CSI La Coruña (ESP) jumps to five star status with top six riders

• The current World Champion, three Olympic team winners and three medallists from the Spanish Championships compete for 330.00 euros in CSI 5* La Coruña, the first five star show jumping event held in this leading Spanish equestrian centre.
• The GP Telefónica, star class of the CSI 5*, will offer 200.000 euros to the best placing riders.

Everything’s set to begin today at CSI La Coruña, held at the prestigious Casas Novas equestrian centre in Galicia, Spain. Now a fixed placement on the international circuit, this high level indoor event forms part of the best encounters such as Geneva, Maastricht and Olympia. Here in La Coruña are international show jumping’s top riders from 16 countries, accompanied by 150 of their best mounts.

The competitive environment has never been better in Northern Spain, with six of the world’s top ten show jumping riders competing for 330.000 euros in prize money. World Champion Dermott Lennon from Ireland, Olympic Silver medallist Rodrigo Pessoa of Brazil, Michael Whitaker of the UK, Germany’s Ludger Beerbaum, Marco Kutscher and Otto Becker, members of the German team who won gold at Athens, are just some of the highlights for this winter indoor competition.

Spain has put their best foot forward with riders including the gold, silver and bronze medallists of the Spanish Championship 2004, Jesús Garmendia, Pilar Cordón and Margaret Mollet. Also present will be Luis Álvarez Cervera and Raffy Latham, two of Iberia’s most recognized riders.

Succulent prize money worth five star status

Without a doubt one of the main reasons meriting the many kilometres of travel to the luxuriously green northern region of Spain is the 330.000 euros which await distribution among the seventy riders competing in the indoor ring of Casas Novas. With a total of nine classes over three days of intense sport, the event is the best of its kind in Spain and clearly one of Europe’s most prestigious encounters.

The star class at this event will be without a doubt the Gran Premio Telefónica, to be held tomorrow Saturday evening at 21.00 hrs. A grand total of 200.000 euros will await distribution among the top ten riders who perform successfully in this exciting competition of speed, strength and precision. Pessoa and Hassmann have their sights sent on recuperating the title of winner of the GP, as both have won the coveted class on two occasions: Pessoa in winter 2001 and winter 2003, and Hassmann in winter 2002 and summer 2003. The lucky winner will take home a succulent prize of sixty thousand euros (60.000 euros) as well as a silver trophy commemorating their prized passage through La Coruña .

The show is the one with the highest prize money in all of Spain and of its kind in Southern Europe. Opened just four years ago, Casas Novas has achieved its goal of organising a five star event, to be seen by more than 7.000 people plus thousands via television.