The team of Sophie Brown, Ben Hobday, Georgie Spence, and Leslie Law finished the competition at The Plains in Virginia with a total of 138.5 points, 10 in front of nearest challengers Canada.

Canada were second on 148.5, while hosts the US were third having racked up 157.5.

The triumph for the British team saw them end a run of two successive third-place results at the event, the only Nations Cup competition held in North America.

Spence, on board Halltown Harley, was the top perfomer for Britain as she placed second on the individual standings.

She ended with 35.2, 0.1 adrift of William Coleman and his horse Off The Record, following the cross-country phase of the event.

Law, the experienced Olympic gold medallist who made his long-awaited return to the evening team in Virginia, anchored the British team late in the day, jumping clean and picking up 8.8 time penalties to end the weekend in ninth place.

"It’s great to come over here," said British Chef d’Equipe Philip Surl.

"We’ve had a couple of more challenging years. 

"Today was a roller coaster from start to finish. It didn’t go out the way my dream happened last night; it certainly didn’t work out that way, but it just shows in a team competition anything can happen until the very end."