Jur Vrieling wins second leg of World Cup Jumping

The Netherlands’ Jur Vrieling has won the second leg of the Longines FEI World Cup Jumping 2017/2018 Western European League in Finland.

Tough test

The tight arena at Helsinki’s Ice Hall provided a tough test for horse and rider and only nine combinations made it through to the jump off out of 40 starters.

Four of those went on to jump a double clear, including Britain’s Robert Whitaker, who had the difficult job of jumping first against the clock.

Robert and Catwalk IV produced a solid clear, but their time of 39.27secs wasn’t quite fast enough to make it into the top three.

‘Keep coming’

Jur Vrieling, who was last to go, was chasing the target set by Henrik von Eckermann of 38.41secs. The Swedish rider might have been even faster, but his horse Mary Lou stumbled on the turn to the final oxer.

Jur had instructions from fellow Dutch riders Eric van der Vleuten and Leopold van Asten, who didn’t make it into the jump-off, to “keep coming” over the final three fences. He did just that, galloping his stallion Glasgow to the last, to post a fast time of 36.85sec, which was well over a second quicker than runner-up Henrik.

‘Very difficult’

“He really isn’t an indoor horse, but he has so much scope and he jumped fantastic,” said Jur, who was on the Dutch team that claimed the Longines FEI Nations Cup Jumping 2017 trophy a few weeks ago in Barcelona.

“This arena was very difficult for the course builder, but he did a great job.”

Taking third place was Brazil’s Marlon Zanotelli (Celena) on 38.60, who was just ahead of Robert Whitaker in fourth.

The FEI World Cup Jumping 2017/2018 Western European League now heads to Verona in Italy on 29 October.

You can watch all the World Cup action right here on H&C. FEI World Cup Jumping: Helsinki premieres on 26 October at 8pm or you watch online via H&C Play or Amazon Video.