Guerdat triumphs in Stuttgart to secure qualification for Paris finals

Switzerland’s Steve Guerdat won the FEI World Cup Grand Prix in Stuttgart, Germany, atop his ten-year old mare Hannah, nicknamed “The flying machine“. The Olympic champion at London 2012 was the quickest in the 16-rider jump-off (0/48.19) and defeated the competition of the favourite home stars.
There were actually 11 German contenders on the 40-strong start-list so the result seemed heavily weighted in favour of a home victory. But in the end the best they could do was a second spot, with Philipp Weishaupt atop of Asathir, ahead of Christian Ahlmann with Epleaser van’t Heike in third and Simone Blum and DSP Alice in fourth.
Guerdat was delighted with his rising talent Hannah, who had been amazing all season. She jumped indoors for the first time at World Cup leg in Oslo last month but was not perfect there. She improved in the next round at Helsinki, and did her best in the big Stuttgart arena, where it is much more like jumping outdoors.
Thanks to this win, Hannah secured to his rider the qualification for the Longines 2018 Final in Paris next April. Guerdat actually tops the Western European League table with 43 points. Second spot in the ranking is for France’s Kevin Staut with 38 points.
3rd Henrik von Eckermann SWE 35 points
4th Simon Delestre FRA 31 points
5th ALBERTO ZORZI ITA 31 points
6th Pieter Devos BEL 28 points
7th Douglas Lindelow SWE 24 points
8th Maikel van der Vleuten NED 23 points
9th Mark McAuley IRL 22 points
10th Philipp Weisaupt GER 21 points
Should the ranking remain almost unchanged, we would see also Italy’s Alberto Zorzi in Paris. The next FEI World Cup event is schedued this week in Madrid and it will be followed by the CSI 5* at La Coruna, starting on December 10th.www.fei.orgphoto: Steve Guerdat (SUI) rides Hannah in the LONGINES FEI World Cup™ Jumping Stuttgart, Germany, Nov 19th 2017
Photo FEI/Cara Grimshaw