Olympic gold medallist Scott Brash has triumphed in the CSI4* grand prix in St Tropez for the second year running, as he eyes the CSI5* grand prix at the same venue this week.
Scott and the 11-year-old Hello Jefferson, who he has been riding for two years, took the victory at Hubside Jumping, Grimaud, yesterday (23 August) beating Frenchman Edward Levy on Rebecca Ls, and third-placed Belgium rider Jos Verooy on Igor.
“I’m delighted with Jefferson’s performance. He really is an exceptional horse. It took a while for me to be able to handle him as he is really powerful. But now we have formed a real combination and it works very well,” said Scott, who won the same class on Hello Senator last October.
“There were only seven jump-off riders but I really want to congratulate the course designer Andrea Colombo who did a fantastic job. He didn’t have an easy task and had to deal with an extraordinary line-up, there were virtually exclusively riders and horses who usually compete at five-star shows so he had to create a five-star level course, otherwise there would have been 20 clears after the first round, which is not what you want.”
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Scott said he watched Edward’s jump-off and noticed the mare was fast but had a shorter stride than Jefferson.
“I really focused on my horse’s powerful stride to take out a stride before the final fence. It’s the second four-star grand prix that I’ve won here at Hubside Jumping. I would love to add next week’s CSI5* grand prix,” he said.
“All of the riders agree that Sadri Fegaier has done an exceptional job as an organiser and we are all very grateful to him. The grand prix this evening reminded us all of this really special atmosphere that we all love. We all needed to experience that.”
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