Nicola Philippaerts in Chantilly and The Netherlands in Falsterbo

Thirty-three riders competed in the Longines Global Champions Tour (LGCT) of Chantilly, including Longines world ranking leader Harrie Smolders, who had won this French Grand Prix in 2017 with Emerald. However, youth ultimately triumphed with the victory of the twenty-four-year-old Belgian Nicola Philippaerts riding H&M Chilli Willi. As ten other riders also jumped a first clear round, victory had to be decided in the jump-off. At this stage, the son of Ludo Philippaerts rode a clear, smooth and fast round in 37.26 seconds. With an only four hundredth of a second slower round, Germany’s Daniel Deusser finished second on Tobago Z. The Italian Alberto Zorzi took the third place with his mare Contanga. With a fabulous 35.66 seconds jump-off, the Belgian Jérôme Guéry was the fastest rider with Garfield de Tiji des Templiers, but a fault on the second-to last fence saw his hopes of victory go up in smoke. Ben Maher ranked fifth with Explosion W, after a fault in his otherwise fast jump-off. With a total of 237 points after eleven of the sixteen stages scheduled for the 2018 LGCT season, Great Britain’s rider has confirmed his leadership on the tour.

Meanwhile, some of the best teams in the European Division 1 gathered at Falsterbo this weekend for the sixth leg of the Longines FEI Jumping Nations Cup. After the two rounds, four teams, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden, were on the tie for victory. Each team coach chose one member to ride the jump-off. Luca Marziani and Tokyo du Soleil for Italy, Henrik von Eckermann with Toveks Mary Lou for Sweden, Daniel Coyle with Cita for Ireland and Johnny Pals with Chat Botte du Ruisseau Z for the Netherlands were ready to fight again for their teams. As they all jumped clear, only time decided the ranking of this traditional class. In the end, Johnny Pals was the fastest one and brought success to Rob Ehrens’ squad.

The British team was aiming to collect points in order to qualify for the Final of the series in Barcelona. Unfortunately, small mistakes on both rounds prevented them from taking part in the jump-off. William Funnell was the only one to jump two clear rounds with his ten-year-old gelding Billy Buckingham, only ending up with one time penalty point each time. In the end, the team finished fifth. In the European Division 1, Great Britain ranks last, with Belgium still in the lead. Unless the team picks itself up and does particularly well in the last two legs of the circuit, in Hickstead at the end of the month and in Dublin two weeks later, the United Kingdom will go back to the European Division 2, only a year after leaving it.