Valkenswaard, San Giovanni, Samorin – more show jumping from the weekend

A pretty good showing for Daniel Deußer at the CSI4* in Valkenswaard! At Jan Tops’ facility—who made sure that, at least this year, the tournaments could take place as planned—he secured a top-three finish in each of the three major jumping competitions. On Friday and Saturday, he rode Bingo Ste. Hermelle to second place in the 1.50-meter speed jumping competitions, finishing behind Harry Charles and Bandit both times—on Friday ahead of Brazilian rider Felipe Amaral on Montissima PS, and on Saturday ahead of Dutch rider Michael Greeve riding Rubens.

For today’s Grand Prix, Deußer chose Pepita van’t Meulenhof, who has already proven her class this year in League of Nations competitions. And today, too, she lived up to all expectations. Only six of the 43 pairs in the Grand Prix had advanced to the jump-off. With the exception of Nina Mallevaey—currently the world’s top female rider—on My Clementine, who posted the second-fastest time but had one knockdown, everyone else completed two clear rounds. This included Deußer and Pepita, who posted the third-fastest time and were only beaten by Rodrigo Pessoa on his resurgent Major Tom and the Mexican rider Andrés Azcarraga on Contendros.

You can find all the results from Valkenswaard here.

EEF National Award and More from Samorin

Samorin also hosted the Nations Cup this weekend—more specifically, the semifinals of the EEF Nations Cup series. The competition consisted of a CSIO3* event featuring two 1.50-meter rounds. As in Falsterbo, Switzerland took the win here as well, this time with eight penalty points ahead of Austria and Italy. Both Italy and Austria had twelve faults, but Austria was faster.

The winning Swiss team consisted of Pius Schwizer riding Global de Riverland (4/4), Bryan Balsiger riding C-Mistral (0/0), Anthony Bourquard riding Fontainebleau Manciais (4/0), and Adrian Schmid riding Chicarito (0/WD).

Germany was also in the competition. The quartet had some bad luck in the first round. Paula de Boer-Schwarz and My Miss Marple had a minor knockdown. However, Hannes Ahlmann and his horse Madness were eliminated, and neither German champion Laura Klaphake riding Quizano van’t Merelsnest (9) nor Maximilian Lill riding Casallco’s George PS (8) could make up for it. It didn’t help that all four riders cleared the course in the second round; they finished in eighth place with 21 penalty points.

Grand Prize Awarded to Katharina Rhomberg

Today in the Grand Prix, Katharina Rhomberg demonstrated—riding her World Championship-bound horse Colestus Cambridge—just how exceptionally well the Austrian rider and her horses are performing, after she had already completed the Nations Cup on Friday with her other top horse, Cuma—once clear and once with one knockdown. The 11-year-old Colestus Cambridge left the competition in the dust today with a time of 40.31 seconds. By the way, it’s definitely worth getting to know Katharina Rhomberg better! Here’s a brief look at her career, her philosophy, and the story of how she came to own her horses.

Second place in today’s Grand Prix went to Italy’s Giuseppe Rolle riding Eiffel de Hus. Behind him, the Netherlands’ Arne van Heel celebrated one of his greatest successes to date with one of the Holsteiner Association’s stallions. Riding Keaton, a 10-year-old son of Kannan, he took third place.

Laura Klaphake finished seventh with Quizano after a knockdown in the jump-off. David Will and Xixo Borgia had advanced to the jump-off but were eliminated there. However, Will won Saturday’s most important jumping competition—a 1.50-meter class with a jump-off—riding the eight-year-old DSP King George by Kasanova de la Pomme.

You can find all the results from Samorin here.

Kukuk’s Akarad Continues Its Winning Streak

Christian Kukuk traveled with his horses to the CSI3* in San Giovanni, Italy, this weekend. It was well worth it. Today in the Grand Prix, riding his ten-year-old rising star Akarad Tivoli Z—who had recently helped him win the German Championship —he prevailed in the jump-off of the 1.50-meter class by a good second against the Austrian championship duo of Gerfried Puck and Naxcel V.

In addition, Kukuk won another show jumping competition on the CSI3* Tour aboard Fantasia de Wy, an 11-year-old daughter of Armitage’s Boy, and secured two victories on the CSI1* Tour with his young horse ESI Romeo by Eldorado van de Zeshoek.

You can find all the results from San Giovanni here.