Release date: 08/07/2011 |    

Rider Acceptances for GCT Chantilly

The Chantilly Racecourse is normally swamped with sartorial elegance and the town’s best milliners with their bespoke hats that are de rigueur at one of the world’s top equine racing events.

For the second year the Global Champions Tour will bring show jumping to this same hallowed turf.

The magnificent backdrop of Château de Chantilly will be the setting for the 7^th of 10 rounds of the Global Championts Tour this season,  that is set to take place from the 22^nd until the 24^th July.

With all the big names of the sport heading to the stunning setting at the Hippodrome de Chantilly, we can expect exceptional show jumping not witnessed often in the season.

The Global Champions Tour Ranking leader Ludger Beerbaum and fellow stable riders Marco Kutscher, Philipp Weishaupt and Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum (left) will be bringing their best horses for the many classes on offer in Chantilly.

Along with Meredith, the world's best female show jumping riders will also compete for the spoils over the weekend, especially for their share of €248,000 on offer just for the Grand Prix of Chantilly alone.

In 2010 three females stood on the winner’s podium after the Grand Prix of Chantilly.

Above Photo Credit: Sportfot

Winner Laura Kraut is back to defend her title and will bring the indomitable grey Cedric. (pictured below) competing in the Global Champions Tour Grand Prix of Germany in 2011.

France’s Penelope Levrevost, (2^nd in 2010), has also committed to Chantilly and Australian Edwina Alexander (3^rd in 2010) will bring her French bred horse Itot du Chateau.

Picture below: Penelope Leprevost competing at Chantilly in 2010

(Photo credit: GCT)

Image above: photo credit Lulu Kryiacou

Edwina is currently highest ranked female rider on the Global Champions Tour Ranking (Number 2) and the FEI Ranking (number 9- List 126).

For the first time on tour this year American rider Beezie Madden will make her appearance at the Global Champions Tour in Chantilly. Last year four USA riders competed in Chantilly placing in the top 15 positions, three of which were women; Laura Kraut, Lauren Hough and Nicole Shahinian Simpson.

Portugese rider Luciana Diniz (left) will be aiming to keep or better her current GCT Ranking position which stands at number 3 following the Estoril round held in early July.

Italian rider Jonella Ligresti will take to the 5* events and Gabriele Grassi, (ITA), is an FEI wildcard inclusion.  Alexander Thornton, who has changed from riding under the USA flag to the British one, will also be competing.

Athina Onasiss de Miranda has competed at nearly all of the Global Champions Tour events this season successfully consolidating a partnership with her new horse AD Crosshill (pictured below).

Judy-Ann Melchior (BEL) has also been on the Global Champions Tour this year. She was 4^th in the Grand Prix of Germany with Cha Cha Z and in Monaco we saw her very impressive young Grand Prix stallion Asca Z being one of the few first round clears.

Swiss rider Clarissa Crotta will be looking to produce similar great 2011 performances as witnessed at the GCT Grand Prix’s in Cannes, France (4^th place) and Estoril, Portugal (5^th place) with Imperial West Side van Meerputhoeve.

Catch all of the action of the feature international Global Champions Tour classes via GCT Live at www.globalchampionstour.com

Interesting Facts

Women in International Sport

The first women to compete in the Olympic Games played a quiet croquet match in a cauldron of trees and grass in Paris in 1900.

The first reported Grand Prix show jumping event is reported to have taken place in  Paris in 1866.  Show jumping was added to the Summer Olympics in 1900 and was originally dominated by military riders. Around this time special classes were held for women riding side-saddle.

Today, show jumping has placed women in the spotlight being one of the only few sports where women and men compete on an equal basis, making these competitions some of the most closely followed in the world.

The first woman to reach the number one spot in show jumping in the world was Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum in 2004.

Beezie Madden(USA) was the first woman to surpass the $1 million mark in earnings from show jumping.  Edwina Alexander (AUS) this year realised the first rider to earn 1million euros in total preizemoney earned over the Global Champions Tour since it's inception in 2006.

Photo Credits: Stefano Grasso/GCT