Carolina is Set to Upset the Trends
With Boyd Martin playing the long game, Caroline Pamukcu chasing back-to-back wins, and Monica Spencer’s four-star consistency, Qualifier 5 is a wide-open battle.
Carolina CCI4*-S first ran in 2014 and every winner since 2015 (nine consecutive winners) has won from a dressage score in the 20s. This year, the pre-competition favorite on the EquiRatings Prediction Centre is the only combination in the field with a dressage 6RA (six-run average) in the 20s. They enter on a 23% win chance.
So will it be that simple? Can Boyd Martin and new partner Cooley Nutcracker lead Qualifier 5 of the US Equestrian Open from start to finish and continue the trend? It just might not be quite that simple.
A “True Honor”
Boyd Martin sits in a familiar position as the highest ranked US eventer in the FEI World Rankings, currently ranked #10. But he’s a rider that will sacrifice a short-term win for a longer-term plan and that may just be the case in this instance. They say eventing is the greatest test of horse and human partnership, but creating that partnership takes time. Boyd takes over the reins from a recovering Liz Halliday, and his sights are set on future targets:
“This will be my and Cooley Nutcracker's first FEI event together. My plan is to use it as a competition to build our partnership and gain a qualification towards Tryon 4L. In short, I will be coasting around not taking any chances.”
On taking over the reins from his Olympic teammate, Boyd couldn’t have said a kinder word:
“It’s a true honor and privilege to campaign Liz’s top horses whilst she is working hard at her recovery.”
Cooley Nutcracker with Liz Halliday at the Paris 2024 Olympics. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Wide Open
Top level eventing isn’t always an open affair, but this edition looks to be exactly that. Those who shine in the first phase can often build a lead that is insurmountable. Five of the ten previous Carolina 4*-S winners have led the dressage phase. However, with the likely dressage leader (Boyd & Cooley Nutcracker) taking their time on the cross-country, the obvious starting point for a likely winner is last week’s Qualifier 4 victor, Caroline Pamukcu.
Pamukcu only needed 5 weeks to recover from the birth of her first child when winning Bouckaert on HSH Double Sixteen, so don’t expect the five-day turnaround between series qualifiers to present any challenge to the winning-most international eventer of the past two seasons.
She is double-handed near the top of the EquiRatings Prediction Centre with both King’s Especiale and She’s The One likely to feature at the top of the final leaderboard.
US versus the rest…
For Pamukcu to make it back-to-back wins, we'd expect her to have to climb the leaderboard as she did last week. Her strongest challenger is most likely to come from outside the home nation, as US-based New Zealander Monica Spencer will start with a strong first phase aboard her long-term partner Artist.
Spencer has contested 18 four-star shorts, withdrawn from two, and finished in the top eight on every other occasion. That remarkable consistency spans four different horses and goes back as far as 2012. However, her only win came at Matamata on home soil back in 2022 with her partner for this weekend.
With Spencer likely to start strong and Pamukcu looking to chase her down, other notable combinations include Will Faudree aboard the experienced PFun. If this combination can jump clear through the cross-country obstacles, then we expect them to sit alongside, if not surpass, the main contenders of this wide open qualifier.
Will Faudree and Pfun. Photo by Leslie Mintz.
All the facts, stats and key contenders
The reality of this sport and this qualifier is that nothing will be easy or even simple when it comes to taking the top spot. For all the key insights, past trends, facts and stats around who wins and who looks strongest in each phase, check out the official fan guide here.
Guides for the Open series are always accessible in the Fan Guide section of this site.
What's Next
After Carolina, the US Equestrian Open heads to The Event at TerraNova at the end of March.
Stay Connected
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