They delivered: Marcus Ehning and his Priam du Roset (by Plot Blue) as well as team colleague André Thieme and DSP Chakaria (by Askari) reeled off two flawless clear rounds in the Semi Final of the Super Cup in Prague. Although the third team rider, veteran John Whitaker, with Equine America Unick du Francport (by Zandor) had a drop, it was still enough for the Valkenswaard United team to take pole position on Sunday in the Final.
Second place with a total of eight penalties was secured by the Madrid in Motion team with two clear rounds from Angelica Augustsson Zanotelli in the saddle of Kalinka van de Nachtegaele (by Epleaser van T Heike) and Eduardo Alvarez Aznar with Bentley de Sury (by Sunday de Riverland). Jack Whitaker and Q Paravatti N (by Quality Time) came out of the course with eight penalty points.
The Miami Celtics with Bertram Allen, Michael G Duffy and Edouard Schmitz jumped into third place. Also qualified for the final (six teams advanced) are the teams of Shanghai Swans with Christian Ahlmann, Max Kühner and Martin Fuchs. Even though only Max Kühner and Elektric Blue P (by Eldorado vd Zeshoek) managed to leave all the poles up in the Semi Final. Christian Ahlmann and his Dominator 2000 Z (by Diamant de Semilly) came out of the course with eight penalty points, Martin Fuchs and Leone Jei (by Baltic VDL) had four. The Prague Lions will also be competing in the final. The Berlin Eagles, who had been in the lead until then, made it really exciting at the end. The team with Ludger Beerbaum, Philipp Weishaupt and Eoin McMahon collected a total of 20 penalties and just managed to qualify for the final on Sunday.
Only seven pairs in total completed the technically demanding course without any faults. Among them was Daniel Deusser and his Rolex Grand Prix winning mare Killer Queen VDM (by Eldorado vd Zeshoek). But because his team colleagues Olivier Robert on Vangog du Mas Garnier (by Cornet Obolensky) and Jerome Guery with his Quel Homme de Hus (by Quidam de Revel) collected a total of 20 faults in the course (16 for Olivier and 4 for Guery) and were almost four seconds faster in total, the team is out of the running for the final on Sunday.
