Two riders, one weekend, and a straight line back to the Hudson Valley. On Saturday, Nina Mallevaey and My Clementine won the $340,000 MLSJ CSI5* Grand Prix at Flintfields Horse Park in Traverse City, her first Major League Show Jumping title. A day later, Lillie Keenan and Fasther finished second in the CPKC ‘International’, presented by Rolex, at the Spruce Meadows ‘Masters’.

Both riders started the 2025 Highlands Cup Grand Prix at Keane Stud last October. Neither reached the jump-off that day. Twelve months on, with the Highlands Cup back at Amenia from October 8 to 12 as the fourth leg of Major League Show Jumping’s new season, they arrive with the best form of their careers, and a funny habit of turning up in the same start list, worth watching for when the Highlands Cup field is announced.

Traverse City

$340,000 MLSJ CSI5* Grand Prix

Twenty-nine combinations from eleven nations started the Grand Prix at Major League's second leg. Five came back for the jump-off. Mallevaey went third, stopped the clock in 40.56 seconds, and watched Sweetnam and Farrington both come up short chasing her. My Clementine had made her five-star grand prix debut a week earlier at Rockwood, Ontario, finishing seventh. This was only her third start at the 1m60 level. It is Mallevaey’s first Major League Grand Prix win and the second five-star grand prix title of her career, a year almost to the week after her first, on Dynastie de Beaufour at the Brussels Stephex Masters.

Traverse City and Spruce Meadows kept the two apart this weekend, but that is the exception. Since Amenia last October, Mallevaey and Keenan have shared a start list in thirteen individual five-star 1m60 classes, across North America and Europe aboard eight different horses between them, a coincidence worth tracking as much as a comparison.

HEAD TO HEAD

Thirteen Meetings Since Amenia 2025

Mallevaey leads, ten wins to three

They have also shared the ring three times in Nations Cup format, most recently at the Aachen team final in August. Mallevaey finished 8th individually there to Keenan's 32nd, though the American team ultimately beat the French team to the podium, 4th to 8th, a reminder that team results and individual form don't always tell the same story.

Top Results Since Amenia

Nina Mallevaey secures her second five-star win

Lillie Keenan half a second from a Rolex Major

Keenan’s run to second at Spruce Meadows came down to the end. Ben Maher and Enjeu de Grisien had already set an untouchable 41.40 seconds in the jump-off. Keenan and Fasther crossed the line in 41.85, just 0.45 seconds slower, from a starting field of 39 that had been cut to six. It was the closest Keenan has come to a Rolex Major victory and another reminder that Fasther has become one of the most exciting partnerships in American showjumping. Keenan has not finished ahead of Mallevaey in a shared field since that Rolex Grand Prix at Aachen in May, but two of the three occasions she has came at the biggest venues on the calendar, the kind of stage Highlands Cup has built itself into at Keane Stud.

Mallevaey and Keenan were both a part of the Highlands Cup Honor Roll, after being named for World Championship selection. Both jumped at Aachen. Now almost a year after leaving Amenia without a jump-off appearance, Mallevaey has returned to the top step in Traverse City, while Keenan has just come closer than ever to a Rolex Major victory at Spruce Meadows. They did it on the same weekend, without ever crossing paths.

The two have shared a start list thirteen times this year and will do it again at Amenia. This year’s Highlands Cup runs October 8 through 12 at Keane Stud, the fourth leg of Major League Show Jumping’s new season. Last year neither rider reached the jump-off at Amenia. Since then, both have claimed five star level victories, one has claimed a Major League title and the other has stood on the podium at a Rolex Major just this past weekend. Their paths have crossed thirteen times already. In October, Highlands Cup becomes the stage for another exciting meeting.