Friday’s CSI5*-W Universidad Alfonso X El Sabio Trophy at Madrid Horse Week, a 1.55m qualifier for the Longines FEI World Cup™, went to one of the fastest riders in the world: France’s Julien Epaillard.

The third element of the triple combination caused plenty of head ache for the riders in the first round, and out of 43 participants only seven managed to finish the course without faults.

In the jump-off, French rider Simon Delestre set the mark high enough riding Hermes Ryan (Hugo Gesmeray x Ryon d'Anzex) and clocked the time to beat to 42.38 seconds – it looked hard to match. Ireland’s Mark McAuley and Jasco vd Bisschop (Dulf van den Bisschop x Krunch de Breve) shaved the time down to 42.30 however, taking over the lead. 

But, when Julien Epaillard is in the jump-off fast is not always fast enough. It has to be exceptionally fast, especially when the French rider is aboard Usual Suspect d'Auge (Jarnac x Papillon Rouge). Not surprisingly, Epaillard illustrated this by taking the time down to 41.29 seconds pushing McAuley down to second and Delestre to third.

Earlier in the day, the ¡HOLA! Trophy went to Luca Maria Moneta riding Amethyse du Coty (Diamant de Semilly x Quidam de Revel) to a time of 55.83 seconds. He was closely followed by the rider Swiss Pius Schwizer with Balou Rubin R (Balou du Rouet x Couleur Rubin), 0.07 seconds behind. Third was the Belgian François Mathy Jr, who made a very clean course with Casanova de l'Herse (Ugano Sitte x Kashmir van Schuttershof) in a time of 56.14 seconds.