10-09-2022 door Ermelo YH

The final for four-year-old horses was just won by the Hanoverian St. Athletique (Blue Hors St. Schufro x Hofrat). The black stallion of Stallion station Meyerhof was presented by Germany’s Heiko Klausing. It was a photo finish with three horses scoring 8.7 points on average.

The Sport Pro Horses Prize was one of the additional classes organised at the LONGINES FEI/WBFSH Dressage World Breeding Championship for Young Horses. “It was a great class with a lot of talent”, responds Alex van Silfhout who was responsible for judging these youngsters together with Bart Bax. “The horses were presented in a lovely, natural manner. It is impressive to see these young horses perform in such an arena. They were very obedient in this ambiance.”

Strong top-three
It was a close call as the entire top-three scored within two hundredths of a point of each other. Winner St. Athletique placed fourth in the final, while today’s third prize winner Fall In Love (Blue Hors Farrell x San Amour) won the qualification on Thursday.

Nanny McPhee
Judith Ribbels wowed the crowd both Thursday and Saturday thanks to her incredibly talented and homebred Nanny Mc Phee (Vitalis x Sorento). The mare is accompanied by her dam Fun Fun that is campaigned in the CDI3* classes by the same rider. Nanny Mc Phee placed second in both the qualification and the final, receiving a 9.2 for the canter and the trot, the highest mark of the class. Bart Bax: “Nanny Mc Phee is a horse with lots of expression and ample quality, but unfortunately some tension caused an error in the transition into the canter.”

Execution
“This is something entirely different than the Pavo Cup”, argues Van Silfhout. “The horses perform a test here. The quality of the horse is very important, but the execution of the test was decisive today.

St. Athletique
“St. Athletique is the total package. He showed quality and a very refined and consistent test”, praises Van Silfhout. Rider Heiko Klausing is very proud: “He has such a fantastic character. To think he is a stallion, merely four years of age and it is only our sixth competition, he is simply amazing.”

Find all the results here.
Photo: Dirk Caremans/ Hippo Foto Media