The defending series champions from The Netherlands made it a back-to-back double on home ground at the third leg of the FEI Nations Cup™ Dressage 2015 pilot serles in Rotterdam, The Netherlands yesterday. With another new format on trial at this event, the competition began with a Grand Prix team competition on Thursday, from which riders representing the five leading nations went through to Saturday’s Grand Prix Special and Freestyle.

The consistent Dutch pipped Sweden by a decisive margin of almost 2.5 per cent, but Sweden’s Patrik Kittel and his 16-year-old campaigner Watermill Scandic were the show-stealers when producing the highest individual score in the Grand Prix – 77.260 – and then topping the Freestyle with a mark of 81.875.

Third place in the team competition went to the USA, with Belgium lining up fourth and Germany in fifth. Only riders from the leading five nations qualified for Saturday’s Special and Freestyle in which two from each side were eligible to compete in each class. Lying fifth, the three-member German team was already at a disadvantage, and when Bernadette Brune retired after running into problems with Spirit of the Age OLD in the Freestyle, Germany was eliminated. In sixth and seventh after the opening Grand Prix, Great Britain and France failed to make the cut into the closing stages, but their scorelines indicated the close nature of the competition, with the British completing on a total of 68.967 and the French on 68.933.

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