Longines FEI World Cup jumping season gets underway in Oslo

Oslo is the first of 13 World Cup qualifier competitions over the next five months across Europe, with following stages in Helsinki, Verona, Lyon, Stuttgart, Madrid, La Coruña, London-Olympia, Mechelen, Basel, Leipzig, Amsterdam and Bordeaux. Seven results will count for the overall standings of riders as they target a place in the next World Cup Final, scheduled for April 3–7, 2019 in the west coast Swedish city.

Alongside the Whitakers for Great Britain, Ireland’s representatives at  Oslo’s Telenor Arena are Denis Lynch, Darragh Kenny, Shane Breen and Michael Duffy. They will be facing 5*-level rivals either of European nationality or those who qualify through the regional league (such as Australia’s Edwina Tops-Alexander, who lives in the Netherlands and Monaco). There are 18 places for Western European riders (plus extras like for the Australian Olympian if she is among the top finishers in the standings) – the most of all the qualifying leagues around the world.

Among the others using Oslo as their starting point for qualification are Austria’s Max Kühner, Pieter Devos, France’s Kevin Staut, Germany’s Philipp Weishaupt, Italy’s Alberto Zorzi, the Netherlands’ Maikel Van Der Vleuten, Sweden’s Douglas Lindelöw, and Switzerland’s Steve Guerdat, who won Individual bronze at the recent Tryon FEI World Equestrian Games in the United States. They will be doing battle in various classes over the weekend, culminating in Sunday’s €159,000 World Cup competition. 

The 2018 World Cup Final was won last April in Paris by American rider Beezie Madden and her 12-year-old stallion Breitling LS. And in parallel with Western Europe, riders in North America, Central Europe, South America, Australia, Central America and the Caribbean, and the Arab and Caucasus-Caspian regions have already started or will soon start competing for their own ticket to Gothenburg next spring, with the goal of following in Madden’s and Breitling’s footsteps.