Nine combinations emerged from the first round with a clean sheet to earn their place in the jump-off, setting up a high-speed battle where the margins proved razor thin.<\/p>\n
Speaking about his win Menezes said: \u201cTo have my horses performing like they are at this beautiful grass arena is something special. It takes a lot of hard work behind wins like this and I couldn’t be more thankful to the team behind me including my family and everyone at H5 Stables.<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cI\u2019m now fully focussed on tomorrow\u2019s LGCT Grand Prix. There is a strong field here and it\u2019s going to be a big day of top sport.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first round had already produced its share of surprises, with uncharacteristic rails falling for several major names. Emanuele Camilli and Chacarano PS, Abdel Sa\u00efd with Wathnan Bonne Amie and Daniel Deusser aboard Bingo Ste Hermelle were among those denied a place in the deciding round.<\/p>\n
First to return against the clock was Ireland\u2019s Mark McAuley with the stylish nine-year-old Rossi vd Heffinck. McAuley immediately laid down the challenge, producing a smooth clear in 39.68 seconds and handing those behind him a serious time to chase.<\/p>\n
Italy\u2019s Clara Pezzoli followed with Hadewyn van\u2019t Ravennest, keeping the fences intact and crossing the line in 42.19 seconds. J\u00e9r\u00f4me Gu\u00e9ry was next to take his shot but, after an impressive opening round, two rails put him out of contention.<\/p>\n
Sandra Auffarth and Comcador OLD then added another double clear to the scoreboard, stopping the clock in 40.85 seconds before Kevin Jochems shifted the class up another gear.<\/p>\n
The Dutchman attacked aboard Casquetto van de Helle, finding the answers everywhere around the shortened course to take over the lead in 37.71 seconds.<\/p>\n
Then came Brazil\u2019s Eduardo Pereira de Menezes aboard the 13-year-old H5 Messentus PS.<\/p>\n
Pereira de Menezes wasted no time in making his intentions clear. Matching Jochems for precision while finding crucial fractions around the course, he flew through the finish in 37.43 seconds – taking 0.28 seconds off the Dutchman and putting a formidable new target on the board.<\/p>\n
But with combinations still to come, the class was far from decided.<\/p>\n
One by one, the remaining challengers took their shot at the Brazilian\u2019s time, but 37.43 seconds continued to stand. The pressure remained until the final combination crossed the line, confirming Menezes and H5 Messentus PS as the winners of a fiercely fought five-star jump-off.<\/p>\n
Jochems and Casquetto van de Helle ultimately had to settle for second, just 0.28 seconds separating the top two, while McAuley and Rossi vd Heffinck completed the podium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nine combinations emerged from the first round with a clean sheet to earn their place in the jump-off,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-607326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}