Swedish Patrik Kittel and the Dutch warmblood stallion Silvano (by Rubinstein I x Cocktail) won the Prix St Georges at the World Cup Qualifer in Mechelen, Belgium, on Monday 27 December 2010. Dressage fans had to be early birds braving the cold and snow to be on time at De Nekkerhal in Mechelen to attend the Prix St Georges, the first class of the day which started at 8 'o clock in the morning.
The best riders atypically went at the beginning of the class instead of the at the end as usual. The top three were 1,263% apart from each other on the score board and no rider was able to score over 70% due to several mistakes. Each year the Nekkerhal indoor arena proves to be a major challenge for the horses with its loud accoustics and a ruckus going on all day long.
Kittel and Silvano were the first to breach the 70% barrier almost. The Swede had the elegant dark bay stallion moving extremely smoothly and steady in the contact in the trot work. Silvano, who is owned by Arlette Jasper and Edwin Kohl, could have more spring off the ground in general in trot, but his canter is uphill. Unfortunately several mistakes crept into the test in the canter tour. Both the tempi's every four and three strides had some big mistakes and the horse became behind the vertical in the extended canter. Their score of 69.894% earned them the victory.
Imke Schellekens-Bartels and her 10-year old Dutch warmblood gelding Toots (by Jazz x Havidoff) are definitely show stoppers. The gigantic black gelding has enormous movements but the contact with the bit was problematic, though seemed to have gone unnoticed by the judges. Toots had his mooth open all the time during the test and his tongue was regularly showing on the left side. Schellekens, nevertheless, skillfully steered the gelding through the test. He amazed with his well suspended and ground covering trot. In the extended walk he jogged at the end of the diagonal and though in canter there were no specific mistakes, he did get deep on several occassions losing the uphill tendency. The pair scored 68.736% to finish second.
"A few days ago I still had some small control problems with him in Roosendaal, but now it went much better," Schellekens commented. "He still has to get used to this type of indoor shows. He has a faint heart in that big body of his. Yesterday when we arrived I rode him a little and he spooked at everything. There's so much to see here. This morning he was still improvessed, but he remained a good boy."
Belgian VLP Talent of the Year 2010, Julie de Deken, completed the top three with her beautiful bay stallion Lucky Dance (by Lucky Lionell x Placido Sun). This high potential horse was visibly tense and slightly fixed in the top line which affected the smoothness of his gaits. The 25-year old De Deken was unable to filter this tension out of Lucky's system by the end of the test. Her horse is naturally very scopey in all three gaits and has amazing flying changes, but they were shorter than usual (yet fault free) and Lucky Dance should have had the poll as highest point especially in canter. De Deken scored 68.631% slotting in third in an international field of professional dressage riders.
Belgian based Dutch Grand Prix rider Johan Rockx finished fourth aboard his own bred Dutch warmblood Verdi de la Fazenda (by Florett As x Sandro Hit). The horse excelled in the contact with the bit. He was always soft and steady in the mouth and nicely uphill in the frame. In trot the rider should have sat more supple in the saddle to improve the spring and lightfootedness the horse is gifted with. They scored 67.473%
Former Dutch young riders' team rider Marjolein Cho Chia Yuen and the Oldenburg bred Cho's Pepper (by Pablo) closed the top five with a 66.947% score. Cho's elegant, long legged gelding lacked some swing in his back because of tension but still produced lovely tempi changes and nice overtrack in the extended walk.
Text and Photos © Astrid Appels
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Related Links
Scores 2010 CDI-W Mechelen
Julie de Deken, Belgian Talent of the Year 2010