Press release Sunshine Tour – Classified 5th in the FEI Longines world rankings for showjumping, the Belgian rider Gregory Wathelet, won the Tío Pepe GP class today, the second Big GP in the Sunshine Tour XXII. Speaking about his new grey mare Coree, sire Cornet Obolensky, he expressed his delight with her as he has not really competed much with her so far. In the interview after the class he commented “We are taking it slowly but I have high expectations of this mare. I am convinced she will be an important mare for me in the future, I see a great career for her.”
The course was designed by the Dutch designer Louis Konickx and only five riders made it through to the jump off from a start list of the 60 best riders of this week. “When you walked the course it appeared smaller and simpler than last week’s GP designed by Javier Trenor, however it proved to have a high level of technical difficulty.” Commented Gregory Wathelet.
The jump off proved fast and with five clears in all, Gregory Wathelet won in just 39.36sec, just knocking British rider Robert Whitaker off of the top spot with Catwalk IV, who went in first and set the time to beat at 40.09sec. In 3rd place with a super clear round was the Belgian rider Jos Verlooy with Caracas, stopping the clock at 40.48sec. His compatriot Fabienne Daigneux-Lange with Baby Fee Des Hazalle did a super clear and was 4th with the Czech rider Emma Augier de Moussac also riding Charly Brown around for a super clear taking 5th.
In other classes today the Irish rider Bertram Allen won the Big Tour C riding Wild Thing L, with the New Zealand rider Bruce Goodin with Centina 10 in 2nd and British rider Guy Williams with Golddigger in 3rd. Another British rider Max Routledge with Carus Royale won Big Tour B, once again Bruce Goodin was 2nd with Caltona and 3rd place was taken by the Swiss rider Jonna Ekberg riding Happiness Van’t Parad.
British rider Matthew Sampson with Dolanda won the A2 class, his compatriot Jake Saywell with Special K IV took 2nd and the Spanish rider Kevin González de Zárate with Urbain des Grezils was 3rd.
The Big Tour A1 class had a Spanish winner, Borja Bidón riding, Cantalarusa, was very fast and beat the British rider Henry Turrell riding Barbados III into 2nd place with the Belgian rider Virginie Thonon and Kosovo taking 3rd.
The Amateur GP was hotly contested, the British rider Morgan Kent riding Westpoint Baros was the winner, stopping the clock in 38.20sec just beating the Brazilian rider Caio Carvalho riding Sun Flower Du Theil into 2nd in 38.57sec. The Spanish rider Susana Epaillard took 3rd place riding Qira D’Auge in 38.72sec.
In the other Amateur classes the Irish rider Derek McCoppin riding Billy Diamond flew round to win the Classic Tour C, whilst Shiekh Samir Mirdad riding Mirdads Maa Shaaa won the Classic Tour B and Jane Hall riding Blush was the winner of the Classic Tour A.
With this we finish the second week here at the Sunshine Tour in the Dehesa Montenmedio. Tomorrow is the vet check and on Tuesday we will start again with the Young Horse Classes.
Source: Press release
