Sanne Thijssen has a scorching win in the Horseware Grand Prix with ‘Con Quidam RB’

Michael Hughes is second with ‘Kashmir Van D’Oude Pastory’ and Gilles Thomas third, with ‘Luna Van Het Dennehof’

The Horseware sponsored Grand Prix class held the crowd enthralled from start to finish.  The second last to go from the 7 riders that got through to the jump off, was American rider, Michael Hughes with ‘Kashmir Van D’Oude Pastory’.  Up to that point the Belgian rider, Gilles Thomas was in the lead on a time of 45.99s with ‘Luna Van Het Dennehof’.  But Gilles was about to be knocked off the top spot.  Michael came in and he rode a beautiful clear round, which was one of only four in the whole jump off.  Michael went into the lead stopping the clock in just 45.34s and the cheers went up from the crowd.  Alas, in the end he had to make do with second place on the podium as the very last to go was Dutch rider Sanne Thijssen with her long term partner the lovely ‘Con Quidam RB’.  These two have been together for many seasons and their partnership absolutely shone through today.  With the Sunday crowds cheering them on they absolutely blew Michael’s time out of the water stopping the clock in an amazing 40.86s, well over 4 seconds faster than the American pair.  

Sanne was absolutely over the moon with this result and the large crowd greeted her with enthusiastic cheers as she cantered past the stands after her round.  ‘Con Quidam RB’ is a stallion who is beautifully bred, by Quinar Z with dam sire Cardino 5, Sanne told us after the prize giving, “he is a horse that always, in each moment, knows what he has to do even if it is a really demanding track’.  This partnership has a great list of results behind them the most notable of which must be the Barcelona Nations Cup in 2021, where the Dutch team took first place and Sanne was 14th Individually.  They also represented their country in the Continental/Regional Championships 2015 and 2016.  In the 2015 Championships in Austria they were Individually 11th and the team was 5th and in 2016 in Ireland, the team were 2nd and they were 4th individually.  All this experience shines through in the ring, this is not their only great result here at the Andalucía Sunshine Tour, as they were also second in the Geolastic trophy here on Friday.

So in the end, Gilles Thomas and ‘Luna Van Het Dennehof’ took third place and the German rider Marcel Marschall was fourth with a lovely clear on ‘Extra Strong’.  Fifth was Egyptian rider Karim El Zoghby, who was actually very fast and stopped the clock with the second fastest jump off time,  but he had a pole down with ‘Gallos’.

World renown French rider Pénélope Leprevost was the winner of the Medium Tour Grand Prix with the mare ‘Verite Une Prince’ who is by Number One D’Iso, DS Rosire).  German rider Jana Wargers was second with the Chacco-Blue mare, ‘Chacco’s Lady 2’ who’s dam sire is ‘Indoctro’.  Gudrun Patteet from Belgium, was again at the top of the field, this time in third place with ‘Sea Coast Donna Z’.  Lucas Porter from the USA was fourth with ‘Hope Street’ and Gilles Thomas had another top finish with ‘Calleryama’, taking fifth place.

The Small Tour Grand Prix was won by the Irish rider Ciaran Nallon with the 8yr old mare ‘Dolce Vita Des Ouches’ by ‘Verdi TN’.  German riders took second and third places, Helmut Schönstetter with the MK Sporthorses gelding ‘EIC Julius Caesar’ and Karin Ernsting with the ‘Contender’ mare ‘D-Coroquada.  Danish rider Benedikte Rie Truelsen with ‘Hait Ask’ was fourth and Jordy Van Massenhove from Belgium was fifth with  ‘Verdiamo Z’.

In the CSI1* 1.35m Grand Prix, two Finnish riders topped the podium.  14 yr old Jone Illi was our winner riding  ‘Eolita L’ (Verdi TN, DS Daimler), finishing off a great week as just yesterday he won the 1.30m and on Friday he was second in the 1.25/1.30m class.  Second was Hugo Kogelnig riding ‘Vermont 2’ and in their was the Dutch rider  Anoek Van Der Pluijm riding I-Star.

These are the main results here today from the 12 classes that were held today, the rest of the results can be found on our App or website. 

After this lovely sunny day with the very busy day schedule of jumping and great  numbers crowds coming to support the riders, tomorrow we have a day of rest from competition.  The Young Horses return to their classes on Tuesday and then have three days competing and hopefully adding clear rounds to their sum totals, that count towards qualification for the Young Horse Finals held on the 23rd of February.  These classes will start off our second week of competition here at the Andalucía Sunshine Tour, sponsored by the Consejería de Turismo, Regeneración, Justicia y Administración Local de la Junta de Andalucía, a través de Turismo y Deporte de Andalucía.