Release date: 06/05/2019

The pedigrees of the young horses in the classes for five, six and seven-year-olds showed much variation. Belgian, Dutch, Irish and German bred horses finished in the top placings. In the two phases competition for seven-year-olds it was Belgium’s top rider Gregory Wathelet who took the victory and third place. He rode the BWP mare Melia de Regor in his winning round. Wathelet was happy “I just returned from the Longines Global Champion Tour in Shanghai, so it was not easy to get onto a horse straight away. Melia is a good horse and very fast by nature.” Wathelet finished third with the NRPS mare Cherie. Runner-up was another BWP product, Hello Zachary, who was skilfully ridden by British Scott Brash.
 
Australia’s Jake Hunter, who rides for Alan Waldman/Starwyn Farms in the Netherlands, won the six-year-olds class with the Irish bred Liscarrow Neptune. Jake is really feeling at home at Tops International Arena: “It is a great place with a great atmosphere. It is perfect for young horses, the facilities, the beautiful arenas and the fantastic courses.” He praises his mare: “She is going to be a top horse, she is careful, intelligent and she has a super character. I am very grateful that I got the opportunity to ride her.” Jake is riding for the same stable as Danielle Goldstein, who will get married within three weeks to Alan Waldman. The Australian was two seconds faster than runner-up Emma Stoker (GBR) with Q Seven (Hann). Third place went to Belgium’s Guy Janssens with Nostalgie (BWP).
 
Victory in the six-year-old division went to Holland’s Danny Willems and his KWPN stallion Jagger. Jagger’s breeder, Rein Jacobsen, watched the competition and was super proud. “It is a great horse, but he has a great dam who produced only good horses.” Dam Uliadiene successfully jumped 1.30m courses and her first three offspring are all good sport horses: Adrenaline (by Tenerife VDL), jumping 1.40m, Clementiene (by Indoctro) was awarded the ‘sport jumping’ predicate and her son Fats (by Baltic VDL) was sold shortly after the first selection to the VDL Stud and finally moved to the USA. Fats was sold for $130,000 at an auction in Wellington and is currently jumping at 1.35m level. Danny is riding Jagger for 2,5 years: “it is a great horse, very easy to handle until he jumps the first fence. Then he wakes up! He had a break in winter and Valkenswaard is his third outdoor show.” Britain’s Emma Stoker finished runner-up with Skylandria Z followed by Vincent Zacharias Bourguignon and the Holsteiner Classified SR.