The dressage riders swept the floor first for the second FEI World Cup™ Jumping and Dressage Finals being held in the same location simultaneously. They entered the Thomas and Mack Center today for their first test Grand Prix. As more often in championships, the tension played a decisive role. A quite difficult class to judge as no rider went clear, without mistakes!
However, German Isabell Werth made the best out of the problems occurring during her test and won the class with a nice 74,792%. Her thoughts were from the beginning on not taking too much risks, she said. She had a wonderful start and scored some nine’s for extended trot and beautifully performed half passes. In the first piaffe her big chestnut Warum Nicht FRH suddenly was struck by the sight of a camera and got spooky. The giftedness in riding of Isabell Werth and the looseness and suppleness of the 11 year old Hanoverian prevented the scores to go down too much.
“But it was like ping pong, the marks went 4 – 9 – 4 – 9”, Canadian judge Cara Whitham smiled.
The American audience was presented with a wonderful runner up, Steffen Peters and the 17 year old Floriano. Steffen Peters commented: “I was happy to have the WEG Aachen under my belt because Floriano reacted the same now on the immense crowd! Floriano was not too crazy to enter the arena and made a pirouette we didn’t ask for before we went in. I could deal with the situation now. His responsiveness and feeling he gave me during the test was very much like in Aachen. I was happy.”
Kyra Kyrklund had a very professional ride and ended at third place partnering Max. She rode his father Master in the World Cup™ Final in Gothenburg and it was a special feeling for her now to bring Max in a World Cup™ Final, she said.
“Knowing the father gives the rider a lot of information for schooling the horse. I couldn’t wait to go for it today and I felt Max liked that too. He was sort of watching the crowds like he was saying, they payed a lot of dollars to watch me, let’s give them a show!” Some mistakes and irregularities prevented her from a higher score than 71,708%. Surprisingly the score of Imke Schellekens-Bartels, sharing with Isabell Werth first positions in the rankings after the European World Cup™ qualifiers, now shared the same score of 71,708% in Grand Prix with Kyra Kyrklund. After a good start she unfortunately had to deal with some nervous reactions of Sunrise. Chairman of the judges Mariette Withages commented: “I was not aware of the reglement rule myself, but the reglement states that in the event of the same score, the collective marks at the end of the test are decisive. That’s why Kyra Kyrklund was rewarded with third position and Imke Schellekens with the fourth place.”
In the FEI World Cup™ Formula the Grand Prix of today only was the qualifier round for the Final, where all competitors will start clean. Tomorrow with only four competitors the B-final will take place, next Saturday the Freestyle to music will be the exciting climax of the 22nd World Cup™ Final in history.