Anna Kellnerová was very successful at Miami Beach. On Thursday she ranked fifth in two competitions of the supreme CSI5* category. First she succeeded with Balguer in the show jump with 145 cm hurdles, and then again in the saddle of her mare Catch Me If You Can OLD over hurdles 10 centimetres higher in the first round of the team competition, also classified as a separate competition. Thanks to the significant contribution by this Czech duo, the Prague Lions advanced to Saturday's second round from the silver rank.
The show jumping course for the top competition of Global Champions League in Miami was prepared by the Italian builder Uliano Vezzani at the top difficulty level. Although the hurdles were already 160 cm high, an even greater demand was placed by the technical parameters of the course. The numbers of knock-downs by most teams increased rapidly, and the first team to put pressure on the others was the Berlin Eagles – Malin Baryard-Johnsson and Emil Hallundbaek. They scored zero penalty points twice, and thus their account only included 8 penalty points from Thursday. Except for the leading St Tropez Pirates, the remaining riders knew that victory required making no mistakes at all. Berlin Eagles did not enjoy their overall interim leadership for long, though. The Miami Celtics, represented by two Irish riders – Shan Breene and Michael Duffy – did not score any penalty points either, and as they had scored only 6 in the beginning then knew they approached the podium ranks closely. If any of the teams following them made a single mistake, victory would be theirs. That happened soon in the case of Daniel Deusser with Calisto Blue starting for Shanghai Swans – the winning team of the previous two competitions in Doha and in Mexico City. The Shanghai Swans did not manage a hat trick, however, not even after Deusser´s teammate Peder Fredricson and his gelding H&M Christian K showed one of the best individual performances of this competition. Their total score of 9 points ranked them after Berlin Eagles.
Then it was the Prague Lions' turn, first represented by Anna Kellnerová and her mare Catch Me If You Can OLD. She did not, however, repeat her zero penalty ride from Thursday. The first fault came with the second hurdle of double jump number 3, and the second with the oxer hurdle number 7, following a demanding triple jump. Niels Bruynseels, with his mare Gancia de Muze, performed a precise ride, and the final result of Prague Lions after the two rounds was 13 penalty points.
Not even the leading St Tropez Pirates avoided penalisation when Athina Onassis with MHS Going Global made one knock-down. Her teammate Pieter Devos closed the whole competition with a zero penalty ride to bring the Pirates the second overall rank after the Miami Celtics. Bronze in Miami Beach went to Berlin Eagles, the fourth rank to Shanghai Swans, and the fifth rank to Prague Lions. The latter received 17 points in the team table for their result, and their total interim score of 33 points moved them to row 12 in the table.
The Global Champions series will continue in Shanghai on 3 to 5 May. The whole competition includes twenty meetings, with the final taking place, like last year, in Prague. The global show jumping gala show, GC Prague PlayOffs, will be hosted by the Prague O2 Arena between 21 and 24 November. For details about the programme and ticket booking visit www.pragueplayoffs.com. For more information about Global Champions visit www.gcglobalchampions.com.
Photo by David Horváth / CET