Team Erik Duvander (Photo: USEA/Leslie Mintz Photos)

It was a great weekend of competition at the Cloud 11~Gavilan North LLC Carolina International CCI and Horse Trial in Raeford, N.C., and the USEF/USET Foundation North American Futures Team Challenge added an extra element of excitement to the event.

Eight athletes had the opportunity to compete on two teams: Team Erik Duvander and Team Leslie Law. They started their week with two days of team training at the Carolina Horse Park before the competition got underway on Thursday with the dressage.

Team Leslie Law took the early lead on a team score of 92.2 after dressage; however, Team Erik Duvander was hot on their heels with a 95.8. Show jumping would see a reversal with Team Erik Duvander taking over the lead as three of the four team members kept all the rails up. Team Leslie Law was only eight points behind heading into cross-country, and with time notoriously hard to make on Ian Stark’s course it was still anyone’s game. In the end, the entire Team Erik Duvander added just two time penalties to earn the title of first ever USEF/USET Foundation North American Future Team Challenge Victors.

“Winning is obviously important because we tried to make it feel like a real competition, but in the end I am more pleased about how the whole thing rolled out. [Practicing the team environment] was quite useful,” said Erik Duvander, U.S. Eventing Director of High Performance.