Vejer de La Frontera, Spain – Sunday, March 02, 2020 – The main grass ring here at Montenmedio was back in use after a day of maintenance and a light overnight shower. The ring was as fresh as the first day of the Tour with very ‘extraordinarily’ good going according to the course designer for the €95,200 Junta de Andalucía Grand Prix CSI 4*, Javier Trénor” (Chape).

Against all the odds this Junta de Andalucía sponsored GP, proved to be less complicated than the riders thought when walking the course. This was helped along by a time adjustment at the start of the class, with the time allowed being extended to 77 seconds.

“I thought that the last line was going to give the riders more options in striding. However they have ridden it really easily in 5 strides when I thought that by giving them 25.5m to the last fence a few riders would do 6 strides. ” Despite this there was a surprisingly high number in the jump off, 13 in all. ‘Chape’ told us that “I am happy with the results, the horses have jumped the course comfortably for such a big track and they did it more easily than I expected.”

The Czech rider Ales Opatrny (CZE) was also very happy with his day, his time in the jump off was extremely fast with the 9-year-old old Czech Warmblood gelding, Forewer (Caruso 279 x Grossadmiral), crossing the jump-off timers flawlessly in 38.25 seconds.

Ales Opatrny (CZE) & Forewer

Ales knows him really well, he told us; “He was born and bred at home. Forewer jumped really well and even though it was not an easy track he did it without any problems. He is a very fast horse”.

Eiken Sato (JPN) and the Italian, Alberto Zorzi (ITA) both went in to the jump off clearly meaning to win. However such fast riding meant that they picked up penalty-points.

Not so for the Swedish rider Angelie Von Essen (SWE), riding the experienced mare Cochella (Cartani 4 x Lord) who took second place, the duo registering no penalties and a jump-off time of 39.65 seconds.

In third, it was Vincent Voorn with Diva (No Limit x Ticallux Verte) with a super round for these two, who are regulars here at the Sunshine Tour. They had a clean scorecard as well, securing third place in 41.27 seconds.

Tuesday kicks off another week with the Young Horse classes here at the Tour which will be followed by a CSI 3*. All in all over 2000 horses are set to compete here this week in what are one of the best equestrian installations in the world.

For full results, please click here.

Source: Press release by Sunshine Tour

Photos: © Moises Basallote Fotografia