Trend Setter! Jessica Burke Takes the Expressway towards the Win in the €105,500 Equine America Grand Prix CSI 4*

By Jumper News on 2024-03-10

Vejer de La Frontera, Spain – March 10, 2024 – Just three riders from the top 50 here at this week’s Andalucía Sunshine Tour CSI 4*, went through to the jump off in the very demanding Equine America sponsored Grand Prix CSI 4*, a Longines Ranking class and Paris Olympic qualifier.

First to go in the jump off around the course designed by Marcos Nuñez (ESP), was British rider, Simon Crippen (GBR) and his lovely 12-year-old stallion, Handsome (Toulon x Phin-Phin), and they jumped a super clear round setting the time to beat of 45.88 seconds, really starting their season off well.

Next in was Spanish rider, Eduardo Álvarez Aznar (ESP) and his new 12-year-old mare, Made In’t Ruytershof, (Norton D’Eole x Diamant de Semilly) who had a very fast round but took a pole off of the last fence. They stopped the clock at 42.79 seconds showing Jessica Burke (IRL) that Simon’s time was beatable.

Jessica (IRL) rode a technically accurate and fast round with Express Trend, and won the class, stopping the clock with a super clear in 44.15 seconds and pushing Simon down into second place with Eduardo in third.

Jessica was clearly delighted with her win and told us: “I think it was an unbelievably brave call and a correct call by the team here at the Sunshine Tour, to run the Grand Prix on the grass today, the ground is unbelievable.

My horse feels in brilliant form, he hadn’t jumped on grass since Dublin last year, so I was a little bit… but once I jumped two jumps in the warm up, he felt amazing so I was quite confident.”

About the course: “I think it was actually a very difficult course, especially with the spin on the grass today. I thought the line to the combination was difficult, it was quite a forward seven, some people did eight; again one to two there was a lot of different options and then the five to the last, I was very patient on the five, I thought it was a quite trappy actually, the course today. “

Express Trend is by Future Trend x Condios and is a homebred owned by Liam Nicolas. “My horse is 14 now and I just feel it’s literally only now I fell that we have the right ability and I think that helped us a lot today.”

Final Results – €105,500 Equine America Grand Prix CSI 4*

1) Jessica Burke (IRL) & Express Trend – 0 / 0 – 44.15

2) Simon Crippen (GBR) & Handsome – 0 / 0 – 45.88

3) Eduardo Álvarez Aznar (ESP) & Made In ‘t Ruytershof – 0 / 4 – 42.79

Full results

course map

Source: Press Release (edited) from the Andalucía Sunshine Tour