Christian Ahlmann wins Estoril Grand Prix

Christian Ahlmann and Taloubet Z.
By Stefano Grasso/GCT

Germany's Christian Ahlmann headed the Estoril Global Champions Tour Grand Prix (2 July 2011) as last to ride in the jump-off. Riding the stallion Taloubet Z, he beat Portugal’s leading rider Luciana Diniz (Winningmood) and his fellow countryman Ludger Beerbaum (Chaman).

Having to settle for second place in the feature class the previous night and been runner up at the GCT Grand Prix of Monaco a week earlier, Christian was relieved as he left the arena upon winning.

"He has jumped so well all day, in fact all weekend and last week in Monaco," he said. "It is great to win a GCT."

First round
Estorila's beautiful grassed arena welcomed 45 starters. The stands were packed to capacity and VIP’s swilled their champagne.

The course was big, with the first few fences encouraging riders to open up. The area that created most difficulty was a treble combination positioned second from home. The distances were short within it and the related seven-stride approach had to be executed well with a wide curved line.

German course-designer Frank Rothenberger commented on a couple of aspects of the course prior to the start.

"We will run the first round without lights as we don’t want to be disturbing the horses," he said. "It is a mixed field of experienced horses and less experienced riders at this type of competition and vice versa. I would like 10 clear for the second round."

He was not far off the mark and nine combinations went clear. Round two was also in reach for seven of the four fault rounds.

Runner-up Luciana Diniz and
Winningmood. By Stefano Grasso/GCT

Second time out
The riders faced a total of 11 obstacles this time, with 13 efforts presenting plenty of challenges with many riders riding for time to better their scores. The track did not cause too many issues, with 11 of the 18 jumping clean, six of those going double clear to go forward to the jump-off.

Final challenge
Spurred on by the home crowd, Luciana Diniz jumped impeccably on Winningmood taking a stride out to the Jaeger-LeCoultre fence second from home to finish clear in 47.32 seconds.
Christian was the next to jump clear again. His big striding scopey stallion didn’t look to be going that fast early on, but once he had jumped the first two fences he opened up across the arena. The round looked like a walk in the park and they were across the finishing line in 45.21 seconds, a clear 2 seconds in front of Luciana.

The only other triple clear came from Ludger Beerbaum, for Germany, produced the only other faultless performance of the class, but his time of 48.85 seconds on Chaman was only good enough for third.

Pesentation for Christian Ahlmann,
Luciana Diniz and Ludger Beerbaum.
By Stefano Grasso/GCT

Taloubet Z is owned by the Leon Melchior (Zangersheide Stud), who bought him from Global Champions Tour founder Jan Tops as a seven-year-old. The stallion has had an exceptional year having won the World Cup final in Leipzig. Christian has competed at each of the GCT events this year and plans to continue to follow the tour to the remaining destinations – Chantilly (22-24 July), Valkenswaard (12-14 August) Rio de Janeiro (2-4 September) and Abu Dhabi (24-26 November).

"This is the best tour and I try to go to all of the shows to get as high in the rankings as possible," said Christian, referring to the GCT league Ludger Beerbaum now heads. "It is the most important tour for me this year."
"[Today] Taloubet showed everybody he is not just a top jumper but a really quick horse," said Christian.

For full results, click here