The show jumping team competition was held July 30 for the 2010 FEI Adequan American Junior & Young Rider Show Jumping Championships presented by Gotham North at the Kentucky Horse Park. The Alberta team proved victorious in a tough nation’s cup competition in the Junior Riders section, while Zone 10 from the United States took home the gold medal for the Young Riders section.

Olaf Peterson, Jr. designed a tough course for each group of riders that included a double combination, a triple combination, and a tricky open water obstacle. Each rider completed a first round course and the rider with the greatest number of faults had their score dropped before having all faults added together. The six teams with the lowest fault count after the first round returned to tackle the course for a second time in the same format.

The riders from Zone 10 claimed an early lead following the first round of the Young Riders section with an eight-fault total. The team included Richard Neal (Cavalier Tommi Tank), Taylor Siebel (Thunder-Ball), Saer Coulter (Chalan), and Lucy Davis (Nemo). The team again sailed through round two with another eight-fault round for a two round total of 16 faults to take the Gold medal.

A jump off between Zone 5 and Zone 2 was needed to award the Silver and Bronze medals. Both teams had 20 faults going into the second round and tied with 12 faults at the end of the second round for a total of 32 faults creating a jump off between the teams. Zone 5 finished the jump off with 10 faults securing the Silver medal and Zone 2 had 20 faults securing the Bronze. Zone 3 finished in fourth place with 34 faults and Alberta/Manitoba, Canada took fifth place with 55 faults. Mexico was sixth with 61 faults.

The July 30 competition acted as a second qualifier for the Individual Junior and Young Riders finals, which will be held August 1 at the Main Stadium. Individual results are available here http://www.youngriders.org/Results.aspx .

The attention was on the Junior Riders earlier in the day when they competed for the top prize in the team competition. Alberta led both rounds with a total of 13 faults and was awarded the Gold medal for the Junior team. Zone 10, representing the United States, was in second place after the first round and held on to win the Silver medal with 24 faults. Zone 10 members include Kendall Skreden (Esperanto), Jocelyn Neff (Gaja 20), Lindsey Douglas (Pernot), and Audrey Coulter (Rodenburghs California).

It was a battle for the Bronze medal between Zone 4 and Zone 5, each tied with 24 faults. Zone 4 pulled away to only have eight faults during the second round to land the Bronze medal with a total of 32 faults. US Zone 5 took fourth place with 45 faults, and US Zone 7 secured fifth place with 97 faults.

NAJYRC Show Jumping will continue August 1 for the Junior Individual Final and for the Young Rider Individual Final. The top 25 individual riders from both the Junior and Young Rider groups will ride for the Gold medal during the final day of competition.

The United States Hunter Jumper Association Headquarters are located at 3870 Cigar Lane, Lexington, KY 40511. Phone: (859) 225-6700 Fax: (859) 258-9033 Website: www.ushja.org