Victory of the French couple

Showjumping is – in general – an event of couples… we’re speaking of rider-horse couples here.

The Saut Hermès introduced another sort of couple discipline on Saturday: a man was teamed with a woman, and both of them on horses, of course! This idea of teams has never existed before, and all nine participating teams took the competition very seriously.

The winning couple – Pénélope Leprévost and Kevin Staut – don’t just make a good team on the jumping ground, in real life they are a couple, too. And this time a couple that showed itself faster than any of the other four foreign teams. Those two French riders had the best times in this jumping, with Pénélope being only a hundredth of a second faster than her partner.

“But I am not that slow”, pleads Kevin. “I differ from Penelope’s time by one hundredth, while she is always fast with Mylord Carthago and I am usually rather slow with my horse. Anyway, I am happy that we won this beautiful contest together, although it’s Pénélope who has really done the essential work.”

He is right in saying this, as Pénélope was able to pass faultless through the first round, thus qualifying the team for the final second round despite a fault by Kevin and Kraque Boom.

“To be honest, we started the first round with the aim to work our horses a bit for the Grand Prix tomorrow and then we got carried away by the game. The course invited the rider to go fast, and once you start… well, off you go!”

A great success for this newly created competition and an amazing impression for the visitors to take home, but equally for the riders, who are fascinated by the ground on which this event takes place.

The Grand Prix Hermès (Sunday 15.00h) will of course be the main attraction point of this sportive event: We’re speaking of a competition that each of the 30 riders would like to win, in order to mark the revival of this event that belongs to the history of Equestrian sports.