Boyd Exell has won another qualifying leg of the FEI World Cup Driving competition, beating a field of six in Stockholm, Sweden.
Tricky course
The defending World Cup champion was last to go in the three-team drive off, completing the course in a time of 149.71sec with 5 penalty seconds.
Teams in this qualifying event started the final drive on a zero score, and Boyd was able to move up from second place after the first round.
The course was tricky and varied, featuring the usual cones and marathon obstacles, alongside a bridge and a tight speed box built out of dressage boards.
Home favourite
Home favourite and Swedish wildcard entry Fredrick Persson was in first place after round one following a beautiful clear over the technical course. However, he was nudged into second place after the drive off, when he gained 15 penalty seconds for a total of 164.15sec.
Edouard Simonet finished third overall in the event. The Belgian driver ran into trouble in the speed box, where his right lead horse knocked an outside rail, and he accrued a total of 15 penalty seconds for a time of 165.18sec.
Germany’s Georg von Stein came fourth (170.85sec with 15 added seconds), and was just one-hundredth of a second ahead of the Chester Weber in fifth.
US National Champion
Chester is new to the World Cup circuit, even though he has qualified multiple times and is 14-times US National Champion.
Rounding out the field was Glenn Geerts of Belgium, who had a smooth ride through the speed box, but overshot the marathon obstacles. His time of 164.70sec was penalised by 15 seconds for a total of 179.70sec and sixth place.
Earlier in the week Dutch driver Koos De Ronde won the World Cup leg in Budapest, with a total score of 274.930sec. Edouard Simonet had another good result, coming second on 293.220sec and Hungary’s József Dobrovitz was third on 298.680sec.
You can watch all the World Cup Driving action on Sky 253 and online via H&C Play or Amazon Video. FEI World Cup Driving: Budapest premieres on 6 December at 7.30pm and FEI World Cup Driving: Stockholm will be shown on 7 December at 7.30pm. Both programmes will then be available to watch on Catch Up.