Successful weekend for Azzurri riders

A very positive weekend for Italian show-jumping came to a close yesterday with some fantastic results for the Italian riders as Piergiorgio Bucci and Lorenzo De Luca both triumphed in prestigious and important GPs.
The former took the spoils in the Longines Global Champions Tour GP in Estoril, Portugal with Casallo Z (Casall). Bucci overcame the stiff competition from seven other pairs at the jump-off including Edwina Tops-Alexander who came second and Bertram Allen who had to settle for the final podium slot.
All three of the aforementioned riders cleared the course at the jump-off but it was Bucci that set the fastest time with an impressive 49.07 seconds. The rest of the top-ten was as follows:
4th Olivier Philippaerts BEL H&M Legend of Love
5th Abdullah Al Sharbatly KSA Tobalio
6th Marco Kutscher GER SIEC Carsten
7th Michael Whitaker GBR Cassionato
8th David Will GER Mic Mac du Tillard
9th Nicola Philippaerts BEL H&M Harley vd Bisschop
10th Andreas Kreuzer GER Quick Jumper
SEE HERE for a full list of the standings: http://www.longinestiming.com/#!/show-jumping/2016/1198/html/en/longinestiming/resultlist_04.html
De Luca on the other hand took first place at the CSI2* Knokke GP in Belgium. The Azzurri star was competing with Halifax van het Kluizebos and triumphed after a hard fought and exciting jump-off with a number of Belgian riders such as Pieter Vandierendonck, second, and Wilm Vermeir, third.
For a full list of the results, SEE HERE: http://online.equipe.com/en/class_sections/208482/results
De Luca continued his good form and claimed second spot with Balou de Coeur Joye in the 1.50m trial won by Egypt’s Abdel Said. The 3 star GP meanwhile was won by Santiago Lambre of Mexico with the KWPN gelding Johnny Boy. Italy’s Antonio Alfonso did his country proud with a sixth place finish in the GP with Alex. The duo were precise and accurate, but incurred a time penalty which cost them the chance of finishing any higher than sixth. As for De Luca, he came 13th following 4 penalties with Limestone Grey.
Here is the full results round-up: http://online.equipe.com/en/class_sections/208346/results
photo credits: Stefano Grasso