ride, nine-year-old mare Happiness.
“Happiness isn’t happy to be here right now, that’s for sure,” intoned the announcer when the horse refused the first jump.
The rain has begun pouring down and Happiness’s rider has donned a long waterproof trench. Good thing, because it is not only the first jump Happiness is not happy with. She stops abruptly at the edge of the water and sends Alvarez del Castillo Barragán down her neck, reins still in hand, stripping the bridle off as he goes and leaving Happiness to run off to the far side of the ring, dragging the bridle along by the bit still in her mouth.
Alvarez del Castillo Barragán has taken a plunge pool-like dip, but he’s up immediately with a sheepish smile on his face. He’s no fool, he knows what’s coming—his “thrill and spill” up on the jumbotron and splashed across the livestream in an endless loop, because it’s Spruce and honestly—what is more fun than to see a rider take a dunk like that?
Richard Vogel is also up in this derby, and is determined to beat the time allowed by the biggest margin in history. This leads him up the slope to the bank in blistering fashion, driving deep into the jump that appears on the slope before the horse can see it, and an otherwise faultless round earns four, but he’s solidly 23 seconds under with a time of 131.38 where 155 is allowed.
Most disappointingly, for those hoping for a double victory, the newly-crowned winner of the ATCO Queen Elizabeth II Grand Prix, Abdulrahman Alrajhi turns in an almost perfect round, with just one rail keeping him away from challenging Bluman and Kyle for the win.
So it’s Mark Bluman and Kyle King over a short and very normal jump off course and the way Bluman attacks it, earning a time of 37.96, King hardly has a chance. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t give it a solid go. Flying at the liverpools the way Bluman did, however, results in a rail and he hasn’t made the time, although at 38.33 it is barely slower.
“Well,” Bluman says serenely afterwards. “It’s my first derby ever, so to start my derby career with a win is very nice.”
