Last Updated on March 16, 2024 by adminahb
In an Irish clean sweep of the 2024 young horse finals at the Winter Equestrian Festival (WEF) on Friday, Philip McGuane piloted the Evergate Stables owned My Lady van de Krekel to win the featured $25,000 Lövsta Stuteri 7-Year-Old Developing Jumper Series Final.
The Lövsta Future Challenge is a well-established Swedish concept for talent development aimed at young grand prix horses and U25 riders in both dressage and jumping. The development tour’s vision is to provide the best possible conditions to strive for the highest level of international show jumping and hosted finals during WEF’s Horseware Ireland sponsored Week 10 at Wellington International.
Twenty-five qualified horses from the series entered the International Arena to jump courses designed by Oscar Soberon (USA). Thirteen advanced to a competitive jump-off with the lead changing hands several times. The best was saved for last, however, when Ireland’s Philip McGuane and Evergate’s Dutch Warmblood mare (Aganix du Seigneur x Numero Uno) stole the lead and the win. My Lady van de Krekel was bred by V.O.G. Bruynen in the Netherlands and purchased by the Evergate Stables team at the SLF Horse Auction in Belgium last summer.
“She’s super careful, not very big, but she has a lot of qualities,” said McGuane of the mare. “Harrie Smolders tried her and really liked her, so we only saw the videos and ended up buying her. She came over to us in August of last year.”
McGuane’s role with Evergate Stables has been to develop their young horses. He previously rode for Swiss Olympian Beat Mändli and U.S. rider Katie Dinan. Hailing from Ireland, the development of young stock is a staple of his career.
“Series like this are super important,” he said. “It’s very good money, competitive, had good courses, and nice rings. The numbers are growing every year in these classes – I’ve been here five years now and it’s doubled since. It’s more accessible in the U.S. now and we’re very lucky.”
Antonia Ax:son Johnson, owner of Lövsta Stuteri, congratulated the Final podium finishers and their trio of mares in celebration of the success of the developing jumper series, saying, “When we started this, we could hardly get five horses, and now this is taking off. We’re doing this, of course, in Sweden, but also internationally.
“Each year we are more excited about what is going on in Wellington,” she continued. “It was superb riding today, and what I really enjoy seeing is that you haven’t pushed the horses to a level that they cannot take. Over so many weeks, they seem to grow and understand. It’s really important to give them time to develop and, for us, always thinking about the horse is at the heart of our activities and horsemanship.”
Lövsta Stuteri also sponsors a development series for dressage horses at the Adequan® Global Dressage Festival in Wellington. This season, $100 from every entry in the two finals will be donated to Vinceremos Therapeutic Riding Center, a program that utilized the healing power of horses to serve people with physical, cognitive, and emotional disabilities of all ages in Palm Beach County.
Nayel Nassar and Ivory TCS Team Up to Win $32,000 Dodd Technologies 1.50m
Continuing a banner day for Evergate Stables on Friday, Nayel Nassar (EGY) piloted the newly acquired 11-year-old Dutch Warmblood mare, Ivory TCS (Falaise de Muze x Ukato), to the pinnacle position in the $32,000 Dodd Technologies 1.50m. As is often the case in the final few weeks of WEF competition, the 52 combinations came from a truly international field with over 14 countries represented in the field.
Oscar Soberon (USA) designed the single-round speed which saw minimal lead changes before Nassar laid down the gauntlet as only the eighth competitor in the order. The remainder of the field hurried in their efforts to overthrow his efficient time of 63.74 seconds, but none would close the gap.
“She’s been a winner for her whole career and we’re just trying to keep up that trend,” Nassar stated of the mare that was previously a mount of Ireland’s Daniel Coyle. “She’s proving herself to be a winner regardless of who’s on her. She’s so fast and she’s a little short strided, so all those lines I never have to pull and can just keep coming. She’s also quick in the air, so I think it’s a combination of all of those things.
“I felt like I could keep galloping the whole way around and she seems to like it,” he added. “She gets sharper the more you dare her and today was definitely her day.”
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