Maikel Van Der Vleuten, prince of Monaco

Last week-end in Monaco, thirty-five riders lined up for the tenth leg of the Longines Global Champions Tour. Among them ten managed to qualify themselves for the jump-off. Unfortunately, last year winner Shane Breene was not one of them. Clear on the fences, the Irish was too slow and finished his course with one penalty. On Ipswich van de Wolfsakker, he had to settle for the eleventh place. The world number three and a dual Longines Global Champions Tour Grand Prix winner this season, including in Cascais, Estoril the week before, Martin Fuchs and Clooney 51 were clear all the way until clipping the final fence. The pair finished at the eleventh position.

Barely a second separated the top four riders in a breathtakingly fast ten-way jump-off where Bassem Mohammed and Gunder stepped up on the podium as the runner-up, while the lightning-quick combination of Julien Epaillard and Usual Suspect d’Auge could only manage a third place finish. In an amazing shape, Maikel Van Der Vleuten on Beauville Z was unbeatable in Monaco. “It’s incredible – this horse really fights for me. I spoke with my dad earlier this week as to whether it was too early to bring him here as first horse but it happens sometimes. When I saw Julien on the screen, I could bet on it that he should win; he went full out everywhere. I was just a bit faster and I gave it everything today. I had some nice forward distances and the horse really worked for me.”

The Dutchman, who becomes the tenth rider to qualify for the Longines Global Champions Tour Super Grand Prix at the Global Champions Prague Playoffs in November, explained: “A few times I’ve come very close to qualifying, but that was really my goal to be one of the riders to take part in the Super Grand Prix this year, so now it’s done it feels good.”

There is no change at the top of the leader board in the Championship race, with Belgium’s Pieter Devos still leading the way but Great Britain’s Ben Maher jumps ahead of Germany’s Daniel Deusser and this win in Monaco pushes Maikel van der Vleuten up to fourth position with nine events left to go.

Full results here:

Longines Global Champions Tour ranking here: