The 100,000 Euro to the winner Grand Prix of Portugal, presented by Turismo de Portugal, began with an immediate clear round from Azerbaijan’s Patrick McEntee, but if anyone was lulled into a state of security by this innocuous start, they were soon disabused of the notion. The first round course contained open water, two doubles and a tricky viaduct wall which by the end of the first round had produced 16 clear rounds. Although Jessica Kurten (Castle Forbes Libertina), Kevin Staut (Le Prestige St Lois) and Laura Kraut (Cedric) were among recent GP prize winners who did not make the cut, there were plenty of big names who did including Jos Lansink, Richard Spooner and Marcus Ehning as well as Tour leader and Turin winner Marco Kutsher.
In the second round, the last fence, the GCT Planks, stopped Marcus Ehning (Plot Blue) and Richard Spooner (Cristallo). To the surprise of the audience, it was Azerbaijan’s Jamal Rahimov (Aramis) who was the first to go double clear. His countryman Patrick McEntee (Ever Mury Marais) forced the jump off! They were soon joined by four riders who only need to be introduced by their first names to identify them to the showjumping world, they are so renowned, Marco, Jos, Christian and Meredith. Both the eastern European riders had rails in the against the clock round, as did Christian Alhmann but the latter who was well placed on Taloubet in Monaco wil not be too disappointed with how he is coming along on a relatively new ride. Marco Kutscher and Cash were the first to go clear again but seemed not to be going too fast, which is usual with the horse’s giant stride and 45.82 was respectable enough so that Jos (Cavalor Valentina van T’Heike) made no effort to catch him. The World Champion crossed the line in a sedate 51.82secs. That left the rider who had been fastest in the second round to see if Marco Kutscher could be prevented from winning another GCT Grand Prix. And to give him credit, the horse who lives in the shadow of Shutterfly could not have jumped a more perfect round to bring his clearly delighted rider home penalty free in 44.11.
Earlier there was a sense of deja vu, as the French say, over the showground when Roger Yves Bost and Jovis de Ravel added another 6,000 Euro to their prize fund, started with their win on Friday. Today’s Prova Mercedes Benz was not pure speed but a two phase contest in which Frank Rothenburger had been deceptively kind with the first phase course. 21 of the 35 starters made it to the timed section. But in this rails fell rather more frequently especially once Roger, tenth to go, set an almost unbelievable second phase time of 29.61 which all the others then had to catch. He had left absolutely no room for improvement and nobody managed to get close to that time but trying to do so did ensure some notable casualties. All conquering AD Norson and Alvaro de Miranda were one, Daniel Deusser and Vonka A were another. In fact there were only eight double clears and next best was Marco Kutcher and Monaco winner Gut Neuenhofs Lea. Harrie Smolders went one better than last night to take third on Exquis Powerfee.