Cornelissen keeps her cool at Olympia Horse Show

Adelinde Cornelissen put bad luck at the World Equestrian Games in Kentucky behind her to take her second Reem Acra World Cup qualifier this season at London Olympia with 83.65%.

“I’m really happy,” she said. “I was determined before the World Games to show the world how good Jerich Parzival is and I’m just as determined now.”

The pair were unable to ride their freestyle in Kentucky as the horse bit his lip in the grand prix and Adelinde was eliminated for blood in the horse’s mouth. They had no such problems here and Adelinde described her horse as “just totally relaxed in the arena tonight”, which gave her the edge over the rest of the field. The majority found the atmosphere too much to cope with.

The pressure was off Adelinde after Britain’s main hope, Laura Bechtolsheimer, had a difficult time with her Kentucky silver medallist Mistral Hojris.

Laura said: “It was difficult in there for me tonight on Alf. He did some fantastic work, but had too many mistakes as well. He finds big atmosphere’s like Olympia really hard to handle.”

The pair still scored 80.05%, despite mistakes in the changes and piaffe, and this followed a win in yesterday’s warm-up grand prix qualifier.

The Netherland’s Edward Gal was third riding Sisther De Jeu (77.05%), who is by Gribaldi, the same sire as Edward’s World Games gold medallist Totilas, who has since been sold to Germany.

“It’s nice to be back on another good horse,” he said. “And there’s more to come from this mare.”

Amy Stovold was best of the Brits after Laura in fifth place riding Macbrian, who is by Jan Brink’s Briar. This was the pair’s World Cup qualifier and Olympia debut and they scored an impressive 74.05%.

For full report and pictures, don’t miss H&H magazine out next Thursday

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