Coming straight from the Rolex Grand Slam of Show Jumping in Den Bosch, was world-class course designer Louis Konickx who build a thirteen-fence track in the beautiful grass ring in Oliva Nova \u2013 challenging the 61 horse-and-rider combinations in the competition with many technical questions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were very lucky to have Louis Konickx here this weekend, he is one of the very, very best in the world and one of my favourite course designers,\u201d Offel said after. \u201cThe track was technical, you had to have a plan today \u2013 especially with the related distances where you had to choose between a forward stride or collect, like into the triple combination where you had to go on either six or seven strides. Also, the last line asked a bit technique with the double and then the six short strides to the final oxer. It was really nicely and fair build, and we saw very good sport today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fourteen riders managed to clear the track to move on to the jump-off, and it was bound to be a fast affair with several open stretches inviting the riders to let go of the brakes. For a long time, Yannick Jorand (SUI) held on to the lead but then came Offel who went all in with her tiny but super-quick mare Elien to shave off an incredible 1.91 seconds on the leading time.<\/p>\n
Those to come gave it a really good go, but no one could catch up with Offel. Closest came Micky Morssinkhof (NED) who also rode a blistering fast round on Happy Girl 42 (Nonstop x Landetto) finishing 0.43 seconds behind to take the runner-up position. With Annelies Vorsselmans (BEL) on Wilandro 3 (Unistar x Ramazotti) in third, it was a ladies\u2019 podium in Oliva today. Rene Tebbel (UKR) finished fourth, and Therese S\u00f8hol Henriksen (NOR) fifth.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy horse jumped very good today, even better in the jump-off than in the first round,\u201d Offel detailed after. \u201cI knew that I had to go for it in the jump-off, it was a lot of stretches. Many of the riders had to come back a bit to the Oliva Nova-oxer that was placed in the middle of the ring, but I managed to get a really good turn there and could just keep on going. My horse was really fighting for me, and I am so happy with her!”<\/p>\n
The winning mare Elien came to Offel last year, and the two made their debut together during the Autumn MET 2017. \u201cWillem Greve and his father bred Elien themselves, and they thought I would fit good to her so they very kindly gave her to me to ride. They knew what they were doing because it was straight away a match! By now I am lucky enough to have very supportive owners \u2013 the Christiaansen-family who is behind Martrick Benelux Horses \u2013 and after the Autumn MET they bought her for me so I could keep her. Elien stepped up really nice during the winter, we did a few three-star 1.50 classes together. This is her first outdoor show after the indoor season, and she was third in the ranking class on Friday and won today so I am over the moon with her!\u201d Offel smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really enjoy being here at the Mediterranean Equestrian Tour, the facilities are great and it\u2019s very well organized. We have come here every year for the last three seasons. The horses really enjoy being outside again \u2013 they have jumped fantastic all week. I hope we can continue the next two weeks like we started the first!\u201d\u00a0 concluded the happy winner.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Photo credit \u00a9 Herv\u00e9 Bonnaud \/ www.1clicphoto.com. This photo may be used only in relation to this press release and must include photo credit.<\/p>\n
The third part of the Spring MET 2018 kicked off this week, and the six first days of competition were concluded with the CSI2* Grand Prix presented by Oliva Nova Beach and Golf Resort that went to Katharina Offel. Riding the 9-year-old mare Elien (Carambole x Mermus R), the German rider took the top honours in this world ranking Grand Prix worth 30,000 Euro<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18232,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spring-met-2018-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/metoliva.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/metoliva.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/metoliva.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metoliva.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metoliva.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18231"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/metoliva.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21067,"href":"https:\/\/metoliva.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18231\/revisions\/21067"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metoliva.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/metoliva.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metoliva.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metoliva.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}