Julien Epaillard has built a career on the proposition that nobody turns faster, and on Sunday afternoon at Eurexpo it was worth exactly three hundredths of a second.
The Frenchman and Le Coultre de Muze went clear in the jump-off of the €308,600 Longines FEI Jumping World Cup leg in 38.17 seconds. Richard Vogel and Cloudio, the world number one and his most reliable partner, crossed the line in 38.20. Between a home win and a German one lay less time than it takes to blink.
Switzerland's Edouard Schmitz and Gamin van 't Naastveldhof completed the podium on 38.31, having been the first combination in the jump-off to break the forty-second barrier and having led for a considerable stretch of what followed.
Julien Epaillard (FRA) & Le Coultre de Muze during the Longines FEI Jumping World Cup™ at Equita Lyon 2026. Image: ©FEI/Lukasz Kowalski
A Jump-Off That Would Not Settle
Forty combinations started over Santiago Varela's course and fourteen came back, which made for an unusually long and unusually tense second round in an arena that had been full since early afternoon.
Schmitz set the target with the fourteen-year-old SBS gelding Gamin van 't Naastveldhof, owned by Arturo Fasana and Céline Fasana-Corghi, and his 38.31 looked for a time as though it might stand. His own verdict afterwards was the honest one. He had been waiting a while for a result of that order, he thought he had it won in the jump-off, and then he remembered who was still to come. When Richard or Julien are following you into the ring, he said, nothing is ever certain.
Vogel's answer with Cloudio was within three hundredths of enough. The twelve-year-old Holsteiner stallion by Casall, owned by Vogel and Will Equestrian GmbH, is the horse who delivered the clear jump-off round that won Germany the Longines League of Nations Final in Barcelona four weeks earlier, and Vogel was philosophical rather than frustrated. He was proud of the horse, he said, acknowledged that one or two situations in a jump-off that fast could have been smoother, and felt the stallion had jumped brilliantly.
Epaillard simply went quicker.
The Stallion Rozier Built
Le Coultre de Muze is fifteen, a grey Belgian Warmblood stallion by Presley Boy out of Geneve de Muze by Vigo d'Arsouilles STX, owned by Christian Baillet, and until Sunday he had never won a five-star Grand Prix in his life.
Epaillard took over the ride from Philippe Rozier in November 2025, which means the partnership is almost exactly a year old. It has taken that long to produce this, and the signs had been building. At St Tropez-Gassin in September the pair posted the fastest second-round time in the five-star Grand Prix and a single fault cost them a podium place. The week before Lyon, Le Coultre de Muze won the feature Friday class at the Jumping de Liège.
For Epaillard, world number thirteen and a rider who had won at Lyon before with Caracole de la Roque in 2022 and been runner-up here twice since, it was a return to the top of a podium that has become something close to a second home. He called the result reassuring for the World Cup campaign ahead, which from a rider of his record is as close to satisfaction as the public gets.
Epaillard's Year
The win closes out a season in which the Frenchman has been consistently present without ever quite dominating. He anchored the French side that won the Coupe des Nations Barrière at La Baule in June, rode in the squad that took the final Longines League of Nations qualifier at St Tropez-Gassin in September with Donatello d'Auge, and has now added a World Cup leg in front of a home crowd.
Julien Epaillard (FRA) & Le Coultre de Muze winners of the Longines FEI Jumping World Cup™ at Equita Lyon 2026. Image: ©FEI/Lukasz Kowalski
French jumping qualified for the Los Angeles Olympic Games at Aachen in August without taking a medal, in a championship where Germany, Belgium and Great Britain filled the podium, and the national programme has spent the autumn under rather more scrutiny than it was twelve months ago. Sunday will not settle that debate, but a French win over the world number one at a World Cup qualifier is a useful thing to have on the record while it continues.
A Welcome Return
Further down the results was a welcome name. Piergiorgio Bucci finished thirty-second with Pallieter vd N.Ranch on his return to international competition after a period of recovery.
Bucci had the season of his life before he was sidelined, winning the Rolex Gran Premio Roma at Piazza di Siena in May on the same stallion, the Rolex Grand Prix at La Baule a fortnight later with Hantano, and finishing fourth at the World Championships in Aachen at the age of fifty. Giulia Martinengo Marquet was twenty-ninth with Delta Del'Isle.
Where the League Goes
Lyon was the second leg of the 2026/27 Western European League, following Oslo from 9 to 11 October, where Austria's Max Kühner and EIC Up Too Jacco Blue took the opening honours.
Verona hosts the third leg at Fieracavalli from 5 to 8 November, with Stuttgart following from 11 to 15 November, Madrid from 26 to 29 November and A Coruña from 3 to 6 December. The Final is at Gothenburg from 24 to 28 March 2027, where Kent Farrington and Greya will defend the title they won at Fort Worth in April.
The Friday and Saturday five-star classes produced two more new partnerships worth following, and Isabell Werth won the dressage leg with a horse making his World Cup debut.
