31 May BEMER Young Riders Tour: Strong competition at stage 5 in Zuidwolde
(Zuidwolde) The attention of the young show jumpers is focused on the CSIO Zuidwolde in the Netherlands this week. There the BEMER Young Riders Tour is already entering its fifth round of the current season and once again offers the opportunity to collect valuable points for the tour ranking. The coveted goal of the three riders with the most points at the end of the season is to win starting places at top international shows in the following year. Already on the first day of the competition, the U21 generation showed their calling card in a classical test against the clock (1.45m). 53 athletes from 10 nations participated and 20-year-old Mikolaj Baranski from Poland was thrilled with a flawless round on the KWPN gelding Juggle Baraka in a fast 66.62 seconds. This put Baranski in first place ahead of Italy’s Giulia Mattioli on Uranus Boy (66.77 seconds) and Fleur Hollemann (NED) and Faltic for the hosts (68.75 seconds). However, all three riders will have plenty of competition in the BEMER Young Riders Grand Prix on Sunday.
It is getting tight in the ranking
The current ranking is headed by Britain’s Jessica Hewlett with 35 points. The 21-year-old rider is also competing in the Netherlands with her top horse Ilmar HBC. The pair conceded an unfortunate rail in today’s class, but Hewlett said that her horse still felt very good: “llmar HBC is a very special horse to me, who tries his heart out every time he goes in the ring. He knows exactly what a prize giving is and when he’s done well. It’s also a privilege to be amongst the ranking of such incredibly talented young riders, let alone the current leader of such a fantastic tour too!” Hewlett currently leads by a large margin, but in Zuidwolde several candidates stand a good chance of narrowing or even overtaking that gap: The biggest pursuers are Marie Christine Sebesta from Austria, who is currently in third place with 21 points, and the Swiss show jumper Shirel Schornoz, who won the competition of the BEMER Young Riders Tour in Compiègne and is in fifth place with 20 points. Strong competition also comes from home with British team-mates Sophia Kelly (15 points) and Ava Vernon (9 points).
Live at ClipMyHorse.TV
The sporting action continues with the Grand Prix of the BEMER Young Riders Tour, an Against the Clock event with Jump-Off over 1.45m in the Jantje Broek-Dekker Arena on Sunday, 4 June. The international event in Zuidwolde in the Netherlands will be broadcast live on www.clipmyhorse.TV. Starter and result lists are available at https://result.scgvisual.com/show/128/schedule/.
The upcoming stops of the BEMER Young Riders Tour are:
Zuidwolde, NED (30. May – 4. June 2023)
Future Champions in Hagen a.T.W. (13 – 18 June 2023)
Dielsdorf-Zürich, CH (23 – 27 August 2023)
FINAL: Opglabeek, BEL (13 – 17 September 2023)
Photo: The best Dutch rider today was Fleur Hollemann, who has been actively using the BEMER Horse Set since last year (c) Digishots