The 18 riders who had qualified for the Global Champions Tour Final in Doha, Qatar were in no doubt from the moment they started to walk the course that they would have to work hard to win the biggest prize in show jumping.
Conrad Homfield built a course that was every inch worthy of a set of riders who could probably lay claim to every major show jumping title between them. To honour the occasion, in addition to the €900,000 total prize money on offer there was also a new trophy of an Arabian horse's head covered in gold and worth €8000 donated by Doha's international jewellers Kanz, who make bespoke pieces of jewelled art. The managing director of Kanz, Mr Ohan Assadourian personally crafted the unique piece.
So with all this to play for, and a set of monster obstacles to be negotiated in the huge circular arena, nobody was expecting many clear rounds and in the end the double at four and the combination at 13 ensured that only four riders finished the first round on zero faults.
Then the double saw the competition end for Edwina Alexander(Isovlas Itot du Chateau), Ralf Goran Bengsston (Ninja Le Silla), Marco Kutscher (Cornet Obolensky) and Bernardo Alves (Chupa Chup). The combination proved the undoing of Robert Whitaker (Casino), Rodrigo Pessoa (Champ) Daniel Deussser (AD Aboyeur), Albert Zoer (Oki Doki) and to everyone's astonishment, Eric Lamaze and Hickstead.
The first man to clear everything was Germany's Ulrich Kirchoff who made it look easy on Carino, and he was swiftly followed by Alvaro de Miranda Neto with AD Picolien Zeldenrust.
Michel Robert looked every inch a former World Champion when Kellemoi de Pepita sailed around and then the jump off was completed with the current World Champion as Jos Lansink (Valentina Van T' Heike) reminded everyone his absence from the European Championships this year was just a tiny blip in his outstanding career.
In the jump-off both Ulrich and Alvaro faulted which meant the Frenchman knew he couldn't be worse off than second if he remained clear which he did and not slowly, either! His mare went through the gate in 49.76 and despite an excellent try Jos Lansink could not catch him.
"In Valkenswaard I said it was polite to let the ladies win, but here I was not a gentleman" laughed Michel as he collected his cheque for €300,000.
The other class today with another was won in a tightly fought jump off by Bernado Alves with Kingly du Reverdy from Albert Zoer and Sam and Ludger Beerbaum with Coupe de Coeur.
In other news, the Horse Diamond, which is sold on every year to a new owner in order to raise money for cancer research, has found a new home. The one-carat synthetic stone is made from the hair of show jumping champion stallion Gold Fever.
Last year Jan Tops put in the winning bid and now the winning bid of €36,000 was donated by the Papagrigorakis family and will travel from The Netherlands to Greece.
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