He was last to go, both in the first round of the Verona Rolex FEI World Cupâ„¢ competion and in the jump off, but in the prize giving ceremony, Alois Pollmann-Schweckhorst was first to be congratulated. Verona was a dream coming true for this very experienced rider from Germany and his mount, one of the best show jumpers in the world. For some reason they never won a FEI World Cupâ„¢ qualifier before, although they both know the way to the final. In a three rider jump off, Pollmann-Schweckhorst only had to bring his horse safely home, after Omar Bonomelli, obviously the big favourite of the Verona crowd, and Steve Guerdat, each made a mistake.
For a long time it looked as though Omar Bonomelli would be the only rider capable of dealing with all the technical and physical challenges of Giovanni Bussu’s difficult, yet fair design. It was a truly magnificent clear round of local hero Bonomelli. His superbly trained horse Quintero made all distances – both long and short – look absolutely normal. Whereas others had problems attacking the big Liverpool oxer number 7, consecutively approaching the delicate high vertical number 8 in five strides. Or doing the very long three strides to oxer number 7, placed in a corner, or doing the short four to the SNAI oxer number 10.
Omar’s wive Jonella Ligresti-Bonomelli was one of the ‘victims’ of Giovanni Bussu’s clever course designing. Her scopy stallion Toulon made a huge jump over the 1.53-1.70 oxer number 11, which was the beginning of the line towards the double. Toulon was a little close and a little flat taking off for the first element of the double combination, which resulted in a rail down. Jonella Ligresti was the only rider having time problems, but her 5 faults was not a bad result in this tough competition. Her Belgian bred and BWP approved stallion, a former prize winner under the saddle of Hubert Bourdy, jumped superbly with the small lady rider from Italy.