World Cup Qualifiers Come Thick and Fast

With only a couple of months left for World Cup qualification in Las Vegas, the qualifying rounds now come thick and fast. In Amsterdam, the main qualifier took place for both dressage and show jumping. The highlight for the dressage was the personal best score for Charlottle Dujardin and Mount St John Freestyle scoring just shy of 90% and the success of the home team in the show jumping. Other World Cup qualifiers took place in both Mexico and Abu Dhabi. Bloodstock sales in New Zealand keep the agents on their toes and Aachen announce a huge increase to their prize pot for 2020.

Amsterdam World Cup winter show provides quality

One of the major winter shows took place over the weekend in Amsterdam with the World Cup qualifiers for both dressage and showjumping. The dressage starting list had all the top riders in Europe competing and could have been the World Cup final. Out of the 17 who started in the Grand Prix – only 3 failed to score 70 percent. In the lead with 83.565% was Isabell Werth riding Weihegold with Charlotte Dujardin coming second with 81.957% on her far less experienced horse Mount St John Freestyle. In third was top home Dutch based rider Emmelie Scholtens riding Desperado NOP with 77.870%. In the Freestyle, the first two in the Grand Prix had a repeat performance with Isabel Werth  came top with Charlotte Dujardin coming second with scores of 90.280% and 89.505% respectively. They were well ahead of the rest of the field. Emmelie Scholtens was well down the field in this class as third sport was taken by Dutchman Edward Gal on Glock’s ZoniL NOP with 85.353%.

In the showjumping section of this show, there was the usual 13 jumps with 16 jumping efforts required in the first round in which 40 participants took part. Like the dressage, this was a world class line up with most of the top European riders starting. However, there was one noticeable absence, current world number one, Marcus Fuchs. The results were good for the home nation, Holland in that they took both the first and second places. There were nine clears in the first round and of the nine seven also went clear in the jump off. The winner was Mark Houtzanger riding Sterrehof’s Dante in 34.05 seconds with Harrie Smolders riding Monaco in second with a time of 35,13 seconds. The third spot was taken by Belgian rider Pieter Clemens. There were riders from 15 individual nations taking part.

Mexico hold yet another World Cup qualifier

World Cup qualifiers are coming thick and fast at the moment with the finals only three months away in Las Vegas. Mexico held its round for the North American Sub League at the end of last week with 21 lining up for the showjumping qualifier. There was a tie for first place with the top two collecting a double clear each and both finished on a time of 48.95 seconds. Both winners were from home country Mexico, Alberto Sanchez-Cozar riding his own 12 year old Union de la Nutria and  Gonzalo Azcarraga riding his own Fabio. There were only three clear after the first round and the third of the trio had a pole down in the jump off, again from Mexico Lorenzo O’Farrill riding Queen’s Darling.

Two world festivals continue unabated

In Abu Dhabi (UAE and at Wellington (Florida USA) the two equine festivals continued at apace. In Abu Dhabi, there were 46 starters in yet another World Cup qualifier Grand Prix for showjumping which was won by German Christian Ahlmann on Double Gold in 39.16 seconds. He was one of only four riders to get a double clear. In Florida, another Grand Prix, this time not a World Cup qualifier took place with 40 starters ending with again, only four double clear rounds with Erin Davis- Heineking taking top spot in 45.51 seconds.

Prize money doubled at Aachen in 2020

The famous Aachen annual Festival of the Horse Show have doubled the prize money on three of its top classes. The main showjumping class of the show, The Mercedes Benz Nations Cup will now have a prize pot of 1 million euros. The other two show jumping classes with big increases are The Turkish Airlines Prize of Europe and the RWE Prize of the North Rhine-Westphalia.

New Zealand middle market yearlings hold up well

In New Zealand the main yearling sales of the year started over the weekend with their select sale at Karaka. The top price was 900,000 NZ$ which was an improvement on 2019. The figures otherwise were very much on a par with 2019, but vendors were satisfied that the trade was solid enough and were particularly gratified in that the middle market had held up very well – comparatively much better than middle markets in many other sales throughout the world over the past year.

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