Kent Farrington secures 2016 American Gold Cup success in Longines FEI World Cup qualifier

Riding Gazelle, the current world number two on the Longines Jumping Rankings edged out compatriot Charlie Jacobs on Cassinja S to take the title.

A week of world-class show jumping competition came to a conclusion on Sunday with the highly anticipated $216,000 Longines FEI World Cup Jumping New York CSI four-star class being one of the highlights.

Forty horses and athletes who qualified for the week’s main event in Friday’s $86,000 American Gold Cup Qualifier came forward to not only compete for the coveted prize money but also for valuable ranking points towards the Longines FEI World Cup Jumping North American League.

Course designer Alan Wade set a technical and challenging 13-fence first round track and Jacobs and Cassinja S were the first clear pathfinders, making the course look effortless and easy.

However as rider after rider followed and attempted to finish fault-free over the first round track, but none were able to do so until Farrington – as 36th in the order, piloted Gazelle to the last faultless finish of the first round, to secure a jump-off between him and Jacobs.

It was the latter who returned to the field first to tackle the nine-fence jump-off course and the pair started strong over Wade’s shortened track, but collect 4 faults to their time of 48.690 seconds.

It meant all Farrington had to do to win the class was jump clear and he did just that crossing the finish line in 53.180 seconds with no faults to claim victory.

The top five placings all went to USA riders as taking third place was Lauren Tisbo on Coriandolo Di Ribano, who were the fastest of the riders with a single time fault. Laura Kraut on Confu finished in fourth place on one time fault in the first round, while McLain Ward on Carlos Z finished in fifth place on four faults.

After the Longines FEI World Cup leg in the North American League at the American Gold Cup on Sunday, Jacobs leads the East Coast League while Karl Cook tops the West Coast League.

Jacobs has collected a total of 26 points in the East Coast League, and is followed by Farrington, Jonathan McCrea and Canada’s Keean White all on 20 points. Cook tops the West Coast League on 20 points after his win at Thunderbird Show Park in August and is followed by Denmark’s Nikolaj Hein Ruus and Egypt’s Nayel Nassar both on 17 points.