Marriët Smit-Hoekstra and Duco Z are the first GP winners of the year!

Last weekend, Internationaal Indoor Concours Hippique (IICH) in Groningen was the first international show of the year, which was now taking place in the Martiniplaza for the second year. It became an excellent start to the new year for our blue/yellow colors, because the first Grand Prix of the year also saw a Zangersheide horse at the top of the rankings.

The Martiniplaza was completely sold out on Saturday evening for the Rabobank CSI2* Grand Prix, the absolute apotheosis of the weekend. The Dutch course designer Louis Koninckx had provided a selective basic round for this Grand Prix, with which most of the 46 starters had considerable difficulty. Many combinations got faults on their way and in the end only 5 combinations managed to qualify for the jump-off. One of those 5 was the Dutch lady rider Marriët Smit-Hoekstra with the 10-year-old gelding Duco Z, a son of Dakar TN and Riverman who was bred in the Netherlands by P.C. van den Berg. As the 3rd combination at the start, the duo rushed to a finish time of 32.29 seconds and with that performance they were able to win this first Grand Prix of the year!

Marriët Smit-Hoekstra: “You don't know how happy I am with this, because Duco Z didn't jump very good at all during the first few days. The right rhythm wasn't there and that's why I thought I would just make the best of it during the GP. It's really great that it turned out like this! We bought Duco Z from the breeder when he was 4 years old and my husband Herman Smit actually trained him until he was 7 years old. Then I took over the reins (laughs). We have already won many national shows, but we were often not quite successful internationally. Great that it worked now. This is a dream come true!”