This year’s Belgian Stallion Competition attracted an impressive line up of talented young horses, culminating in a busy Final at Sentower Park. The quality of the stallions was extremely high, providing the knowledgeable audience with an enjoyable opportunity to get to meet the most exciting up-and-coming stallions of their generation.
AES Stallions had a particularly strong event in the 6yo and 7yo classes. In a class of 31 Finalists, 23 stallions jumped clear into the second phase, which was won by Calief Topfok.
Calief Topfok (Lavallion x Toulon) who was presented under the saddle of Jordy Oostvogels. The very attractive bay stallion was bred by BVBA Topfok. Not only did he win the final competition, thanks to a jumping clear again in a particularly fast jump-off, he also topped the overall rankings of the 6yo stallions, which takes into account the results across the entire range of competitions.
He is not the biggest stallion, but he showed great attitude and fighting spirit, as well as plenty of scope to tackle the fences. We very much hope to see him again at Lanaken later this year.
Another section that saw outstanding results was the 7yo class, where in the final rankings across the entire competition, all top 3 positions were occupied by AES approved stallions. Again the standard was incredibly high, and viewers were treated to an exciting final. The British rider Joe Clee had the pleasure of piloting two of them, Bullseye 111 Z (Bamako de Muze x Der Senaat 111) who was bred at Stud 111) showed fantastic performances at every round of the Stallion Competition, including a win at Lier in February, and Dollars For Ever 111 Z (De Flor 111 Z x Carthago Z) who was bred by Stal Harrie Theeuwes & Marc Hoesels and who came overall in third place. The second place in the overall rankings went Jazzy Des Dames (Emerald van t Ruytershof x Calvaro Z) who was ridden by the Brazilian Thiago Ribas da Costa. The stallion was bred by Haras des Dames.
We would like to congratulate all the stallions who took part and helped to make the event a great success and very enjoyable to watch. We look forward to seeing how these young stallion get on in the Future.
Photo credit Dirk Caremans