Double European gold medallists, Adelinde Cornelissen and Parzival, swept the opposition aside with a convincing victory in the third leg of the 2009/2010 FEI Dressage World Cup™ series in Stockholm, Sweden this afternoon. Pipping runners-up Matthias Alexander Rath and Triviant from Germany by more than a nine-point margin, the crowd-pleasing Dutch partnership firmly declared their intention to make their mark on this indoor season with a performance that put them in a class of their own. It was a triumph over the first-day nerves that gripped the 12 year chestnut horse in yesterday’s Grand Prix. “Parzival was terrified by the hundreds of flashlights that went off during his test and he didn’t do himself justice yesterday,” commented Ground Jury president Gustaf Svalling afterwards. “It’s a big problem for the very popular horses, but today he was way ahead on marks, they did a great job,” he added.
Third place went to the home side’s Minna Telde and Don Charly who, like the winners, were also making their World Cup seasonal debut while The Netherlands Aat Van Essen rode Premier into fourth ahead of Germany’s Hubertus Schmidt and Hinnerk in fifth.
WITHDRAWALS
Just 13 of the 15 qualified horses competed in today’s competition following the withdrawal of Tinne Wilhelmson Silfven’s great old campaigner Solox Carex who became lame during the warm-up while Holland’s Christa Laarakkers and Ovation, third in the Grand Prix yesterday, also suffered an injury. Sweden’s Emma Karlsson and Feradera set the early standard today when earning a mark of 69.20% from judges Kjell Myhre, Peter Holler, Isabelle Judet, Gustaf Svalling and Bo Ahman but it was 50 year old Olympic, World and European team gold medallist Hubertus Schmidt who held the lead at the halfway stage with a score of 72.30%.
