A thrilling winning round in the 1.55m Prize of AachenMünchener concluded with a victory for France's Roger Yves Bost and his 13-year-old stallion Pegase du Murier. Over the tricky course of the second round, 'Bosty' dared to take all the risk and took his first victory as a grandfather.
As fifth rider in the winning round, USA's Beezie Madden set the pace aboard the 10-year-old approved stallion Breitling LS (Quintero x Accord II) stopping the clock at 46.54 seconds. The extremely long line from the original fence number 6 going into the combination 8ab caused many problems. The riders really had to gallop during this long line, but many got difficulties on the first part of the combination. Beezie Madden's mount Breitling LS kept his cool though, and jumped the double brilliantly and Beezie had a very smooth end to the course as well.
Spain's Sergio Alvarez Moya jumped to the third spot aboard the Dutch bred Arrayan (Baloubet du Rouet x Grannus), finishing in 47.61 seconds – just ahead of Ireland's Bertram Allen. Aboard the 18-year-old stallion Romanov (Heartbreaker x Fedor) Allen took a lot of risk going into the double, but just lost it a bit in the last part of the course – stopping the clock at 47.88 seconds.
When Beezie Madden's compatriot McLain Ward got an unlucky refusal on the first part of the double with HH Carlos Z (Chellano Z x Voltaire), Beezie seemed to be very close to the victory. But not close enough, since France's Roger Yvest Bost still had to go. 'Bosty' and Pegase du Murier (Adelfos x Le Tot de Semilly) fought their way to the win from start to finish, starting with a good gallop at the beginning of the course and giving all they got towards the last fence. 'Bosty' stopped the clock at 44.94 seconds and could not be beaten anymore by the two riders to come: Great Britain's Guy Williams and Canada's Tiffany Foster.
“So, I just turned into grandfather and I can still win,” Roger Yves Bost smiled after his victory. “Winning in Aachen is always something special and this competition I had never won before, so this is even nicer! We were very quick from start to finish, but I think I mostly won it at the end of the course. My horse Pegase du Murier has a lot of quality, but like his father Adelfos he also has a lot of character. The more experience he will get, the better I think he will start to jump! He will get even better than this, I expect,” Bosty said about the 13-year-old stallion.
Following the horrible events in Nice last Thursday, the French riders all ride with a black armband, showing their support for the casualties and their relatives. “Unfortunately we cannot do anything about the horrible events, so this is the least what we can do,” Roger Yvest Bost stated.
Text © World of Showjumping by Peter van der Waaij // Picture © Tiffany Van Halle