July 12, 2026 
I have just witnessed the jump off of the year.
I don’t know what you guys are doing or where you’ve been or where you’re going, but you might as well just stop because whatever happens at the World Championships, whatever happens when Richie goes for his Grand Slam title—is it gonna be as good as this?
Maybe I should take some time and catch my breath after what I’ve just seen and not dive right for the page, because there is little for me to say after that display of crack riding other than what I was just saying to a rider who has found herself frustrated after so many downturns in the sport—
“This is also a love story!”
This is also a love story and maybe that jump off wrote the end of it or at least one glorious ending.
Now let me go back a little to the beginning, which puts us in Sweden at the Falsterbo Horse Show on a beautiful Sunday afternoon with packed stands and a sunny sky overhead.
We have a startlist of 50 riders that includes four of the world’s top ten and 16 of the world’s top 50.
A tough course, but great riding left us with 14 clears and a total of 16 on a mere four faults, including world number one Kent Farrington, hometown favorite Peder Fredricson, Darragh Kenny, Martin Fuchs, Nicola Philippaerts, Kevin Staut, Abdel Saïd, Thibeau Spits, and Sophie Hinners.
Imagine the jump off we could have had, had four-fault-itis not afflicted some of the world’s best!
The first rider to go in the jump off of the year was Luis Alejandro Plascencia O, who gave a nice clear round and not a slow one at 44.98 seconds, but how was he to know what was to come?
Some suspected what was to come and turned up the pace to make ’em chase, but that resulted in a scattering of rails. Most heartbreaking was the ride by Charlotte Jacobs, who is on the scene and ready to make people sit up and take notice. She absolutely blazed the course on 11-year-old gelding Playboy JT Z. The commentator referred to her ride as “Vogel-esque,” if that gives you any indication.
Jacobs is currently sitting at 51st on the world ranking list, but the rides she’s been giving lately, including treating the Traverse City Horse Show the way Vogel treats Spruce, is a pretty clear indication she’s on the rise.
She clocked a time of 40.10, more than four seconds faster than the leader, showing everyone what was possible, but unfortunately dragged down the penultimate fence.
And in comes Ben Maher and stallion Point Break, only fifth to go out of fourteen, but holy $%&! It’s form like Rotterdam!
Let me tell you about the rollback in the jump off. You come off an oxer-oxer double and rollback 270 degrees to a skinny fragile vertical, which only has the advantage of not being set too high.
Ben did the “inside” turn, which means he went in front of some little greenery feature that probably covers a sprinkler head or something and headed to that skinny so tightly who thought it possible?
But his drive to the double had Point Break hanging in the air just a bit and he crossed the finish at 40.21.
So we knew it was beatable, the time at least, because Jacobs had done it. But could you do it without wiping out a rail?
Nayal Nassar tried—no. Then young Swiss rider Gaëtan Joliat—no. Trevor Breen tried, but his less-experienced horse wasn’t feeling it and they ended up eliminated.
Then we had Danish rider Andreas Schou on 13-year-old gelding Napoli Vh Nederassenthof and wow did they give us a display! They started out looking quite reasonable in their approach, with Napoli’s enormous stride eating up the ground.
Then he hit the inside turn to that little skinny, which no one thought the horse had the agility to do and, negotiating it successfully, he threw caution and style to the wind and absolutely motored down to the last two fences!
He shaved 0.23 off of Maher’s time and slotted himself into the lead.
The crowd was exultant, expecting a Scandinavian winner.
But I knew Richie “Hands/Sore Ankle” Vogel was coming up and honestly, I started to get a little scared. What was he gonna have to pull out to beat Schou? Because we all knew Vogel was either gonna beat Schou or crash spectacularly while trying.
But first—Guerdat and his 12-year-old gelding Albfuehren’s Iashin Sitte.
He wasn’t riding a big-strided thing, so his advantage was a track so tight it was like shopping at Brandy Melville. The turnback to the skinny inscribed a circle like two meters in diameter, like he was riding a dressage horse in a piaffe pirouette.
Let me quote the commentator: “This is ridiculous!”
It totally was, and Guerdat clocked a time of 38.68, more than a second faster than Schou.
But we still had Vogel and CLOUDIO, his magnificent gray stallion. Hadn’t they gotten a stop in the Nations Cup? Wasn’t Vogel’s ankle bothering him to the point that he was something of an Achilles this week, only a little further up the leg?
Uh, no.
He flashed through the rollback, tearing up the ground and flew without hesitation at the last and went 5/100ths of a second faster than Guerdat!
At this point I’m out of breath though I’m sitting. Well, kinda sitting but in a way that has me twitching all over because—wow!
Now we have one last to go, but what chance does he have after those performances? Ok, yeah, he’s Irish and ok, yeah, he’s fifth in the world and ok, yeah, he has James Kann Cruz, but isn’t that horse a bit big? I mean he has a huge stride, but he’s a bit big to negotiate that rollback smoothly, isn’t he?
(The camera keeps flashing back to Vogel and Cloudio, because they think they know who the winner is.)
Well, if you want to know, after 13 riders tearing up the ground before him, Shane Sweetnam does not negotiate the rollback smoothly, James Kann Cruz has his hind end slip out from underneath him.
Unbelievably, they recover instantaneously and jump the skinny successfully and then it’s on—he gallops full out at the penultimate fence, a move that did not reward Jacobs but rewards him and then on to the last and—
“Oh, guns blazing! Blazing a trail! Shane Sweetnam, James Kann Cruz throws everything at it and he’s gonna get it!” shouts Steven Wilde as they cross the finish with an unimaginable time of 37.68!
And I jump up from my seated position so fast my head swirls and my vision goes black and my eyes fill with stars. Because—
Wow! That was some show jumping!
(Note: “This is also a love story” taken from the title of the book This is Also a Love Story by Sally Hayden. And remember—it is.)
