Kevin Staut steered Kraque Boom to take the individual jumping gold medal on the final day of the Alltech FEI European Jumping and Dressage Championships at Windsor Castle, Great Britain, today. In a nail-biting finish he clinched it with a fabulous clear from the 11 year old stallion which is owned by his grand-parents, and he said afterwards – “I hope this will do good things for French breeding and that it will encourage our young riders. France has been through some difficult times over the past few years but this summer we won the Meydan series and now I have won here so I hope this motivates everyone to keep going!”.
Germany’s Carsten-Otto Nagel and Corradina also produced a superb double-clear performance to take silver, but the heart-break of the day was Albert Zoer’s second-round first-fence error which cost the popular Dutchman and his much-loved gelding the individual title. Typically stoic, Zoer accepted the disappointment with good humour – “when I hit the fence I wasn’t happy, but I knew I had to concentrate and go on because the bronze medal was still there”.
CLEARS
Course designer, Bob Ellis, admitted that he was surprised when their were 12 clears in the first round. “The course was very big” he said, but it was his second-round track that proved the real test. A much tighter time limit and even taller fences produced only two faultless performances this time out, and those two riders would top the medal podium.