Odile Gierech finished second in Vejer de la Frontera
Before his appearance at the “Saut Hermès” in Paris, Victor Bettendorf competed in a number of show jumping classes up to CSI 3* level in Gassin near St. Tropez. It was on Friday, March 13th, that he achieved his best results at this tournament. Riding the ten-year-old gelding Qwando Van De Rispen, he secured victory in the 1.45-meter qualifier for the three-star Grand Prix.
The pair completed the course in 64.93 seconds, relegating Marlon Modolo Zanatelli from Brazil, on Fusario D’Boissailles, to second place (66.16). Third place went to Robin Muhr from Israel with Foud’joie De Stel (66.86). In the aforementioned Grand Prix two days later, Bettendorf and “Qwando” reached the jump-off, posting the fastest lap (39.84), but an obstacle down made them drop down to tenth place. Between those two competitions, the 36-year-old Luxembourger achieved two top-five finishes.
In the qualifier for the CSI 2* Grand Prix, also over a height of 1.45 meters, Bettendorf and the nine-year-old gelding Champion De La Roque finished second. Their time of 66.51 seconds was fifty hundredths of a second too slow; winner Julien Gonin from France and Cocolotti completed the course in 66.01 seconds. The following day, the world number 55 secured another fourth place. He achieved this in the final for seven-year-old young horses with Jumbo La Roque over 1.35 meters.
Odile Gierech (WR 388) is currently in Vejer de la Frontera (E), as she has been for several weeks. During the past week of competition, she competed in several young horse jumping classes. Her best result in these events was a sixth-place finish on the seven-year-old Ninjo Van t’Ameldonk. She is expected to achieve several notable results over 1.50 meters in the larger classes in southern Spain. Her best performance came with the mare Gutchi de Moyon, on whon she finished second in a CSI 4* jumping competition at the height mentioned before. Her time of 68.95 seconds, however, was not enough to secure the top spot, as Kevin Gonzalez de Zarate Fernandez (E) and Chinixen clocked 68.10 seconds.
A day later, Gierech achieved two ninth-place finishes, one over 1.45 meters with Secret Touch Jw Van’t Meulenhof and the other over 1.40 meters with Kiss-me. Riding “Secret Tourch”, an eight-year-old mare, Gierech then finished another 1.50-meter class in the top ten, ultimately placing eighth. Following a seventh-place finish over 1.35 meters with Haida du Houx, she also secured points for the Longines Ranking: last Sunday’s CSI 4* class over 1.50 meters counted towards this ranking, and Gierech and Qallas de Septon qualified for the jump-off with the fourth-fastest time. However, two rails down in the jump-off meant they could only finished on the tenth place – a remarkable result nonetheless! Finally, there was also a 5th place finish over 1.45 meters, which the 38-year-old was able to claim on the eleven-year-old gelding Jagali d’Googpoort.
Translated from German by AI and adjusted by Paul Krier.