Australia 2nd in Linz Nations Cup event

Alison Rowland, Rory Hovell, James Passy and Phillip Lever have delivered Australia a podium finish at the third leg of the Furusiyaa FEI Nations Cup Jumping 2013 series held overnight in Linz, Austria.

The team finished in second position behind a very strong Swiss outfit and ahead of other formidable nations Germany, Austria and Poland.

Australia was in the lead following the completion of the first round and were narrowly defeated by the Swiss who won the race by a margin of a single jumping penalty.

From a starting field of 11 nations, just eight returned to the second round.

The first-round track designed by Austria’s Franz Madl was perfectly pitched for CSIO 3* standard.  Winning team member, Christina Liebherr, described it as “not so big, but very technical.  The ground was up and down so you could easily make mistakes with your distances, and some horses jumped a bit flat here and there - but there were mistakes everywhere on the course so it was definitely very fair” the Swiss rider said.  And she recognised that today’s Swiss victory wasn’t easily earned.

“The Australian horses jumped really well and the Polish team might have won it too - it was a very exciting competition right to the very end” she pointed out.

Madl sent them off over an oxer followed by a vertical with a bending line to the Longines double at fence three.  The following triple bar to vertical proved influential, with the latter regularly hitting the floor and then there was a full circle to the narrow wall at six which didn’t prove attractive to a number of horses. The oxer at seven was followed by the open water, and German chances were undermined when their second-line partnership of Joachim Heyer and Aquarell PW ran into trouble here, while the following triple combination would also penalise many before the oxer at fence 10 led to the final line.  Some riders chose to cut tight to the penultimate oxer, but time and again this proved to be a mistake as horses were asked to jump off-balance and riders paid the price, while the final vertical also hit the floor on many occasions at the end of an otherwise foot-perfect round.

By the halfway stage the Australians were looking very good indeed with just a single time penalty between them.  The Swiss lay second, with five faults on the board, while Poland was in third carrying eight, Germany was next with 10 and the home team from Austria were on level-pegging with the Italians carrying 12.  The Danish side had already collected 16 faults while the Irish filled the last of the first-round qualifying spots with 21.  Great Britain’s 23 faults, the 31 accumulated by Belarus and the 32 picked up by the Russian side left these three countries on the sidelines as round two began.

Australian opener, Alison Rowland, made her only mistake of the day when the busy little Bickley Brook Bella put a foot in the water second time out, but James Passy followed his opening one-time-fault effort with Yirrkala Corina with two poles down and when Philip Lever became one of the very many to lower the first fence, but the only rider of the day to dislodge a brick from the narrow wall at fence six, then the Swiss began to sneak ahead.

 Liebherr’s LB Callas Sitte Z faulted at the water in another otherwise copybook round, Muff hit the final element of the triple combination and Bettschen became yet another victim of the first fence before his horse, Milor Landais, also got his feet wet for a total of eight faults.

With just two riders to go it was still very much hanging in the balance.  Both Switzerland and Australia were on 21 faults now, so it was up to their anchor partnerships to decide the result.  A clear from Claudia Gisler and Touchable would pile the pressure on the final Australian duo by reducing the Swiss total to just 13, and it looked like they were about to do just that until the very last fence hit the floor to bring the final tally to 17 faults.

The Australians could finish on 13 however if they could drop one eight-fault result and if their last rider could keep a clean sheet.  It was a big ask, but with the atmosphere at boiling point Rory Hovell and Yalambi’s Val d’Isere VDL made it all the way to the final element of the triple combination before that fell, and when the following oxer also bit the dust it was all over.  Their 21-fault finishing score would relegate the Australians to runner-up spot behind the considerably more experienced Swiss side.  Germany was just one fault further behind with 22 faults while Austria finished a very creditable fourth on a total of 24.

Result:

1. Switzerland 17 faults: LB Callas Sitte Z (Christina Liebherr) 0/4, Leszek (Theo Muff) 4/4, Milor Landais (Pascal Bettschen) 1/8, Touchable (Claudia Gisler) 4/4.

2. Australia 21 faults: Bickley Brook Bella (Alison Rowland) 0/4, Yirrkala Cortina (William James Passy) 1/8, Da Vinci's Pride (Phillip Lever) 0/8, Yalambi's Val d'Isere VDL (Rory Hovell) 4/8.

3. Germany 22 faults: Little Pezi (Mario Stevens) 0/4, Aquarell PW (Joachem Heyer) Elim/19, Cassydy (Markus Renzel) 6/0, Queen Mary (Jan Wemke) 4/8.

4. Austria 24 faults:  Glock's Prince de Vaus (Dieter Kofler) 4/8, Duc de Revel (Astrid Kneifel) 8/4, Sterrehof's Ushi (Julia Kayser) 8/0, Concordija (Stefan Eder) 0/8.

5. Ireland 25 faults: Je T'Aime Flamenco (Billy Twomey) 8/12, Special Lux (Anthony Condon) 13/0, Romanov (Bertram Allen) 0/0, Annestown (Capt Michael Kelly) 16/4.

6. Denmark 28 faults: Allerdings (Andreas Schou) 8/8, Kamila (Kim Kristensen) 4/4, Charly (Lars Bak Andersen) 8/4, Cartani (Charlotte von Roenne) 4/4.

7. Poland 32 faults: El Camp (Lukasz Koza) 0/0, Centino du Ry (Igor Kawiak) 8/4, Ponita (Ewa Mazurowska) 4/20, Osadkowski van Halen (Piotr Morsztyn) 4/Elim.

8. Italy 40 faults: Neptune Brecourt (Luca Maria Moneta) 0/4, Villeneuve D (Eleonora Zorzetto) 8/12, Chico Z (Riccardo Pisani) 4/12, New Zealand Delle Roane (Fabio Brotto) 8/12.

The following teams did not jump in the second round:

9. Great Britain 23 faults: Goodman Accobado (Jo Pay) 4, Winner (Louise Saywell) 4, Quentin Tarantino (Timothy Page) 16, Fandango (William Whitaker) 15.

10. Belarus 31 faults: Wacantos (Yahor Morotski) 17, Lodonkor (Vasil Ivanou) 12, Clooney (Ibragim) 6, Unique Cheval (Maxim Kryna) 13.

11. Russia 32 faults: Like You (Sergey Khomashko) 16, Wilandra (Vadim Konovalov) 12, Kilar (Natalia Simonia) 8, Rocketman (Vladimir Beletskiy) 12. Detailed result here 

3 May 2013

Jumping News: Linz Nations Cup and GCT season opener

Australia is one of 11 nations to contest the opening round of the CSIO3* Nations Cup event in Linz (AUT) this weekend.

The Australian team of Alison Rowland, James Passey, Phillip Lever and Rory Hovell drew 11^th in the order-to-go.

Philip Lever was initially named as the team’s reserve and comes in to replace Evie Buller who has chosen to withdraw in the best interests of the team. In consultation with Chef d’Equipe Peter Cooke, the chair of Jumping Selectors Graeme Watts confirmed the team changes overnight.

The event will get underway on Friday at 2pm local time and will be broadcast on http://www.FEITV.org                                           

Meanwhile Edwina Tops-Alexander will begin her campaign for three straight successive Global Champions Tour crowns this weekend when the opening round of the 2013 season begins in Madrid. It will be the first time that the Spanish capital has hosted a round of the Global Champions Tour.

Edwina won the opening round of the 2012 season which was staged in Doha, Qatar and went on to clinch the series crown for the second time.

Eurosport will broadcast the GCT Madrid Grand Prix, for broadcast times visit http://tv.au.eurosport.com/ and search equestrian.