France’s Simon Delestre wins the Belgian leg of the LGCT 2015.

The Belgian leg of the Longines Global Champions Tour 2015 has ended with victory for the French rider Simon Delestre, who was absent from the FEI World Cup final in Las Vegas.
It proved however to be a fine decision and saving himself from the commitments in the USA allowed him to arrive fresh for the second leg of this season’s LGCT which was staged in Antwerp.
Delestre came in first place with his selle française Ryan des Hayettes after an exciting battle with fellow international stars Hans-Dieter Dreher with Embassy II and horsewoman Edwina Tops-Alexander with Lintea Tequila.
All three went round the course in the final phase without committing any errors, but the Frenchman was able to register the quickest clear in 37.96 seconds.
The German rider on the other hand had to settle for second place with a time of 38.74 seconds and the Australian lady-rider for third place following a time of 40.30 seconds.
The rest of the top-ten was as follows:
4th Christian Ahlmann GER Codex One
5th Karim Elzoghby EGY Amelia
6th Ali bin Khalid Al Thani QAT Vienna Olympic
7th Kevin Staut FRA Elky van het Indihof
8th Mohammed Bassem Hassan QAT Palloubet D Halong
9th Yann Candele CAN First Choice 15
10th Rolf-Goran Bengtsson SWE Casall Ask
Italy also had a representative in Belgium in the form of Lorenzo De Luca and the Italian rider came a respectable 22nd with his mount Geisha van Orshof HDC. The pair collected 4 penalties in the first round. Click here for a complete breakdown of the results: http://eventcontent.hippoonline.de/1015/sta_erg/06_ergENG.htm?style=longines
Qatar’s Mohammed Bassem Hassan leads the overall standings on 66 points after the first two stages of the tour. 37 of those points were collected in the opening round in Miami Beach. Following behind in second we find German rider Hans-Dieter Dreher with 59 points whereas third place is currently occupied by Brazil’s Doda de Miranda on 42 points.
The standings continue as follows:
4th Scott Brash GBR 40
4th Simon Delestre FRA 40
6th Edwina Tops-Alexander AUS 35
6th Pieter Devos BEL 35
8th Christian Ahlmann GER 33
8th Roger Yves Bost FRA 33
10th Karim Elzoghby 32
10th Lauren Hough USA 32
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