30 October 2021
CAIO Pau: No one double clear
This morning the singles drivers completed the cones in Pau. Claire Lefort won, with no balls and 0,05 for time.On the grounds where the World Championships were held last year, a World Championships-worthy cones course had been built this year. It was a difficult course with many short turns, interspersed with long lines and a very short time. A number of drivers left all the balls behind, but always at the expense of, sometimes a considerable, time penalty.
The top three: Kelly Houtappels – Bruder, the French Marion Vignaud (bronze at the World Championships last year) and Rudolf Pestman managed to limit the damage after dressage. They occupy places 3, 4 and 5 in reverse order, so the differences between them are now minimal. Frenchman Fabrice Martin was unable to maintain his good ranking after dressage and fell out of the top five with a twelfth place in the cones.
Joop Gommers, who took over the second horse from Saskia Siebers (Guus) after the death of his top horse Bandit, closed the ranks of the classified riders and is now in 16th place.
Spannende marathon
Tomorrow it will be exciting in the marathon because the mutual differences in the top three are less than half a point. The Luxembourg Marie Schiltz follows in fourth place with a narrow three points behind, but after that there is a big gap of more than nine penalties with the number five, Frans Schiltz.
In the country classification France is proudly at the top, followed by Luxembourg. The Netherlands is in third place.
