Garcia raises the roof with another win for italy
07/11/2009 - On the day when the Italian silver medal-winning teams at this summer's European Championships were proudly honoured at Jumping Verona 09 it was entirely appropriate that the greatest hero of them all, double silver medallist Juan Carlos Garcia, raised the roof of the Fieracavalli arena with another rousing home victory.
Only a few athletes rise to the top of their chosen sport, and it takes a very special kind of horseman to excel in more than one discipline. For the Columbian-born Garcia however, whether he is competing in top-class jumping or galloping around a three-day event course, it is simply all in a day's work. And he demonstrated his unique skill as he brought the crowd to their feet again this afternoon with a spectacular path-finding round from Moka de Mescam in the jump-off of the Small Grand Prix. With 18 battling it out against the clock the man of the moment knew that he had no choice but to throw down a super-tough target, and he did just that when racing through the finish in 36.11 seconds. Surely, it seemed, some of the 17 who followed could better that time? One by one they all had a cut at it, but the new track required extreme cornering skills and although five of them left all the fences intact, none could better Garcia's speed and accuracy. It was last man into the ring, Great Britain's Michael Whitaker, who came closest when crossing the line with Insul Tech Amai but he was more than a second slower than the winner as he pushed Natale Chiaudani and SNAI Gratina down to third. In fact the biggest threat came from Frenchman Timothee Anciaume and Jarnac who broke the beam in 35.39 seconds but left the third-last on the floor to slot into sixth place with the fastest four fault result. Garcia could hardly have been more pleased after registering the third Italian success of the show - the home side are in truly fabulous form. "This was Moka's first Grand Prix - he has never jumped as big as this before, and today he was full of courage" he said of the French-bred nine year old gelding. Asked how he manages to combine the demands of competition in two very different sports he said he only mixes jumping and eventing for five months of the year - "the rest of the time it is all jumping" he pointed out. An indication of just how easily he crosses from one to another was his choice of saddle for today. "I'm using an eventing saddle, not a jumping one" he pointed out. When you are a rider of his calibre it seems the finer detail makes little difference in the end. |
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