THOROUGHBRED

Lisa Coupe has won the New Zealand league FEI World Cup final yesterday at Tauranga, with defending champ Katie McVean making history in taking the series for the third consecutive year.

McVean (Mystery Creek) and her home-bred mare Dunstan Daffodil - half sister to her World Champs superstar Dunstan Delphi who was sold for an undisclosed multimillion dollar deal to Saudi Arabia last year - had to settle for fourth today after having an uncharacteristic refusal at the wall in the jump-off.

While the series win gives them the right to represent New Zealand at the world final in Holland in April, McVean has decided she won't be going.

Last year she and Delphi finished sixth equal at the world final, which McVean says would be a big ask for Daffodil.

"I would have loved to take Daffodil but it is so far away and very expensive," she said. "She's never jumped that big either. At least with Delphi, we had been to Spruce Meadows, so I knew she could jump the heights."

McVean competed yesterday with a lower back fracture which she says wasn't painful as much as awkward.

"I just wasn't as strong as usual so I wasn't riding well but my horses looked after me."

She plans to have a quiet winter in New Zealand and will look at taking a few horses to the United States in 2013, and in the meantime, will defend the Olympic Cup at the New Zealand Horse of the Year Show in Hawke's Bay in March.

Nine started the world cup class in Tauranga yesterday, with four going clear and through to the second round. Coupe (Hawke's Bay) and her eight-year-old Bates Amaretto MVNZ were first out and set a cracking pace.

"When I first walked the course I thought it was challenging, but not too big," says Coupe, who had two into the jump-off.

She and her horses have truly hit a purple patch, but going first she knew she had to give it everything with former series winners Simon Wilson (Waipukurau) on Swinger and McVean on Daffodil following her.

Coupe laid a mighty challenge, going clear in 47.67. Wilson and the 17-year-old Swinger took a brick in the wall and stopped the clock at 52.63, while Coupe and My Ocean Wave dropped a rail and picked up time faults for third spot.

"Beetle (Amaretto) was just such a machine, he just couldn't have gone any better. I never really thought I would win the final, even though we've had a good lead-up."

She too is having a quiet couple of weekends before the series finals in Hawera in early March followed by the Horse of the Year Show later that month.

Coupe bought Amaretto as an unbroken two-year-old and has carefully brought him up through the grades.

"He's just an amazing horse," she said. "Incredible!"