Team Champion’s Young Horses Gain Valuable Experience in Lummen
Monday 02 May 2011
Four of Great Britain’s up and coming young horses gained some valuable experience in the CSIO5* Nations Cup in Lummen this Bank Holiday weekend.
Showjumping Performance Manager Rob Hoekstra selected the team with a view of giving four of the country’s up and coming equine talents the opportunity of tackling a 5* Nations Cup course. The objective was that they would grow from the experience and use it as a springboard to develop their international careers. However, their performance far outweighed expectation when the team found themselves in first position after the first round.
Pace-setter for the team was Britain’s leading rider Guy Williams with Lindsey Dorans’s Depardieu Vant Kiezelhof who at only eight years old was making his first appearance at this level. Guy achieved a foot-perfect clear with this up and coming horse enabling him to also give some valuable feedback to the rest of the team.
Bruce Menzies, from Horsham with the Old Lodge’s nine year old gelding Sultan V was second to go but an unfortunate pole down meant they finished their initial Nations Cup on a score of four faults. This amazingly talented horse who has only just moved up to international competition didn’t fail to impress Rob Hoekstra with the way he stepped up to the mark and tackled what was put in front of him.
Robert Whitaker from Huddersfield partnered the ten year old bay stallion USA Today who is jointly owned by Mandy Hall and Clare Whitaker. Making his first step-up to Senior Nations Cup competition this talented stallion produced another clear for Great Britain giving Robert a superb ride across the testing course with a horse that he first rode only just over a year ago.
Achorman Ben Maher from Essex made his second appearance with Tripple X III at this level on a Nations Cup having competed for the first time in Wellington a few weeks ago. This scopey nine year old black stallion which Ben jointly owns with Quainton Stud’s Mike and Emma Phillips also produced an impressive and foot-perfect superb first round on a zero score reinforcing his view of the talent that Ben believes this horse has.
The second round however, saw a total of 21 faults being incurred with Depardieu having a fence, USA Today incurring two fences and a time fault followed by eight faults with Tripple X III. With the FEI Rules being that only three horses come forward to jump in the second round it was Sultan who was kept back in this instance.
Talking after the event Rob Hoekstra commented “ We may have finished in seventh place, but it is important that we remember we went out to Lummen with a view of giving these four up and coming young horses the opportunity of gaining experience rather than going out to win, When I look at it in that context, then I can say that I really am pleased with the result and feel extremely excited about the horses we have coming up through the performance pathway.
"These are just four of the horses we have that need the experience and it’s always a juggle when deciding whether we should send out the more established horses or not. However, one thing we can never lose sight of is that we need to give as many new talents the chance to grow and shine. If we don’t we will find ourselves without enough horses to feed teams having not kept the production conveyor belt turning so to speak. The Nations Cup has been a success for us, we have proved that we now have another four horses capable of jumping clear at a 5* Nations Cup and that can only bode well for the sport as a whole".
"These are just four of the horses we have that need the experience and it’s always a juggle when deciding whether we should send out the more established horses or not. However, one thing we can never lose sight of is that we need to give as many new talents the chance to grow and shine. If we don’t we will find ourselves without enough horses to feed teams having not kept the production conveyor belt turning so to speak. The Nations Cup has been a success for us, we have proved that we now have another four horses capable of jumping clear at a 5* Nations Cup and that can only bode well for the sport as a whole".
The Belgium Nations Cup took place on Friday 29th April and results can be found at http://www.scgvisual.com/
For more information on the show please visit http://www.csiolummen.be/
Champion’s sponsorship of the British Nations Cup Team is the result of the brand’s deep-seated belief in the importance of continual development, dedication and professionalism, together with a desire to offer British equestrian talent every possible opportunity to reach the very top of competitive showjumping.
The British Showjumping Teams are strongly supported by the UK Sport Lottery funded BEF World Class
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