A galaxy of stars at Jumping Verona: Luciana Diniz will fly the Portuguese flag

Spectators at Fieracavalli Verona will witness quite an extraordinary sporting event from Thursday 7 to Sunday 10 November.

For the very first time, the long established FEI World Cup™ Jumping fixture in Verona, Italy, proudly includes an important leg of the FEI World Cup™ Driving series.

Verona will host the second leg of the 2013-2014 FEI World Cup™ Driving season, which started in Hannover, Germany, on 19 October. Celebrating its 13th season, the series has been a real winner with both spectators and drivers from the very start.

The line-up of world-class driving masters includes Australia’s Boyd Exell, Theo Timmerman from The Netherlands, Michael Brauchle and Georg von Stein from Germany, father and son József Dobrovitz and József Dobrovitz Jr. from Hungary and Carlo Mascheroni from Italy. At the same time, the entries for Jumping Verona confirm the presence of the best riders and horses of the world. Eight of the Top Ten riders on the Longines Ranking List will be there: World No. 1, Ben Maher, will compete alongside Scott Brash (10) who also holds those precious Olympic and European team medals won at London 2012 and this summer’s European Championship in Denmark. The newly-crowned individual European champion, Roger-Yves Bost (9) from France will also be there along with the reigning individual Olympic Champion, Steve Guerdat (7) from Switzerland, the Germans Christian Ahlmann (3), Marcus Ehning (4) and Ludger Beerbaum (6) and the Portuguese star Luciana Diniz (5).

Joining these will be Spain’s Sergio Alvarez Moya, winner of the FEI World Cup Grand Prix last year in Verona, Patrice Delaveau who clinched victory in this season’s second qualifier at Helsinki, Finland 10 days ago and his team mates Simone Delestre and Kevin Staut from France who helped clinch the inaugural Furusiyya FEI Nations Cup™ title at the thrilling Final in Barcelona in September. Germany will be represented by Daniel Deusser, Marco Kutscher and three-time FEI World Cup™ Jumping champion Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum while Rolf Goran Bengtsson will fly the Swedish flag.

Canada’s Eric Lamaze holds a special place in the hearts of all jumping lovers thanks to his unforgettable Hickstead and he will be back in action at Jumping Verona this year along with Australia’s Edwina Tops-Alexander, Jeroen Dubbeldam, Maikel van der Vleuten and Jur Vrieling from Netherlands, Martin Fuchs and Pius Schwizer from Switzerland and Ireland’s Denis Lynch. Their many fans are filled with hopes and dreams for the Italian riders Luca Moneta, who was runner-up last year in the FEI World Cup™ Grand Prix in Verona and who finished tenth individually following a great performance at the European Championship in Herning, Denmark this summer, reigning National Champion Filippo Moyersoen and Juan Carlos Garcia, Piergiorgio Bucci, Emanuele Gaudiano, Lucia Vizzini, Gianluca Palmizi, Lorenzo de Luca, Vincenzo Chimirri and Massimo Grossato.