Niels Bruynseels (BEL) and the Italian bred mare Lady Cracotte (Quaprice x Galoubet A) blasted away the competition in a sizzling final CSI5* 1.55m class of the Longines Global Champions Tour of Rome.

Bruynseels took a convincing win in Italy’s capital city, a full two seconds faster than the rest of the world-class field in a racy jump-off, second going to Bertram Allen (IRL) with Hector van d’Abdijhoeve (Cabrio van de Heffinck x Utrillo van de Heffinck), third to Pius Schwizer (SUI) with About A Dream (Clinton x Indoctro) and fourth to home star Gianni Govoni (ITA) with Antonio (Oklund x Dick Z).

A smiling Niels said: “I’m very happy with [Lady Cracotte], she’s an amazing horse. She tries to win every time for me - she's very fast and very clever. She’s an Italian horse and has Italian owners so I hope everyone is happy! [LGCT Rome is] an amazing show - this is an amazing place, the crowd is fantastic and the atmosphere is amazing.”

The Longines Global Champions Tour now looks to Doha, Qatar, for the 16th and final leg of the 2018 race, where Ben Maher (GBR) will be crowned 2018 Champion of Champions as the battle for second and third reaches fever pitch.