A completely sold out house of 9.500 witnessed its Olympic heroes. The´s-Hertogenbosch Horseshow Indoor Brabant boasted the strongest field of competitors one can imagine. Six Olympic combinations participated as Silver medallist Isabell Werth and Satchmo took the win (84,15%). Fifteen competitors from seven nations competed including Germany. The judges were chair Francis Verbeek (NED), Katrina Wüst (GER), Stephen Clarke (GBR), Isabell Judet (FRA) and Eric Lette (SWE).
For individual gold medallist Anky van Grunsven it was the first time to compete after the OG in Hong Kong.
Olympic silver medallist Isabell Werth already had built up her show routine again and this payed off in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. Satchmo had to leave the Grand Prix victory to Anky van Grunsven and IPS Salinero. In Grand Prix last Thursday Satchmo didn’t go to his full potential and stayed a bit on the safe side.
No Sábado he did not leave his rider Isabell Werth on herself, being cooperative all the time. The piaffe although without resistance is not his best point and could have been more expressive, the extended gates and half passes were. The total image was one of harmony and that’s what dressage is all about. Isabell Werth was very happy both with her horse, the great Dutch audience and the show which seems to improve yearly in every small detail. “Of course I didn’t expect to win today”, she said. “However I always try and hope and Satchmo is very good in shape. He gave me a fantastic ride and I’m really proud on him.”
Dutch champion Adelinde Cornelissen took her chance at her premiere with a completely new Freestyle. Parzival was showed along with the opera music of Parzival. Forgotten were the problems of the qualifier in Amsterdam in which Parzival spooked and didn’t even qualify for the Freestyle. Now he simply did one tempi changes and two tempi changes on the centreline without failures or resistance. The advice was to enlarge the difficulties and change the music. I’m happy it worked out so well”, Adelinde said. Not all judges agreed and varied in their placing between first and fourth position. In the end however, Adelinde and Parzival were second.
Anky van Grunsven was third after a test with one huge mistake. IPS Salinero mistook her aids for a pirouette and fell out almost into a turning piaffe. “I had to bring IPS Salinero back to the canter and perform the pirouette again. As I was totally at the wrong side of the arena I decided to do a half pass instead and suddenly found myself back on track for another pirouette right at the music”, Anky explained.
German Monica Theodorescu had a great ride on Michael Jackson music scoring almost an 80% as well. For Dutch Olympian Hans Peter Minderhoud and the elegant mare Exquis Nadine the score of 79,20% was a personal record. Both have now qualified for the Final in Las Vegas.
Finnish Kyrklund and Max, having been placed third in the Final of last year, now were sixth with their new Freestyle but competing only in three qualifiers didn’t earn enough points to make it to the Final. Laura Bechtolsheimer refrained from competing in Göteborg due to family obligations. Now she didn’t make it to the Final either.
Resultados (21.03.09)
CDI-W s-Hertogenbosch – Holanda
Grande Prémio Kür
1º Isabell Werth (Ale) – Satchmo – 84,15%
2º Adelinde Cornelissen (Hol) – Parzival – 82,5
3º Anky van Grunsven (Hol) – Ips Salinero – 82,45
4º Monica Theodorescu (Ale) – Whisper 128 – 79,4
5º Hans Peter Minderhoud (Hol) – Exquis Nadine – 79
6º Kyra Kyrklund (Fin) – Max – 78,45
7º Nathalie zu Sayn-Wittgenstein (Din) – Digby – 75,7
8º Anne van Olst (Din) – Exquis Clearwater – 75,2
9º Minna Telde (Sue) – Don Charly – 75
10º Laura Bechtolsheimer (Gbr) – Andretti H – 74,95
11º Christa Laarakkers (Hol) – Ovation – 74,6
12º Jeannette Haazen (Hol) – Nartan – 74,2
13º Ellen Schulten-Baumer (Ale) – Donatha S – 72,85
14º Stefan van Ingelgem (Bel) – Withney van 't Genthof – 70,5
14º Catherine Haddad (USA) – Cadillac – 70,5