SHOW JUMPING ‘Power Couple’
GovernsTOP SLOTS
at Longines GCT NY
“The real ‘power couple’ on this tour have been Clooney and Explosion,
not me and Martin,” joked Ben Maher, referring to London Knights
teammate Martin Fuchs. The Longines Global Champions Tour (GCT)
New York and overall 2019 Championship closed with a big, Broadway
show finish as Great Britain’s show jumping superstar and 2012
Olympic team Gold medalist clinched his second consecutive LGCT
overall title.
“How could it get more special than today?” asked Longines GCT
founder and president, Jan Tops. “We had hundreds of rounds and it
came down to one rider, one second, to decide the win. We found a
very special venue (Governors Island) to present the inaugural Global
Champions Tour of New York. Our goal, to introduce top-level show
jumping to new fans in major cities, has taken us to London, Berlin,
Doha, Shanghai, Paris, Rome, Madrid and Mexico City, and now to one
of the world’s truly great cities, New York.”
Maher, 36, and Poden Farm’s 10 year-old KWPN (Chacco-Blue/Baloubet
du Rouet) gelding, Explosion W, came to New York off back-to-back
LGCT Grand Prix wins in Rome and London.
“I’d never heard of Governors Island,” he confessed. “I didn’t know
what to expect but Global always makes the logistics five-star for us. It
was a memorable day that proved the strength and depth of our team
and horses.”
“Ben and I had a phone call before New York and said okay, let’s bring
the ‘big guns,’ Clooney and Explosion,” added Fuchs with a grin. “We
were pretty confident it would work out. But even when you’re sitting
on the two best horses in the world it can still be difficult to keep all the
fences up.”
Maher made a point of praising international course designers like
Uliano Vezzani. “This tour has the best course designers. The courses
are always fair and the horses finish on a positive note.”
Maher and Explosion W won the Longines GCT Grand Prix of New
York CSI5* in a fault-free 34.08 jump-off that saw less than a second
dividing the top three combinations. Germany’s Marcus Ehning on
Cornado NRW were reserve (0/34.65) and Fuchs, riding The Sinner,
were third (0/34.95).
Big finishes by Maher and Fuchs put the London Knights (including
Emily Moffit, Gudrun Patteet, Olivier and Nicola Philippaerts) into firstplace
on the Global Champions League final overall standing, three
points ahead of St Tropez Pirates Pieter Devos, Danielle Goldstein,
Laura Klaphake, Athina Onassis, Olivier Robert and Edwina Tops-Alexander.
Butterflies -- migratory and social – made Governors Island a global
hub for the last weekend of September. Monarchs en route to overwinter
in Mexico fluttered over fences as well as VIPs including Longines
Ambassador of Excellence André Agassiz, EEM CEO Christophe
Ameeuw, equestrian lingerie designer Anait Bian, Equestrian Aid Foundation
86 www.EliteEquestrianMagazine.com TRAINING & Showing
founder R. Scot Evans, author and New York socialite Cornelia
Guest, Just World International founder Jessica Newman, and Rock
and Roll Hall of Famers, Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa,
The Longines Global Champions Playoffs will be November 21-24 in
the Czech capital of Prague. Learn more at globalchampionstour.com.
Story and Photos By
LA Sokolowski, equinista
She’s barely off her honeymoon but Dani
(Goldstein) Waldman piloted Lizziemary to
8th in LGCT GP CSI5*
Martin Fuchs (Left) & Ben Maher agreed the real power
couple of the series were their horses!
/www.EliteEquestrianMagazine.com
/globalchampionstour.com