Kevin Jochems was the top rider today at Montenmedio

Winning the Geolastic Trophy and bringing the second day of the Tour to an exciting close.

Winning the Geolastic Trophy and bringing the second day of the Tour to an exciting close.

Kevin Jochems flew to victory today riding the 10yr old mare Evita, by “Canturano”. They were unbeatable in the first FEI Longines Ranking Big Class of the tour. The class took place in the impressive main grass arena “David Broome”.

It was named after the famous Welsh rider as a tribute and to note that he was responsible, along with Don Antonio Blázquez, the owner of the ‘Dehesa de Montenmedio’ in setting up the Sunshine Tour 25 years ago.

The winner of the 1.40 class was Irish rider Richard Howley riding “Farianne”, the pair were an impressive 4 seconds faster than the American rider Andrew Ramsay, who also was the winner of the 1.30 class. The Spanish rider, Armando Trapote with “Bareno” completed the podium.

In arena 5, Milton, there was a win for Jodie Hall Mcateer in the 1.35m, Andrew Ramsay in the 1.30m and the Turkish rider Omar Karaevli with his 7yr old horse “Mendocino”. This arena is named after John Whitaker’s wonderful grey Milton, he was a World Cup and European Championship horse, and retired from competition in 1994. He was the first horse outside of the racing set, to win over 1.400.000€ in prize money during the span of his career.

Arena 18 is one of the new arenas and is named after a horse that really needs no introduction, Big Star. This amazing horse was ridden by Nick Skelton who won the individual gold in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. The Young Horse classes for the 5yr and 6yr olds and the CSI2* Small Tour took place in this arena.

The Turkish rider Omar Karaevli had a very successful day winning both the 7yr old and the 6yr old class and also taking third place in each class. In second place in the both the 7yr and the 6yr olds was the Belgian rider Gregory Wathelet with “Melia de Regor” and“Sceska et de la Falize Z”, respectively.