Text © World of Showjumping

After his victory in Saturday’s Falsterbo Derby, Andre Thieme (GER) continued on a winning streak in today’s CSIO5* 1.60m Longines Falsterbo Grand Prix – taking the top honours with his European Champion DSP Chakaria (Chap 47 x Askari 173).

“The best thing that probably could have happened to me was that I was early in the jump-off,” Thieme said after his win. “I was told many times not to go fast and not to go crazy by our Chef d’Equipe Otto Becker. I totally understand that he didn’t want to see me go fast ahead of the World Championship, and I really had the plan not to. From jump number one to the last I told myself ‘Don’t go crazy, don’t go crazy.’ And I didn’t, she is just a naturally very, very fast horse. That is why I’m extra happy I did not go crazy – everything just came up in a good way. To the last jump there was a little bit of a hesitation, because I didn’t want to take the flying seven so in the last second I changed my mind and made eight. If I would have been at the end of the second round, I would probably have been a bit more excited and now it worked out by staying calm.”

Only eight horse-and-rider combinations cleared the first round, but with twelve moving on to the second round those on a clean sheet were joined by one rider with two time faults, one with three time faults and the two fastest four-faulters from round one.

The second round caused plenty of mistakes; only five riders managed to answer all the questions asked and with three of them carrying faults from round one, the end result were two double clears. The quickest was Thieme, who was 0.27 seconds ahead of home hero Henrik von Eckermann (SWE) with Nababette Z (Nabab de Reve x Gasper). 

22-year-old Hessel Hoekstra (NED) went for a steady clear in the second round to finish in 52.30 seconds, and with two time faults from the first round, he ended third. Fourth place went to Amy Inglis (GBR) with Wishes (Guidam x Wellington) after carrying three time penalties from the first round, on to a clear second round. Karel Cox (BEL) and Nueva Epoca de Regor (Nabab de Reve x Querlybet Hero) were clear in the first round and had the fastest time in round two, but after four faults they had to settle for fifth. 

Only once before, the same rider won both the derby as well as the Grand Prix at Falsterbo Horse show – that was back in 2011 when Patrice Delaveau made the double. “I came here to win that derby. I had the horse that I won it with the last time I was here, and I was very confident that I would have a good result,” Thieme said. “But with the Grand Prix, I knew from the beginning that if I’m in the jump-off I don’t want to go extra fast and normally you don’t win if you don’t give a 100%. But the way it was set up today, everybody got rails in the jump-off.”

“I’m really happy with the result today,” runner-up Henrik von Eckermann said. “I really wanted to go to Falsterbo, because it is in my home country and I wanted to compete in front of the Swedish crowds. But I didn’t want to come here to just be one on the starting list. I got a really good feeling with Nababette in Monaco, so I thought it would be good in Falsterbo. I’m really happy with how it went today.”

“This was my second 5* Grand Prix with this horse and it was just amazing,” Hessel Hoekstra said after the third place. “After the first round I was a little disappointed with the time penalties, but in the end I’m just super happy. We got a lot of experience this week and we keep on learning.”