The week before the European Championships, the Dutch served up a small reminder to the rest of the world that they are still the reigning champions as the GCT of the Netherlands continued today by keeping most of the prizes at home.
The day began with the 16th edition of the CN Worldwide Derby worth 6,400 Euros to the winner. The course included two sorts of banks, water ditches, a devil’s dyke and the familiar white Derby rails.
Rodrigo Pessoa had an early clear round, but his time of 113.24 seconds looked beatable, and it soon was, by Julien Epaillard on his grey horse Commissario. Michel Robert had a good crack next, but Kronos D’Ouilly could not turn quite as smoothly and was just over a second slower. The class was looking all over until, to the crowd’s delight, last year’s second, Henk Van de Pol, entered on black Tennessee W, and showed everyone how a real Derby specialist could do it. Henk was a hefty 3.5 seconds faster with a time of 103.63 as they shot through the finish. The horse, who was previously ridden by Henk’s brother, has been with them since a five-year-old and now nine, will be back next year to defend his crown.
Later on, there was another GCT class with similar prize money up for grabs, but this was an ordinary 1.50m jump-off class, if ever that height can be called ordinary! There was nothing mundane about Uliano Vezzani’s course either.
