Text © World of Showjumping

Harry Charles (GBR) and Stardust (Chacco-Blue x Con Air 7) won Saturday night's CSIO5* 1.55m presented by Ghelamco at Knokke Hippique. 

While the first round was jumped as the sun set over Zoute Plage, the floodlights came on for the deciding second round. The 12 best of the 35 horse-and-rider combinations in round one qualified to jump round two over a shortened track, where Charles and his 12-year-old mare stopped the clock on 40.53 seconds, taking home the win ahead of current world number one, Martin Fuchs (SUI) on The Sinner (Sanvaro x Landgold 3). Harrie Smolders (NED) and Une de l'Othain (Conterno Grande x Cento) finished third, with a time of 41.26 seconds.

Willem Greve (NED) and Highway M TN (Eldorado vd Zeshoek x Black Walter) took the fourth place, while fifth went to Petronella Andersson (SWE) and Cassina Z (Casado v'T Gelutt Z x Lux). 

The hosts were in great form, with three Belgian horse-and-rider combinations qualified for the second round. However, Rik Hemeryck (BEL) on Navarro van het Eelshof (Jappeloup v/h Dauwhof x Poleander), Jos Verlooy (BEL) on Nixon van'T Meulenhof (Denzel v'T Meulenhof x Carthago) and Gilles Thomas (BEL) on Jetric van Beek Z (Jivago d'Arsouilles x Vagabond de La Pomme) could not match Charles' winning time and had to settle for 6th, 7th and 12th place respectively.