It turned out to be a very exciting last leg of the Longines Global Champions Tour in Doha, and here are some of the highlights from the final Grand Prix of this season. First out: Sean Lynch being all happy after Daniel Deusser and First Class van Eeckelghem ended second. All photos (c) Jenny Abrahamsson.
Marco Kutscher started off the first round riding Clenur. They made it look so easy when delivering a clear round.
Simon Delestre's Chadino ended fifth; here after the jump-off with his groom.
Jos Verlooy and Caracas ended 11th after having one down in the first round, and being clear in the second. Here over the second last fence in the first round.
Bassem Hassan Mohammed had quite a dramatic first round with Dejavu, almost falling off after fence four, getting back in the saddle and jumping the following three fences (combination included) without stirrups.
One of many beautiful fences.
These two delivered three fantastic rounds, ending second: Daniel Deusser and First Class van Eeckelghem.
Edwina Tops-Alexander was in the race for the 2016 LGCT title, but eight faults in the first round put a stop for her chances.
It was only one annoying time fault from the first round that stopped Lorenzo de Luca and Ensor de Litrange LXII from the jump-off.
Janne-Friederike Meyer's Goja just jumped higher and higher for every round, but a pole down on the very last fence in the jump-off stopped them from taking the second place.
Another horse that jumped really high was Fibonacci. So high actually that she almost pushed Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum out of the saddle over the last fence in the second round.
Time for jump-off!
Laura Kraut showed some great riding on Zeremonie, ending fourth.
We love when the grooms get some payback for their hard work when the riders and horses deliver as hoped for: This time it was Laura Kraut and Zeremonie who did their job well.
And here it was Daniel Deusser and First Class van Eeckelghem that did it.
And of course we also love when the horses get the attention they deserve.
This was the third show together for Simon Delestre and Chadino, and they seem to like each other indeed finishing fifth. Chadino was previously ridden by Ference Szentirmai, and competed at the Olympics in Rio for Ukraine.
Christian Ahlmann and Taloubet Z made it all the way to the jump-off where they got an unlucky fault, ending 7th.
Then