The Dutch are clearly on a roll after recording their third victory of the inaugural Furusiyya FEI Nations Cup™ Jumping series at Copenhagen in Denmark today. Winners at the opening leg at Al Ain, UAE in February, they also topped the first round of the Europe Division 1 league just a week ago in La Baule, France. And another new combination of horses and riders took the lead from the outset and added only four faults to their first-round zero score to head the line-up at the Danish venue where six nations – Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Poland and Sweden – were all hunting for qualifying points ahead of the series Final which will take place in Barcelona, Spain in September.

France finished second with the host nation in third, while the British slotted into fourth ahead of Sweden and Poland in joint-fifth place. Both Belgium and Switzerland added 16 faults second time out, but this was still good enough to take seventh and eighth places respectively as only eight of the 13 countries went through to the second round.

Put it Up to Them

London 2012 Olympic Games course designer, Great Britain’s Bob Ellis, really put it up to them at this Europe Division 2 event with a course that asked them to turn and re-balance, and to measure their distances carefully. And as if that wasn’t quite enough, he set them an enormous question just three fences from home, with the open water followed by the triple combination of vertical, to oxer, to vertical before tackling the offset final oxer at fence 12.

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