Dressage World Cup in Olomouc: Justina Vanagaite Dominated the Main Competition

Two top-level dressage competitions took place at the Equine Sport Center in Olomouc on Friday. Lithuania’s Justina Vanagaite, the leading rider in the FEI Dressage World Cup™ – Central European League, won the World Cup competition.

Lithuania’s Justina Vanagaite is the 76th highest ranked dressage rider in the FEI World Ranking List and holds the top spot in the Central European League. On Friday, during the CDI-W Grand Prix competition, which is part of the World Cup, she showed all the spectators in the arena and on the live stream that her high ranking is well deserved. She received a score of 72.087% from the judges for her ride on her gelding, Nabab, and won the main competition of the day well ahead of the other riders.

Slovakian rider Michal Bugan was also very successful. With his gelding For President AWO, he finished second behind the Lithuanian rider-horse couple with a score of 69.283%. He was similarly successful with Florette DK finishing third in the Grand Prix CDI3* with a score of 67.087%, just half a percentage point behind the second placed rider, Lithuania’s Dalia Katinaite-Pranckeviciene with her mare Amica. The victory went to the Polish rider Marta Sobierajska and her gelding Ultrablue de Massa, who received 67.848% from the judges.

Two Czech riders also competed in the CDI3*. Ema Kopuletá and Forrest Gump came eighth with 63.478% and Tereza van Malderen and her gelding Quantum Leap van’t Genthof came sixth with 65.739%. “It was nice, the horse went well, we made a few mistakes, but that’s normal when it’s your first year in a Grand Prix and you’re still getting used to it. The important thing is that my horse was full of energy and eager to work, so I’m happy,” said Tereza van Malderen in her interview for EquiTV.cz.

Petra Miki Civišová, who competed with her gelding Europe-M in the afternoon FEI Intermediate A class and came second, was also satisfied. Philipp Mücke from Germany and his stallion Deep Impact 4 took first place in this class. The winner of the Grand Prix for riders aged 16 to 25 was Jonas Frick from Austria with his horse Juno.

Photo: Josef Malinovský