Last week the show jumping World Cup Eurasian League season was over. The tournament held in Maxima Park was the last chance for the riders to earn rating points to pass to the big final of show jumping World Cup that is planned in April in Germany.

According to the rules three riders, one from the European (Belarus, Moldova and Russia), Central Asian (Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) and Caucasian-Capsian (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Iran) subgroups could qualify for the World Cup finals. Since athletes from the latter group were not represented at the Eurasian League World Cup and its final, the trip intended for them “burned out”. The fate of the other two was decided in the last week of October.

To qualify, riders had to take part in three routes of the World Cup finals of the Eurasian League. The main of them was the Grand Prix with the height of obstacles up to 155 cm and the cost of 2 500 000 rubles. In it, the received rating points were doubled.

Sixteen pairs representing Russia and Uzbekistan took part in the course designed by course-designer Vladimir Platov. Three of them were able to cover the main distance without mistakes.

Russian rider Alexander Belekhov showed the best result in the jump-off. On the Dutch half-breed Bivaldi he overcame all the obstacles without rolls in 41.62 seconds. The second place was also taken by the representative of our country – Sergey Petrov. In pairing with Las Vegas of Westphalia he showed the result of 43,94 seconds without any penalty points. The Uzbek duo of Bekzod Kurbanov and King Kornet (45,17 sec, 0 points) rounded out the top three.

Despite winning the Grand Prix, Alexander still could not get a ticket from the European Subgroup to the Grand Final. Natalia Simonia is one point ahead of him according to the final ranking points who started on a Russian-bred stallion Quarenghi in Maxima Park.

No less dramatic was the fate of the trip in the Central Asian subgroup. Bekzod Kurbanov and Umid Kamilov gained the same amount of rating points. However, only Bekzod Kurbanov will go to Leipzig next year as the rider who took a higher place in the Grand Prix.