Text © World of Showjumping

In Gothenburg, Pius Schwizer (SUI) won Saturday's CSI5* 1.45m presented by ATG. The competition with a winning round began already on Friday evening, and was divided into five heats with five riders in each. The three best riders from each heat qualified for the winning round. To be able to ride in Friday's initial round, the riders had to do a qualifier on Thursday. 

“I think the format of the class is really good,” the winner commented. “However, the riders that don’t qualify on Thursday, might have brought a horse with them for these classes and in the end they can only jump it in one competition the whole weekend. So, it would have been good to have one more competition for the ones not qualifying to Friday’s class,” Schwizer explained 

Schwizer and the 12-year-old Cas (Casall x Baldini I) crushed the competition when winning with a margin of 4.73 seconds over Louise Saywell (GBR) aboard Sharp Image (Calvados Z x Damoiseau d’Or). Third place went to Geir Gulliksen (NOR) with Arakorn (Cantos x Damiro), followed by Peder Fredricson (SWE) with H&M Crusader Ice (Cabachon x Corland) and Victoria Gulliksen (NOR) with Eracantos (Cantos x Kroongraaf). 

“Cas is very careful and very fast. He is a bit like his father Casall, and with his previous rider he was a bit spooky but for me his is a top horse,” Schwizer said. 

Saywell was quite surprised to end second in the class: “Sharp Image is very inexperienced at this level. Normally he only jumps 1.35-1.40m classes, so even yesterday in the qualifying round it was a massive step up and it was a nice surprise that he jumped clear with a good round. Today I thought that the turns would be a little bit too much for him, so I just tried to do a nice round that was suitable for him so he could jump a clear.”