Belgium’s Olivier Philippaerts and Jérôme Guery took the top-two places in the Ego7 Speed class at Jumping Verona 2024 this afternoon.
In a challenging competition, course designer Uliano Vezzani set them a 12-fence challenge and only nine of the 44 starters managed to jump clear while six riders decided to retire on course.
Philippaerts started in 17th place and set the target in 61.16 seconds riding the nine-year-old chestnut mare Kwik Tweet. None of the rest could better that but his time was just 0.16 seconds quicker than Guery and the 12-year-old grey mare Hoselinde while Frenchman, Simon Delestre, clocked up a time of 62.38 for third with the 10-year-old stallion Jiamo VDS.
Philippaerts admitted that he didn’t think he had been fast enough to take the top spot today. «To be honest when I came out and saw the time I thought I would not be fast enough to win. But it was a tough class, it was hard to go fast and stay clear, so I think I just kept it on the right limit! It was 1.50m, much bigger than yesterday so I couldn’t go as fast as yesterday. It was a matter of keeping the turns very short and not trying to open up the horse too much», he explained.
Undoing
Fence nine, a water-tray vertical, proved the undoing of several combinations including Italy’s Giulia Martinengo Marquet with Captain Morgan Weering Z and Austria’s Gerfried Puck with Idiaal Special HJ who each had a stop there before completing the course. Philippaerts pointed out, «the horses could only see it very late, they got a bit lost because there were so many jumps close to each other so they were a bit confused about where to go and I think that’s what made it so complicated».
Talking about his winning ride Kwik Tweet he said, «we have owned her since she was seven, she has always won lots of classes but it was difficult to know how much scope she would have. Now she’s winning at 1.50m level so she’s a great horse, at her last three shows she won a class every week. She has a strong personality, lots of blood, lots of temperament but that’s also why she’s so fast. She’s a great little horse and a very enjoyable horse to have!»
Hoselinde
Runner-up Guery was very happy with Hoselinde. «She comes from Chinese owners who gave her to me just two months ago. We did Saint-Lô two weeks ago also with good results, she’s a really nice mare, super competitive with a good mentality and I’m happy to have her and today she really listened to me», he said.
Describing the challenges of the course he said «it was a Speed class but it was technical, you had to choose your distances and there were many faults. It was fine if you were happy to ride slowly but if you wanted to go fast it became a difficult class!»
While today’s winner, 31-year-old Philippaerts, has not qualified for tomorrow’s Longines FEI Jumping World Cup qualifier, Guery is through with Careca LS Elite and he’s feelind very positive. «He had one down yesterday but he jumped really well and the goal for him is really tomorrow. I was third yesterday with Great Britain V, second today with Hoselinde so why not first tomorrow?!», he said with big smile.
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