All roads lead to the Longines Global Champions Tour in Rome

The Stadio dei Marmi, completed in 1929, is located beside Rome’s Olympic Stadium in the Foro Italico sports complex next to the Tiber River. The jumping ground is surrounded by 59 marble statues representing different sports, and this weekend, there will be 62 5*-level riders and 120 horses from 20 nations competing at the site, including in Saturday’s 1.60m, €300,000 Grand Prix of Rome. Great Britain’s Ben Maher, currently on top of the Tour leaderboard, is bringing his mounts Explosion W and Winning Good, while Scottish native Scott Brash (9th) is in town with Hello Jefferson and Hello Mr President. Emily Moffitt, Alexandra Thornton and Michael Whitaker are the other British riders, and Bertram Allen, Michael G. Duffy, Cameron Hanley, Denis Lynch and Mark McAuley are there from Ireland. 

Even with the Spruce Meadows CSIO 5* Masters being held at the same time in Canada this week, and the FEI World Equestrian Games coming up soon in North Carolina in the United States, many of the big names in the sport will be in the Eternal City. Among them are: Australia’s Edwina Tops-Alexander, Belgium’s Niels Bruynseels, France’s Roger Yves Bost and Simon Delestre, the Netherlands’ World No.1 Harrie Smolders, Sweden’s Henrik von Eckermann, Switzerland’s Jane Richard Philips, and Germany’s Christian Ahlmann, Ludger Beerbaum and Daniel Deusser. 

As expected, Italy will have a number of athletes on home soil in Rome, including Lorenzo de Luca, Giulia Martinengo Marquet, Alberto Zorzi, and Luca Marziani, one of whose horses is Tokyo du Soleil. Italian Chef D’Equipe Duccio Bartalucci mentioned the horse while speaking about the importance of Italian riders competing at this high level in the run-up to the WEG: “We have many Italian riders who have led a brilliant competitive season. This is the last competition before the FEI World Equestrian Games. We will watch their performances closely, including Tokyo du Soleil in particular ahead of Tryon.” 

In the Global Champions League, the Rome Gladiators squad of De Luca, Laura Kraut, Marlon Módolo Zanotelli, Abdel Saïd and Constant van Paesschen (currently 3rd), will be looking to make up ground on leaders London Knights and Valkenswaard United. After Rome (September 6–9), the Tour and GCL will head to Doha, Qatar in November before its inaugural Global Champions Play-offs in Prague, Czech Republic at the end of the year. Those play-offs will feature a €3 million prize purse for the winning GCL squad as well as the Super Grand Prix for winners of individual Tour Grand Prix throughout the year.