Garcia gallops home in Bordeaux…

Italy's Juan Carlos Garcia and the veteran Loro Piana Albin stormed to victory at the ninth leg of the FEI World Cup Jumping series in Bordeaux, France tonight to firmly secure a qualifying spot at the final in Kuala Lumpur in April. Bordeaux is famous for its fine wines, and the 18 year old Albin produced a truly vintage performance when, third-last to go in the nine-horse jump-off, he showed the rest of the field a clean pair of heels.

Switzerland's Gregoire Oberson (Cartoflex Gazelle Beauval) finished second ahead of Sweden's Helena Lundback (Madick) in third while Ireland's Jessica Kuerten, who has rocketed up to second place in the FEI/Gandina World Rankings following a string of major successes in recent months, slotted into fourth place tonight.

Gerco Schroder was second into the arena in round one, and the Dutch rider who has headed the series leaderboard for some time now quickly found the key to Frank Rothenberger's track as Eurocommerce Milano returned the first clear of the evening. The home side's Philippe Rozier (Heritiere D'Adriers) and Michel Hecart (Itot du Chateau) were not so fortunate however and when Julien Epaillard and Icare du Manet collected 17 faults on their tour of the track the home supporters still had nothing to smile about.

Jessica Kuerten is at the top of her form right now and has been like an unstoppable train in recent weeks with a stunning series of lucrative wins, and she showed that she has lost none of her edge as she steered Quibell to the second clear performance of the night with the greatest of ease.

Germany's Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum and Shutterfly quickly followed suit and Helena Lundback ensured strong female representation in the deciding round when steering her young mare, Madick, for a foot-perfect run. Belgian-based Swiss rider Gregoire Oberson then brought the clear-round tally to five at the halfway stage before the zero scores disappeared for a while and then returned with a vengeance as, one after another, Florian Angot put France on the map with First de Launay, Juan Carlos Garcia jumped into the frame with Albin, Norway's Geir Gulliksen and Cattani left all the poles in place and the relatively unknown Russian Vladimir Beletskiy continued his impressive weekend run of form when taking the last qualifying spot for the jump-off with Rezonanz.

Schroder led the way against the clock and put no pressure on those who followed when returning home with two fences on the floor. Kuerten however jumped clear once again, and although her time of 35.85 second looked vulnerable it was always going to be good enough to secure a top placing. Michaels-Beerbaum proved that the Irish rider's time was very beatable when racing home with Shutterfly almost three seconds quicker but she paid the price for her speed with a pole down and it was left to Lundback to re-arrange the line-up when bringing her 10 year old mare home and clear in 38.03 seconds. Oberson however was faster still, breaking the beam in 37.99 seconds to knock the Swede out of pole position and the crowd were on the edges of their seats as Florian Angot flew around with his stallion in 35.10 seconds, but after picking up four faults when lowering the FEI vertical, he presented no real danger to the leading bunch.

Two fences down for Gulliksen and a single error from Beletskiy kept them down the order as Bologna-based Garcia collected the €27,000 winners prize and the maximum 20 FEI World Cup points which, when added to the 17 he picked up when runner-up in Verona in November and the 11 he earned for his sixth placing at Geneva in December leaves him with a comfortable total of 48 points and in the enviable position of being qualified for Malaysia well ahead of time.

With just three more chances to qualify however – at Vigo next weekend and then at s'Hertogenbosch in March and Gothenburg in April – there are plenty of others still under pressure.

Results (04.02.06)
CSI-W Bordeaux
World Cup – AM5 – 1,60m

1º Juan Carlos Garcia (Ita) / Albin III / 0/0-36,2
2º Gregoire Oberson (Sui) / Gazelle Beauval / 0/0-37,99
3º Helena Lundbäck (Sue) / Madick / 0/0-38,03
4º Jessica Kurten (Irl) / Quibell / 0/0-38,85
5º Florian Angot (Fra) / First De Launay HN / 0/4-35,1
6º Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum (Ale) / Shutterfly / 0/4-35,98
7º Vladimir Beletskiy (Rus) / Rezonanz / 0/4-42,23
8º Gerco Schröder (Hol) / Milano / 0/8-46,57
9º Geir Gulliksen (Nor) / Cattani 17 / 0/8-48,08
10º Patrick Mc Entee (Bel) / Sherry Mury Marais Z / 1-78,3