Who will add their name to the list of Champions?

Press Release | Jumping – As Jumping Verona gets underway today, a host of stars from all around the globe will be thinking ahead to Sunday’s Longines FEI World Cup™ Jumping competition, the fourth qualifier of the 2016 Western European League.

The pride and prestige associated with victory at the Italian leg of the series is quite unique, because the roll of honour highlights so many of the greatest names in the sport, and everyone wants to add theirs to that very special list.

It was in 1983, the fifth season of FEI World Cup™ Jumping, that Italy first staged a leg won by Irish legend, Eddie Macken. The quality of the winners has never diminished since, and as last year’s champion, Simon Delestre from France, pointed out recently, Jumping Verona tends to showcase the really on-form horse-and- rider combinations every season.

Delestre said his victory 12 months ago “was the first of a rapid series of successes that soon enabled me to top the Longines FEI Ranking List for the first time. The Fieracavalli event marked a turning point in my career and it stands as a truly meaningful time also in terms of visibility. This is why I am coming back with huge motivation and the desire to defend my status as defending champion”, said the man who is now World No. 2.

A win here also very definitively announced the arrival of another new Irish star, Bertram Allen, back in 2014. At just 19 years of age he was already on the crest of a wave following a seventh place finish individually at the World Equestrian Games at Caen, France and his career was on a rapidly upward trajectory leading to third place at the World Cup Final the following March.

Who wouldn’t want to be listed amongst champions like Jan Tops who took the honours with the great Top Gun in 1995, and fellow Dutchman and 2000 Olympic champion Jeroen Dubbeldam who reigned supreme in 2010? The much-loved British brothers John and Michael Whitaker have also stolen the Verona limelight along with Brazil’s Rodrigo Pessoa, and German riders have clinched victory on five occasions, most recently in 2013 when Christian Ahlmann reigned supreme.

Now No. 1 on the Longines World Rankings, Ahlmann is back again this year but the ones they may all have to fear are both the French and the host nation contenders. It was heartbreak for Delestre when his brilliant little horse, Ryan, was injured in the stable just as the Rio 2016 Olympic Games were about to start, leaving Philippe Rozier to step into the breach. And how well his replacement responded as he joined Roger Yves Bost, Penelope Leprevost and Kevin Staut to claim team gold. All five of the French Olympic team are lining out in Verona this week, and they will all be hoping to record the fourth French victory of the World Cup series on Italian soil.

Standing in their way however is an outstanding bunch of Italians who have emerged as a major force to be reckoned with over the last year, and somehow it seems that, at last, a home-side victory could be within their grasp. What a thrill it would be for the home crowd if 27-year- old Alberto Zorzi could repeat the win he threw down at the very first leg of the 2016 season in Oslo, Norway, or if Lorenzo De Luca could continue the winning streak that has seen him blaze a trail through the 2016 season. Italy has a better chance than ever to win this coveted leg of the Longines FEI World Cup™ Jumping series, and the story begins tomorrow when the International action gets underway at mid-day.

Source: Press Release