12 May 2016
Windsor: Boyd Exell takes the lead
Reigning World Champion Boyd Exell has taken the lead in the individual competition of the International Driving Grand Prix in Windsor. Exell won the dressage with an advantage of no less than 7 penalty points to Theo Timmerman and Ijsbrand Chardon, who both scored 41,65.Exell, who won the Driving competition at the Royal Windsor Horse Show already six times, was very pleased with his dressage performance: “It was one of my better tests and I am pleased that my sponsors Hugh Scott Barrett and Boots Wright encouraged me to keep the new leaders that I have purchased last winter. They have proved that they have everything we thought they had. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to buy a pair of such high quality.” Boyd is speaking of the KWPN geldings Carlos and Celviro, who were previously driven by the Italian pair driver Jozsef Dibak who won bronze at the 2015 World Pair Driving Championships.
Even with such a big lead to his fellow competitors, Boyd knows winning Royal Windsor doesn’t come easy: “The marathon looks flowing, but they are Windsor obstacles and you have to treat them with respect.”
Theo Timmerman was also very pleased with the performance of his team: “My horses went super and were very relaxed. My test was near to perfect. I was a bit disappointed with the points, but my team just needs to be confirmed by the judges. I used a different setup than in Horst several weeks ago and I had a fantastic feeling, this team certainly gives me perspective for the near future!”
Thanks to the top performances of the Dutch drivers, Team the Netherlands is in the lead of the nations competition. Mareike Harm and Christoph Sandmann performed very well and put Germany on the second place, ahead of Australia with Exell and his compatriot Mark Peel.
2014 silver medallist Chester Weber finished on the fifth place today, driving his and Jane Clark’s team of mixed warm blood geldings.
Headman of the Swedish team Fredrik Persson was very unlucky when one of his horses got injured during the warm up and had to be replaced by his spare horse. After only several minutes of warming up, Persson entered the arena just in time and was able to drive his team to the 11th place.
The pony teams will enter the dressage arena tomorrow, followed by the marathon for all on Saturday and the cones competition on Sunday.
