French hero, Kevin Staut, won the eleventh qualifying round of the Rolex FEI World Cup™ Jumping 2011/2012 series on his home turf at Bordeaux tonight.  Riding the 13 year old grey mare, Silvana HDC, he devastated the opposition in the ten-horse jump-off with a display of class and courage that snatched the honours from Australian runners-up Edwina Top-Alexander and Cevo Itot du Chateau.  Belgium’s Rik Hemeryck slotted into third with Quarco de Kerambars, while Ireland’s Denis Lynch finished fourth with his exciting new stallion, Contifex.

But tonight’s competition was as much about the battle for positions on the Western  European League leaderboard as anything else.  Following the next, and last, qualifying leg at Gothenburg, Sweden, the top-18 riders will make the cut for the Rolex FEI World Cup™ Jumping final which will take place in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands at the end of April.  So the placings all the way down the line are critical at this stage, and the pressure is at boiling point.

IN PROSPECT
With three of the first seven riders clear over Uliano Vezzani’s first-round track, it seemed another big start-list was in prospect for the jump-off.  But, surprisingly, many of the highest-ranked riders running later in the class failed to keep a clean sheet as the triple combination at fence five, the double at fence eight and the last line that included a vertical with water-tray followed by a big oxer and the final vertical took a heavy toll.

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