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2006 World Cup Finals
Anky van Grunsven Freewheels to Eight World Cup Title
April 23, 2006
 Anky van Grunsven has won her eight World Cup title
in her career. Never before has it been so easy for
Dutch double Olympic champion to win a World Cup.
With more than 6% point advantage to the second placed
Isabell Werth, the invincible Van Grunsven freewheeled
to yet another major victory.
Aboard her Hanoverian gelding Salinero (by Salieri
x Lungau) van Grunsven scored 87.750% just a bit below
the world record score she achieved a month ago at
the CDI-W 's Hertogenbosch. Though she is considered
to be the world's best dressage ride, this is not undisputed
by every one. The journalistic war against Van Grunsven
and her partner Sjef Janssen concerning their controversial
Roll Kur training method continues to rage in the press,
while Anky fuels the debate by making spicy
statements
on the
issue in press conferences. However, any journalist
who was present at the World Cup Finals had to but
confirm that she put down her best ride so far aboard
Salinero.
This time, the 'pressure cooker' Salinero blew off
his steam in the warm up and was just
the
right
"temperature"
in the ring. There was no tension in the ride, the
horse was mellow and looked happy in his work, no twitching
passage steps, no passage that is a piaffe going forward,
no spookiness and the usual non-halts were now "demi-halts".
He stood still for a split second until Anky released
the rein to make her salute and only then he starting
moving
forwards
again.
 Anky
rode her beautiful L'Esprit Chanson kur,
a Slings &
Kerkhof
creation she's
been
using for
almost
three years (!!). The piaffe passage tour was lovely,
relaxed. The two tempi's were big and regular. Only
the first change of the one-tempi's was a bit croupe
high, and the zig zag could be perfected a bit more.
The biggest improvement was the extended walk which
now showed clear overstep and the pirouettes which
were
finally more round her leg. Finally relaxation in Salinero,
what a relief and what great progress. She couldn't
have deserved the win more.
"It was my best ride ever on Salinero. Everything
went well today. I can remember anything in the test
I wasn't
happy
with
and
I can't
come up
with a thing I would improve. Maybe when I look at
the video I'll find something," she joked.
Anky
will now give Salinero a long break and slowly
work towards the World Equestrian Games. She'll be
showing him at the CDI Rotterdam and Gelderland,
but not at the CHIO Aachen which is three days before
the
2006 Dutch Dressage Championships, where she's riding
Krack C and Painted Black.
 The third reason for not
going to Aachen is that Anky "doesn't feel like going
there at the moment." Van Gunsven made a strong statement
in the press conference that she is "disappointed
about some press people. In Holland we can argue with
the
press and we have a great atmosphere here, all working
together. In Germany there are too many fights going
on and it's bad for the sport." Isabell Werth replied
that it's not a fight between Holland and Germany,
but that it's just a few people "who happen to be
German" that are instigating these polemics about "the
Goddess
of the Rollkur".
Used to her success and stature as a sport celebrity,
Van Grunsven stressed the fact that she only rides
for herself, even though "I keep all the papers and
articles
and
paste them in a book." With
Painted Black as Grand Prix horse and Nelson (by Weltmeyer)
as her new small tour horse, Anky has lined up new
successors for Salinero. "I will only
ride an animal on which I get the feeling that he is
worth going into the arena with."
Text
and Photos copyrighted Astrid Appels/Eurodressage
- No reproduction allowed without permission
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