2007 Nordic Baltic Championships

Sweden and Emma Karlsson Win Gold at 2007 Nordic Baltic Championships

June 16, 2007

Sweden won the Nordic Baltic Team Championships in Helsinki, Finland. The team result was 67,014 %. Finland was second with 63,458 %.

"It was a pleasant task to judge this class," said Mr Jean-Michel Roudier, FEI O-judge from France. "All the participants rode over 61 % and we saw some really nice work from many relatively inexperienced Grand Prix riders. Five of the participating ten riders also reached 64 % which means that they now have one of the qualifying results needed for the European Championships."

NBCH Individual Gold to Swedish Emma Karlsson

Swedish Emma Karlsson won the individual championship in the Nordic Baltic Championships in Helsinki, Finland with mare Faradera scoring 71.450% in the Grand Prix Freestyle. Silver went to last year's bronze-medallist Swedish Camilla Toll with Rainman (71.100%) and bronze to Finnish Nina Pölönen with Sans Soucis (67.200%).

"Faradera was more relaxed and concentrated today than on Friday or Saturday. We got good rhythm to the Freestyle programme," said Emma Karlsson after winning the first ever individual medal. She has been riding Faradera since it turned four, but the owner of Faradera (Camilla Toll) used to compete with it before. This was sixth competition at Grand Prix level for 11-year old mare together with Emma Karlsson.

The competition for the gold was extremely tight. From the ground jury of five nationalities three judges had placed Karlsson first and two judges had ranked the silver medallist Camilla Toll first. The difference in the end was only 0.35 percentage units.

Quality of the performances in today's class was high. Riders and horses with relatively little experience from international Grand Prix competitions do not normally reach such high scores what was given today, commented the Foreign judge Danish Kurt Christensen.  

High Scores for Young Horses

The victory for the 6-year old horses went to yesterday's winner, Finland's Stella Hagelstam with stallion Lambourghini scoring 78.8%. In the 5-year old horses class the winner was Norway's Siv Morberg with mare Verona scoring 76.0%. Both riders commented the almost too hot weather taking the best off the young horses, but that despite the exhaustion the youngsters did their very best. Not surprisingly, the winners were extremely satisfied with their horses.

Article by Anne Huuskonen

Related Link
Scores 2007 Nordic Baltic Championship