Philip McGuane guides My Lady Van De Krekel to top in $25,000 Lövsta Future Challenge 7-Year-Old Jumper final

In an Irish clean sweep of the 2024 young horse finals at the Winter Equestrian Festival (WEF) on Friday, Philip McGuane piloted the Evergate Stables owned My Lady van de Krekel to win the featured $25,000 Lövsta Future Challenge 7-Year-Old Developing Jumper Series Final.

The Lövsta Future Challenge is a well-established Swedish concept for talent development aimed at young Grand Prix horses and U25 riders in both dressage and jumping. The development tour’s vision is to provide the best possible conditions to strive for the highest level of international show jumping and hosted finals during Week 10 at Wellington International.

Twenty-five qualified horses from the series entered the International Arena to jump courses designed by Oscar Soberon (USA). Thirteen advanced to a competitive jump-off with the lead changing hands several times. The best was saved for last, however, when Ireland’s Philip McGuane and Evergate’s Dutch Warmblood mare (Aganix du Seigneur x Numero Uno) stole the lead and the win. My Lady van de Krekel was bred by V.O.G. Bruynen in the Netherlands and purchased by the Evergate Stables team at the SLF Horse Auction in Belgium last summer.

“She's super careful, not very big but she has a lot of qualities,” said McGuane of the mare. “Harrie Smolders tried her and really liked her so we only saw the videos and ended up buying her. She came over to us in August of last year.”

McGuane’s role with Evergate Stables has been to develop their young horses. He previously rode for Swiss Olympian Beat Mändli and U.S. rider Katie Dinan. Hailing from Ireland, the development of young stock is a staple of his career.

“Series’ like this are super important,” he said. “It's very good money, competitive, had good courses, and nice rings. The numbers are growing every year in these classes–I've been here five years now and it's doubled since. It’s more accessible in the U.S. now and we're very lucky.”

Antonia Ax:son Johnson, owner of Lövsta Stuteri congratulated the Final podium finishers and their trio of mares in celebration of the success of the developing jumper series, saying, “When we started this, we could hardly get five horses, and now this is taking off. We're doing this, of course, in Sweden, but also internationally.

“Each year we are more excited about what is going on in Wellington,” she continued. “It was superb riding today, and what I really enjoy seeing is that you haven't pushed the horses to a level that they cannot take. Over so many weeks, they seem to grow and understand. It’s really important to give them time to develop and, for us, always thinking about the horse is at the heart of our activities and horsemanship.”

Lövsta Future Challenge also sponsors a development series for dressage horses at the Adequan® Global Dressage Festival in Wellington. This season, $100 from every entry in the two finals will be donated to Vinceremos Therapeutic Riding Center, a program that utilized the healing power of horses to serve people with physical, cognitive and emotional disabilities of all ages in Palm Beach County.

You can full results here.