Qualifying for the Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi
Bucci the best, hairy moment for Hinners
from Dominique Wehrmann 
Fasten your seatbelts, the Casalia Airlines are taking off! Photo: Archive sportfotos-lafrentz.de A total of 14 pairs made it into the jump-off of the 1.50 meter show jumping competition, which was the first qualifier for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Sunday. However, the number of mistakes increased as the clock ticked down. Italian rider Piergiorgio Bucci and the nine-year-old Casall-daughter Casalia were the best over the course. With a penalty-free time of 43.35 seconds, they were one of the middle pairs in the field and set a new benchmark for the following pairs.
The closest was Omar Abdul Aziz Al Marzooqi for the United Arab Emirates. He presented a highly interesting horse in the French Emerald daughter Emeraude de Zabala. The ten-year-old mare not only looks like her sire, she also jumps like one. She first rode under the Spanish flag and then under the Dutch flag with Kim Hoogenraat before being sold to Al Shira’aa Stables in the middle of last year and has been ridden by Marzooqi ever since. At this level, today was her best placing to date.
British rider Jack Whitaker came third on his wonderful Mylord Carthago son Valmy de la Lande. Trained by Jack’s father Michael Whitaker, the grey horse has been riding with the family for ten years and it shows. Once he knocked on the door, the 24-year-old British rider and his 17-year-old Frenchman, who had ridden him to fifth place at the World Cup Final in Leipzig in 2022 and is as fit as ever, as he showed today, set off on a stylish round.
Hinners briefly thrown off balance
Sophie Hinners‘ ten-year-old Zangersheide mare Kaleni Jo earned an extra large package of carrots today. The pair’s first round was textbook. And it was the same in the jump-off, at least until the penultimate jump. Once again, the mare flipped backwards over the poles. Perhaps this was the reason why Hinners briefly lost her balance on landing and tipped over forwards. However, she quickly recovered, picked up the mare and found a distance to the last oxer to the finish, which they also cleared. In the end, they finished in fourth place with a time of 44.48 seconds.
Daniel Deußer and Gangster v/h Noddevelt already had one down in the first round. Marco Kutscher and Aventador S had the same fate, but Deußer and the BWP mare Pepita van’t Meulenhof, a maternal half-sister to the aforementioned Emerald, placed tenth in the 1.45 meter jumping competition despite two time faults.
All the results from Abu Dhabi can be found here.
