The high quality course of the IPPOS SPRING TOUR 2024 in Thessaloniki really fits to the Italian rider Roberto Previtali as he opened the competition day on Friday with the next victory in Class 5 with Hachiko and in Class 7 with Esteban de Hus.
Previtali managed to gain the first title of the day in the CSI 2* Class 5 competition on 135cm obstacles among 26 riders with his gelding Hachiko. Thus, he improved the silver position from last week. The silver position went to Benjamin Plantade of France with a mare Venedig and third was Alin Yazici of Turkey with a gelding Djoost Again.
The competition for the main trophy of the day welcomed 29 horses in the CSI 2* Class 7 with the 145cm obstacles. Again, the victory went to successful Italian Roberto Previtali, who continues his winning strike with Esteban de Hus with the best performance after his Grand Prix success last Sunday.
“Esteban is my number one horse which I normally use for bigger classes. And Come on Semilly is also one of my best horses but I use it normally for speedy classes as it is a fast horse. I use Esteban also for 3 and 4 star competitions. Before, he was a little bit slow but now he is getting better and better and also faster. I think he has big chance to defend the Grand Prix title on Sunday so I am looking forward to it,” said the Italian winner.
The 31-year-old Previtali likes also the character of his stallion Esteban very much. “It is a good horse. He is very nice also in the stables, he is a really careful horse and when he goes in the ring, he always tries to do the best,” says Previtali.
The silver and bronze position stays on the home soil when Greeks Kriton Zafiropoulos with the stallion Dicaprio and Panagiotis Tsaktiris with the mare Orienta V.T. Recht Eind took the medals.
“I had to follow a specific path to achieve this time, I needed to cut steps at certain distances, and we managed to do it as we should. My performance was quite good, and for a moment I was in first place. I continue my efforts and will strive for the best at the upcoming Grand Prix. Let’s hope we move one step higher on Sunday. The facilities at the Ippos Club are amazing, as everyone acknowledges. I wish there were more equestrian centres like this in our country,” stated silver Kriton Zafeiropoulos.
Panagiotis Tsaktiris, who has been living in Cyprus for the past 13 years, emphasized: “It was a very nice race. I was also a bit lucky because one of my turns went well. I had very strong opponents with athletes who had much more experienced horses. My horse was participating with 1.45m obstacles for only the second time, and of course, I don’t feel very comfortable yet. However, the result was absolutely a success. Every race in this event gives me great satisfaction. Both last week when I won the 1.40m race and over the past two days, I put in a great effort. We came from Cyprus and the horses didn’t have much time to rest, but they met our expectations very well.“
The three CSIYH1* competitions Class 6 took place on Friday morning. The Class 6a for the 5-year-old horses on 110cm went all to the Romanian riders when the best was Ionut Ursache with his mare J´Adore Le Lux. The 6-year-old horses jumping the 125cm obstacles were dominated by Ukrainian Eduard Slobodeniuk with a gelding Cornetico. The best among the 7y horses on 1.30m was Bulgarian Angel Niagolov with the mare Moulin Rouge BMG.
Last two events were the CSI1* competitions on 100cm and 120cm. On higher barriers, the large field of 64 horses was on the start list. The best one on these was Aurel Cojocariu of Romania with the mare Azur de Pepinvast which added third title to the two from the last week.
The Class 9 closed this busy second competition day with the best performance of Emmeleia Oikonomopoulou with the horse C-Implosion.
