Landon and Contagious shine at the 2023 Pan American Games!

In recent days, the Chilean city Santiago has been the setting for the Pan American Games 2023, the American counterpart of the European Championship. The best riders and lady riders from North and South America appeared at the start and competed for both a team result with their country and for individual glory. Some offspring of our Zangersheide stallions clearly left their mark, as both the American rider Kent Farrington with the Comilfo Plus Z son Landon and his compatriot McLain Ward with the Contagio Z son Contagious each managed to win 2 medals!

With victories at both the CSI3* Grand Prix of Wellington and the CSI5* Grand Prix of San Miguel de Allende and Calgary, it has been a fantastic year so far for Kent Farrington and the 10-year-old chestnut gelding Landon, a son of Comilfo Plus Z and Quadrillo, who was born at the home of breeder Danny Nijs as Crack de Nyze Z. In recent days, that impressive list of achievements has been expanded somewhat, because after a gold medal with the American team on Wednesday, the successful duo also managed to win an individual medal yesterday. Before the start of the grand final, Farrington and Landon were still in 5th place with a score of 5.64, but yesterday they managed to take a serious step up in the rankings. During the first final round they impressed again, but an unfortunate back toe in the water saw them leave the ring with 4 penalties. During the second and decisive final round, Farrington and Landon managed to provide a flawless performance and with a total score of 9.64 seconds they secured the silver medal.

Kent Farrington: “As a more inexperienced horse coming into this event, I think he continued to grow and improve throughout the week, and I’m just really thrilled with the result. These were big rounds today and some real jumping and I think that shows what the Pan Am Games has become in our sport. I’ve had him since the end of his seven-year-old year and he’s now ten, so really coming into his own. He’s won two five-star Grand Prixs already and just jumped better and better as the week went on. He’s an incredible athlete and you can see that he will battle is way out and finished very strong.”

But Kent Farrington and Landon were not the only combination that managed to ensure blue/yellow success in Santiago. McLain Ward was also part of the American team with his 14-year-old chestnut gelding Contagious, a son of our grey stallion Contagio Z, in combination with For Keeps. After the team gold medal on Wednesday, Ward and Contagious even started the final as leaders yesterday with a score of 3.34. The pair were speedy and careful again during that first round, but a slight shift before the triple bar caused the back rail to fall to add 4 penalty points. When the last oxer also rolled out of the cups, it became a total of 8 penalty points, which made the rankings particularly exciting at that moment. During the second and decisive round, Ward and Contagious jumped another brilliant round, but due to a fault on the penultimate oxer they ended their championship with a score of 15.34, which earned them the bronze medal.

McLain Ward: “It was really a brilliant week for the American team. Really the goal for us here was to win a gold medal and qualify for Paris and I think we did that with a lot of style on Wednesday. I’m very proud of my team and my horse. Contagious really fought for me today. We got a bit unlucky in a few places, but there are always things that I can do better, but he performed great and I’m just really thankful to all of the people that make it possible for me to have a horse as special as him.”