Victory for the Swiss Olympic medalist in the speed class by overcoming the French duo of Simon Delestre and Kevin Staut. (Photo © Stefano Grasso)
For the penultimate day of the CSI 5* Verona, it began with the dispute of Franco Tucci Trophy and the victory for Olympic medalist Steve Guerdat of Switzerland.
Without major problems the winner got a time of 54.07 seconds in the speed class, which allowed him to add 50 World Ranking points and a prize of €6,150 for the first place with the 10-year-old mare Albufuehren’s Happiness (Heartbeat X Lambrusco ASK). The lead ahead of world number two and second-placed Simon Delestre was 63 hundredths of a second, stopping the clock in 54.70 seconds with 10-year-old gelding Sultan du Chateau (Kannan vs. Galoubet A).
For the third place, another Frenchman took the honors with yesterday’s winner Kevin Staut finishing in 58.15 seconds with 10-year-old stallion Silver Deux de Virton HDC (Kashmir van Schuttershof x Heartbreaker), while the Top 5 completed it in fourth place Douglas Lindelöf of Sweden with the 10-year-old mare Caville (Cartogran x Mr Blue) in 59.11 seconds and the fifth place went to Geir Gulliksen of Norway, registering 59.99 seconds with the 11-year-old gelding Arakorn (Cantos x Damiro).
The world number 1 and best seeded Christian Ahlmann, retired during his regular course, being out of all option.
