Top six finish for Team NAF in the Nations Cup at CSIO5* Rome
Saturday 28 May 2022
Team NAF contested the Nations Cup competition at Piazza di Sienna, the 89th edition of the CSIO5* in Rome, and finished in sixth place overall.
Ten nations tackled the twelve fence 1.60m track, for which the British team were drawn third to go. GBR’s pathfinder was Donald Whitaker from Barnsley, South Yorkshire with the 11-year-old bay stallion Di Caprio owned by Reitsportanlage Dagobertshausen GmbH & CO.KG, who were unfortunate to lower the back bar of the middle element of the combination, a round which Joe Stockdale went on to match, with the 11-year-old bay mare Equine America Cacharel owned by Joy Cocklin and Laura Stockdale. Their second rounds saw them produce 8 faults and a clear round respectively.
James Wilson and Imagine de Muze, a 14-year-old black mare which is owned by his partner Heather Larson, lowered a few poles in the first round but a much improved second round saw them lower just one pole in the middle of the combination, the same fence that had caught Joe and Donald out previously.
The best of the British went to Ellen Whitaker and Equine America Spacecake, a 10-year-old black mare owned by Tilly Shaw, who switched teams from CSIO3* Lisbon to Rome a few days before the show started due to a late withdrawal. Ellen and Spacecake produced two foot-perfect clear rounds which kept GBR in contention and secured an eventual sixth place. GBR finished on a total score of 12 faults.
France won the competition finishing on a clean sheet with six out of eight clear rounds. In a close second place was the team from Belgium who finished just behind France with 4 faults on the board. Third place was Netherlands, fourth went to USA and Canada finished in fifth place.
