The World Cup jumping competition in Spain's capital Madrid was decided with a dramatic jump-off. Fifteen pairs had qualified for the decisive round. The French rider Julien Epaillard was the fastest to complete the task. In the saddle of his ten-year-old mare Caracole de la Roque, he reached the finish line in 42.61 seconds and took away the chances of victory from Daniel Deußer (Rijmenam/Belgium), who had been leading until then (44.3). The rider from Stephex Stables in Belgium had entered the eleven-year-old French stallion Bingo Ste Hermelle in the World Cup show jumping competition.
Bingo, the chestnut by Numero One d'Isle, has an incredible mentality, Deußer revealed in the interview. "He is not the greatest horse, but in the course he is the greatest," said the 41-year-old. Deußer was surprised by the outcome of the round, for which the Spaniard Javier Trenor Paz was responsible. "I had thought going down the course that this was a very demanding course and I didn't expect so many horses to master it without any faults." As the saying goes, Deußer is on a roll at the moment. Last weekend he won the "Super Grand Prix" of the Global Champions Tour in Prague, now in Madrid he managed to win the World Cup jumping competition and also the main jumping competition of the first day of the show, this time with the mare Jasmien v.d. Bischoff. And a fourth place in the main show jumping competition on Saturday with Bingo is also part of the successful balance.
The third best result in the World Cup was achieved by Simon Delestre, who, like the winner Epaillard, is French, with Cayman Jolly Jumper. The two other German participants, Janne Friederike Meyer-Zimmermann (Pinneberg) and Philipp Weishaupt (Riesenbeck), did not make it into the jump-off with one drop each.
After six legs (of 14) of the Western Europe League, the French rider Kevin Staut leads the ranking with 42 points, followed by his compatriot Julien Epaillard (40) and Henrik von Eckermann (Sweden, 34). Daniel Deußer follows in fifth place (28), Richard Vogel (Marburg) collected 20 points with his victory in Leipzig and is now in 13th place. Next weekend the show-jumping circus moves on to La Coruna, also located in Spain. Most of the horses will stay on the Iberian peninsula.
