European qualifiers for Road to Paris 2018 dressage named

After months of qualifying with the last stage of the s’-Hertongebosch, the list of the nine Europeans was also drawn up for the World Cup title in Paris.
The Fei World Cup Final 2018 at the Accorhotel Arena will host the 20 best riders from around the world and 9 of them will be European including the current champion Isabell Werth.
The Swedish delegation will include the Swedes Patrik Kittel (European Championship ranking leader of the FEI World Cup) and Tinne Vilhemson Silvèn (6th place with 54 points), Germany Dorothee Schneider (2nd place with 74 points) and Jessica von Bredow -Werndl (3rd with 62 points).
There will be two Dutch representatives, with Madeleine Witte-Vrees (4th place with 56 points) and especially Edward Gal, who produced an excellent performance in the Dutch arena at Brabant together with Glock’s Zonik: nicknamed Supersonic Zonik this athlete has grown considerably in recent months and the Paris date will be a great test for him in view of the World Equestrian Games in Tryon. The Dutch Federation will be looking to it at the next Olympic Games and not surprisingly it was recently included in the list of NOP horses, the Dutch body that ensures the most promising horses are made available to the Dutch team.
There will also be a finalist from Denmark even if it is not that Cathrine Dufour who we admired in Gothenburg, the young Danish rider in fact had sent a request to the FEI to participate in the finals through a Wild Card (the ranking in fact would not have allowed the qualification as she was outside the top 9 classified), but the federal offices of Lausanne have declined the request.
So representing Denmark will fall on the shoulders of Daniel Bachmann Andersen, 6th in the ranking with 54 points on a par with the Swedish Silfvèn, the last two European qualifiers are an Austrian and a British rider, both on equal points in 8th place in the ranking with 53 points: Belinda Weinbauer and Emile Faurie.
The representatives for the United States of America have already been officially announced: the Laura Graves and Shelly Francis are the: the former with her Olympic horse Verdades (we remember it from a team bronze in Rio and a 4th individual place) and the latter with Danilo.
www.fei.org
Photo: Edward Gal – Glock’s Zonik
The Dutch Masters – Indoor Brabant 2018
Photo FEI / Leanjo de Koster DigiShots