KMS Ali Shines in Lövsta Future Challenge 7-Year-Old Developing Jumper Final with Michael Hughes
With an all-American podium in the $25,000 Lövsta Future Challenge 7-Year-Old Developing Jumper Final, the future of show jumping in North America was bright on Friday at Wellington International. Highlighting the tenth week of the Winter Equestrian Festival (WEF), Michael Hughes and KMS Ali, owned by Sweet Oak Farm, took top call after only six weeks together.
The Lövsta Future Challenge is a well-established Swedish concept for talent development aimed at young grand prix horses 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 WEF’s Horseware Ireland sponsored Week 10 at Wellington International.
Echoing around the in-gate as the jump-off was about to start were sentiments of awe at the quality of horse coming back for the top call. It did not look like a group of 7-year-olds, a testament to the dedication to young horses being campaigned in the United States and developed through the levels.
Eight of the returning 14 jumped double-clear rounds—with no horse having more than 4 faults in the jump-off. Hughes and KMS Ali were the quickest by a noticeable margin.
“I’ve been riding him for about six weeks only,” Hughes said of the Irish Sport Horse gelding (Tyson x Heartbreaker). “At the end of last year Shane [Sweetnam] got him and his daughter Olivia was riding him. She did a great job giving him experience and I took over the ride to work on the dressage. He has improved so much. You can see in the jump-off today; I would not have been able to do that six weeks ago.”
KMS Ali was spotted by Sweetnam at the Dublin Horse Show in 2024, jumping nothing but clear rounds in the 6-year-olds as well doing some eventing. For being only 7 years old now, Hughes believes he has vast experience already.
“He’s a real fighter in the ring,” he continued. “When you jump single jumps at home, he doesn’t feel like he has a lot of scope but when you go in the ring he feels like he could jump anything you put in front of him. He’s super careful; the faster I went the more careful he was getting. That was a nice feeling.”
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