Friday April 21, 2006

Van Grunsven and Salinero In the Lead at 2006 World Cup Finals

A victory for Anky van Grunsven and Salinero in the first round -- the Grand Prix -- at the 2006 World Cup Finals in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, came as no surprise. The invincible duo has dominated the entire World Cup Qualifier circuit winning four out of four competitions they started in and at the finals, their dominance remains unchanged.

Scoring 78.250%, the Dutch duo stayed well ahead of second placed Jan Brink and was just a league of their own. Van Grunsven was very happy about her Grand Prix ride praising Salinero's improvement in the pirouettes and crediting an outstanding first piaffe-passage reprise for her high score.

"Salinero felt tense, though he was very relaxed during the warm up early in the morning. After twenty minutes I was ready and doing some walk with him, while I used to school him much longer," Van Grunsven explained. Even though she won the Grand Prix far ahead of the 17 other competitors, Anky remained critical about her own ride, especially about the second piaffe-passage. "I noticed that Salinero was holding back so I had to ride him more and that disrupted the harmony. But I had a very good feeling about the ride and if I can do the same thing on Saturday I won't worry about the competition."

Swedish Jan Brink was extremely pleased with his liver chestnut stallion Bjorsells Briar. They earned a 75.416% mark and a second place as, unfortunately, a small mistake in the two-tempi's kept the Swedish star duo from scoring even higher. "It went really well. Briar was very relaxed, which is the most important thing," said Brink. "Everything seems to flow and the small mistakes that we made was all my fault."