Cornelissen.jpgAdelinde Cornelissen and Jerich Parzival kept their cool under intense pressure to win the last qualifying leg of the 2009/2010 FEI World Cup™ Dressage series in Gothenburg, Sweden tonight.  Sweden’s Patrik Kittel produced the ride of his life with Watermill Scandic to slot into second place, but the real battle was played out between the Dutch who were vying for the two remaining places on offer to home side contenders at the Final in ‘s-Hertogenbosch in The Netherlands in four weeks time.

League leader Edward Gal was clearly always going to make the cut but Cornelissen, Imke Schellekens-Bartels and Anky Van Grunsven knew that tonight would decide which of them would join him.  And in this battle of the giants it was winner Cornelissen and third-placed Schellekens-Bartels who earned their stripes while nine-time World Cup champion Van Grunsven just missed out when finishing fourth.

HUGE POTENTIAL

Isabell Werth’s exciting nine year old gelding, El Santo NRW, brought a smile to his rider’s face when showing his huge potential and was holding the lead at the halfway stage, but Schellekens-Bartels blew away the German rider’s score of 75.50% with a wonderful show from Hunter Douglas Sunrise.  The charm and poise of the 16 year old mare is perfectly reflected in the beautifully choreographed musical score and this was a partnership in complete unison, and clearly relishing the challenge, as they set the new target at 79.75%.  Matthias Alexander Rath and Triviant earned a good mark of 76.40%, and fellow-Germans Carola Koppelmann and Le Bo were rewarded with 75.50% for their rhythmic Carribbean-influenced performance which included a great flourish of one-time changes down the centre line before Van Grunsven took her turn with just four horses left to go.

Advertisement