Narrow defeats or convincing victories: how close has it come at the US Open venues?
Like world-renowned stadiums, eventing venues can adopt personalities of their own. Here, we compare them based on winning margins.
Wrigley Field, Madison Square Garden, Arrowhead Stadium. Like some of the most well-known sporting venues, eventing venues can adopt personalities of their own.
Stadiums are compared on fan decibel levels, seating capacity, or audience experience. Eventing venues are compared on cross country difficulty, field strengths, or arena footing (to name a few). With several ways to parse apart events, this time we’re boiling it down to winning margins: how many points does the victor win by?
Winning margins are a function of several variables: the strength of the field, the size of the field, and the conditions on cross-country day, for example. But as one, big, high-level analysis, its insightful and interesting. So here we go.
Parameters
We looked at winning margins within these boundaries.
Venues: US Open venues
Level:
- CCI4*, since all qualifiers are at that level
- Separately, we also looked at Morven Park CCI4*-L since that is the location and level of the final.
Timeframe:
- 2019-2024
- Why 2019? Because modern scoring started in 2019 so it allows the cleanest apples-to-apples comparison. (The dressage multiplier was gone starting in 2018 and, starting in 2019, SJ time penalties went from 1 penalty per second to the current 0.4 per second.)
The narrowest victories come at Tryon
The narrowest victory in the list comes from Tryon in April 2022 when both Doug Payne (Vandiver) and Phillip Dutton (Z) both finished on a score of 30.8. Doug started on a dressage score of 30 (Phillip 28) but Doug was closer to the time with just 0.8 added compared to Z’s 2.8. Both jumped clear. Both ended up with a HPR (High Performance Rating) of 97 – one of the highest ever recorded at the venue. That rating is driven a number of factors but primarily, who they beat and by how much. That day, Vandiver and Z finished ahead of Aachen winner Off The Record (Will Coleman) and Boyd Martin’s Tsetserleg.
Later the same year, we saw another narrow victory, this time from Julie Wolfert with SSH Playboy finishing on 55.3, just ahead of Ariel Grald and Forrest Gump 124 on a score of 55.4. This was a different quality of field, and a differently rated performance with a winning HPR of 57.
Emily Beshear’s 0.1 winning margin in the opening leg of the US Equestrian Open with Rio de Janeiro is joint second on the list.
Small Fields, Big Wins
Lauren Billys holds the biggest winning margin in our list when she dominated a small field in Twin Rivers back in 2019. Castle Larchfield Purdy started on a score of 29.8 and only added a couple of cross country seconds to finish on a score of 30.6. Liza Horan was second that day with a score of 66.8. The win didn’t translate to a big rating, coming in at 52.
Karen O’Neal (Clooney 14) had a big win at Aspen Farms in June last year, finishing 23.5 marks ahead of Sophie Click and Quidproquo. The winning rating was 46 – again coming from the small field ad without some of the superstars.
What about the final, a CCI4*-L?
This October, the US Open final will take place at Morven Park as a CCI4*-L. There will be (at least) $200,000 in prize money on the line. So how close might it be when deciding the biggest chunk of the winnings?
Well, historically, the winner of Morven Park CCI4*-L has triumphed by just 0.6 penalties to as much as 10.4. That 10.4 margin, produced by Boyd Martin and Commando 3, was largely thanks to the pair's fast and clean cross country round (fastest of the day) on a day when only seven of the 14 starters finished the course. On the other hand, 12 of the 16 starters completed last year's cross country with Julie Wolfert and SSH Playboy going on to win by 1.0 point, a victory earned by finishing on their dressage score.
What’s Next in the Open?
Having kicked off in 2024, the US Equestrian Open qualifiers will pick back up next Friday, March 7th when the leaderboard battle continues at Bouckaert.
For the most up-to-date series calendar and latest standings, visit the official US Equestrian Open Series hub at usequestrianopen.org.
Series Standings at the End of 2024:
See the full series standings, updated after each qualifier, here.
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