Maverick Van Lent and ‘Forever du Givre’ win the Andalucía Grand Prix for Belgium

Swiss riders shine, Thibaut Keller with ‘Happy Girl T’ and Peter Burri with ‘Dubai 64’, win the other GP’s of the Medium and Small Tours

The top 50 riders of the week took part in the 1.55 Andalucía Grand Prix today which proved to be a very exciting class in the main David Broome, grass arena. With ten going through to the jump off, competition was fierce, and in the end the top two riders were both Belgium. Maverick Van Lent was midway through the starting order on his ten year old mare, ’Forever du Givre’, who is by ’Vigo D’Arsouille’ x ‘Dandy du Plape’. He took the lead from the rider that was first to go in the jump off, Andres Vereecke with ‘Halima Van Het Bonte Hof Z’ (‘Hos D’O’ x ‘Heartbreaker’) and in third was the Brazilian rider, Joao Victor Castro with ‘Cashpaid J&F’ (‘Casall’ x ‘Chicago Z’). In fourth was one of our previous winners, the German pair, Gerrit Nieberg with ‘Ping Pong Van de Lentamel’ (‘Emerald’ x ‘Toulon’) and in fifth was the Norwegian rider, Victoria Gulliksen with ‘Billy Etna’ (‘Billy Congo’ x ‘Cevin Z’).

The Secretary General for Promotion and Development of Tourism of the Junta de Andalucía, Gemma del Corral, and the Territorial Delegate for Tourism, Culture and Sports of the Junta de Andalucía in Cádiz, Tania Barcelona, ​​presented the trophies to  the winners.

The Medium Tour Grand Prix was won by Swiss, Thibaut Keller with ‘Happy Girl T’ (‘Sandro Boy’ x ‘Coltaire Z’) in a fast and tight, nine horse jump off, stopping the clock in 39.74s. Billy Twomey from Ireland was a really close second with, ‘Julius’ (‘Mylord Carthago HN’ x ‘Mermus R’) in 39.78s and Anastasia Nielsen from Monaco was third with ‘Beau Van de Hagenhorst Z’ (‘Big Star JR KZ’ x ‘Coronado 3’) in 39.85s. In fourth was Finnish, Nina Fagerstrom with ‘Un Secreto Z’ and Moroccan, Vincent Zacharias Bouguignon with ‘Cascabel’ closed the top five.

The second top result for Switzerland came from Peter Burri with ‘Dubai 64’ (‘Chin Champ’ x ‘Casall’) in the Small Tour Grand Prix, a repeat of their top placing last week in this same class. Second was the Italian rider, Francesco Turturiello with ‘Cornetto 60’ (‘Cormint’ x ‘Argentinus’); third, French rider Faustine Laferrerie with ‘Gazelle de Coquerie’ (‘Opium de Coquerie’); fourth, Irish Cameron Hanley with ‘Chacoothargos PS Old’ (‘Chacoon Blue’ x ‘Conthargos’) and in fifth was another Italian rider Francesco Correddu with ‘Agrado’ (‘Numero Uno’ x ‘Ksar Sitte’).

The Classic Tour Grand Prix was also won by a Belgian rider, this was Rosalie Lambermont with ‘Eliskell de Kergane’ (‘Kannan’ x ‘Flipper D’Elle’). Second was Finnish, Saara Kojola with ‘Quartz Van de Heemstede’ and third was British, Laura Kennedy with ‘Millfield Ballencia’.

In the rest of the Big Tour classes: French rider, Alexis Goulet and ‘Global de Riverland’; Swiss, Alain Jufer with ‘Dark Grey MM’ and Belgian, Roy Van Beek with ‘Challenge Yourself-H’ were the top three in the 1.45:  Bulgarian, Konstantin E. Van Damme with ‘Charly Brown G’ and Swedish riders, Emma Emanuelsson with ‘Quila Blue PS’ and Ellinor Liwing with ‘Enzo Theodor L’ were the top three in the  1.35.

The Medium Tour 1.40, was won by Dutch rider, Henk Van de Pol with ‘No Fathers Girl’. Alain Jufer was second in this class with ‘Joker Blue’ and Emma Emanuelsson was third with ‘Ladina’. Another Dutch rider was the winner in the 1.30, Yoni Van Santvoort with ‘Dilly Dally Z’; second was Hungarian, Laszlo Toth with ‘Conmir T’ and third was Moroccan, Badr Khiati with ‘Numax’. British, Sophie Slater and ‘Labatt’ were the winners of the 1.20, followed by Swedish, Olivia Munkberg with ‘Greenforest Candy’ and Moroccan, Samy Colman with ‘Inedit du Moulin’.

Moroccan rider, Farid Amanzar and ‘Churchill Z’ were the winners of the Small Tour 1.40, second was British, Sally Schuttert with ‘Fadograaf’ and third was Spanish, Guillermo González Alonso with ‘Nostradamus VD Watertoren’. Farid Amanzar was also top of the podium in the 1.30 with ‘Elvis Van Overis Z’, with the British riders, Chloe Lemieux and ‘Skylandria Z’, and Jessica Hewlett with ‘Ilmar HBC’ taking the next two places on the podium.

This concludes the third CSI4* here at the Andalucía Sunshine Tour. Competition continues on Thursday, the 27th of February with a CSI2*show and Young Horse classes.