Verona, with its 260,000 inhabitants, has a wealth of Roman sights to visit, and the amphitheatre, known as the Arena, is top of the list. This international show jumping competition will involve three days of superb events culminating on Sunday in the Grand Prix, the third round (after events in Oslo and Helsinki) of the Western Europe League of the circuit.

Sunday: Noora had a very unlucky last line.

Friday

The first day didn't go too well for Noora in Verona. Noora's two stallions had to stay next to a mare in heat and no-one seemed willing to relocate the horses in the stable. This led to Atlas kicking in the box and unfortunately injuring his leg and is now unable to attend any classes in the show. Evli Popcorn, a sensitive mare only now returning from a long time off the shows, found the international atmosphere and bigger obstacles quite a nerving experience in the first class. Evli Cagliostro jumped fantastically, but Noora decided to retire a so far clean round after a bad, too short turn for a tipple combination. Noora had to turn out from the b-part and retired then after jumping the combination again. Noora mentioned also that her friend Jessica Kürten had a much luckier day and scored a nice victory in Friday eve's main event and ranking point class.

Different from previous reports this week, Mikko is also in Verona and is assisting Noora. Mikko found the conditions in Oldenburg rather challenging, an as there was also a severe storm to arrive according to the weather forecast the rider decided to withdraw from the show.

Sunday

Noora and Evli Cagliostro had an excellent start to their World Cup course and they went clear all the way to the last line, where they had incredibly unluckily three knockdowns and finished on 12 faults.

Noora told Cagli was brilliant on the course and their collapse on the last line was also therefore so hard to explain. Did the long demanding course have its toll on the horse and caused the failure on last line's oxer-oxer combination or should Noora have been even more determined in riding the stallion over combination? And more was to follow, as the error on the combination made the following distance long, prompting Noora to add a stride from her plans, which made the err also the last vertical fence. That added to 12 faults, which Noora was very unhappy with - it certainly didn't feel like the result they deserved, as all the remaining course was really good.

Earlier in the day Noora jumped an unhurried clean round with Evli Popcorn in the 1m45 speed round, improving clearly on the mare's somewhat nervous first come-back course on Friday.

Noora told Popi really shined and felt now like the horse she knows. There were only a couple of clean rounds, but as it was a table-C speed round (errors converts to additional time), Noora and Popi went unrewarded (in terms of placings) for their efforts.

Noora's and Mikael's next show is some 10 days out, as they both jump then in the four-star Maastricht event.

Results pages:

1. Verona LIVE

 Noora's classes:

1. Results summary

1. Read more FP-News