HICKSTEAD, England, July 30, 2017–France managed to hold on to a lead built over two days to win the CDIO3* Nations Cup Sunday after Katja Gevers on Thriller was severely penalized for a mistake that dropped the Netherlands to runner up and the United States slipped to third with Great Britain fourth.
Sweden, which was not competing here, had already won the seven-event trans-Atlantic series that was decided by the best four results for any nation. The United States, winner of the inaugural year’s series in 2016, was second overall.
The victory for France was the first in the lineup of Nations Cups that was launched in 2013 and became an official International Equestrian Federation (FEI) series in 2016.
The French team had led from the start in this finale event–one of four different formats applied in the seven events that began in Wellington, Florida at the end of March before moving to France, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden, Germany and then England.
Pierre Volla on Badinda Altena was the individual winner of both the Grand Prix and the Grand Prix Special giving France the lead before the deciding Grand Prix Freestyle but with the Dutta Corp. United States team and the Netherlands within reach.
Katja Gevers and Thriller was the first of two Dutch combinations and came after riders from the French, British and U.S. teams had posted relatively low scores.
Katja and the 17-year-old KWPN gelding gave the same performance delivered at the Olympia World Cup Freestyle in London last Christmas and at Gothenburg, Sweden in February that many, including the Dutch contingent, believed would score high enough to give Netherlands the victory.
However, the five judges huddled for several minutes before the next rider and many were shocked by the score of 70.215 per cent with no explanation what had transpired.
After the freestyle, judges explained to a clearly perplexed Katja that the entry passage that she immediately transitioned to a pirouette that had wowed spectators was in violation of the rules that requires two steps of canter between the two movements.
“I explained that the judges in two previous performances had not found anything wrong,” she said, but laughing added: “I’ll make a change. I won’t make that mistake again.”
Team mate Jean-Rene Luijmes on Aswin produced the highest score of 73.040 per cent among riders in the team competition that was not enough to catch France.
The show grounds, that were enjoying the first sunny day in four days of competition, was tense by the last ride, France’s Ludovic Henry on After You.
The pair scored 70.230 per cent for France to hold on to the lead with a total of 424.811, just 0.758 ahead of Netherlands on 424.053 with the U.S. third on 421.920 and Great Britain fourth on 418.391.
France, along with most countries participating in the Nations Cup series, wants the competitions to be the same–team competition decided by the Grand Prix and the Grand Prix Special with the freestyle being an individual competition.
Also, they said, all countries competing in the series should be invited to all Nations Cups. France was not invited to the Nations Cup in Aachen, Germany last week.
Bo Jena, the Swedish team chef d’equipe, flew to England to receive a silver plate–not a cup, as the name implies–as the winner of the series which is decided by the best four results
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