1997 - 2000

CSI-A 2000
Belgians dominate San Patrignano's CSI-A
Belgian horseriders dominated the 2000 edition of the Vincenzo Muccioli Challenge, the international competition dedicated, by the drug rehabilitation centre in Rimini, to its founder's memory. The true protagonist of the event was young François Mathy Jr who made the highest step of the Infostrada Grand Prix podium and won four out of nine categories of the competition. Riding his Viktor, a horse who showed great technical and physical potential, the Belgian horseman preceded two highly experienced athletes such as the German Thomas Schepers on Power by ABA and the Austrian Gerfried Puck on Olympic 2. At the Award Ceremony François Mathy dedicated his success to the memory of Guido Dominici, the Italian undisputed champion who won San Patrignano’s Grand Prix in 1999: “Today I felt I could win and thought it would be great to do it for Guido. We were very good friends, we practiced together many times on my father’s stud farm and here he earned his last great success”.
Another Belgian horseman, Michel Blaton, kept the audience with bated breath up to the final race when he won the Aon Super Prize - 400 million Lira - the award for the rider who would finish the three most challenging categories of the event without any penalty. Riding his Dino, Michel Blaton met this goal by concluding even the Infostrada Grand Prix’s barrage without any mistakes. He said: 8220;Getting to the end of the final course was very difficult. I felt pressured not to make any mistakes, yet I couldn’t go too slow. One more galloping time and I wouldn’t be able to comment the most important victory in my areer.”
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CSI-A 1999
Alexandra Ledermann & Rochet M: a winning couple
Alexandra Ledermann’s victory in Vincenzo Muccioli Challenge’s Grand Prix concluded the 1999 edition of San Patrignano’s horse-riding competition. The French horsewoman riding sixteen-year-old Rochet M - the same horse with whom she won the individual bronze medal in the Olympics in Atlanta - was the only competitor out of 34 to get to the end of the very difficult course, designed by the German Olaf Petersen, without any mistake. She said: “When I took my recognition of the course I realized how difficult the race was going to be. The distance between the obstacles forced us to change balance and gait continuously and the perfect team-play I have built with my horse through these ten years of racing together really helped me a lot”. Second place was won by the forty-year-old horseman from Liechtenstein, Thomas Battliner, on Istanbul; he committed a slight time infraction during the basic course, but that was enough to set him out of a possible barrage. The third place was won by German Klaus Reinacher with Leo K; he run an excellent and flawless manche, but unfortunately he committed a time infraction which stopped him on the lowest step of the podium. Fourth place went to one of the strongest couples in world horse-riding: Willi Melliger and his “gigantic” Calvaro. The Swissman got very close to the Grand Prix barrage, but, at the last obstacle in the basic course - a vertical of boards where horsemen like Pessoa, Sloothaak and Robert had already made mistakes - his horse’s back legs touched one of the boards, which fell. This mistake cost Melliger the podium in the Grand Prix and, even though he got very close to this goal, prevented him to win the Super Prize - 400 million Lira - reserved to the horserider who would make no mistakes in the three most challenging races of the competition.
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CSI-A 1998
Guido Dominici’s Great Victory
The second edition of San Patrignano’s International Horseriding Competition ended with important results for the Italian team. Guido Dominici, a thirty-eight-year-old with a long athletic experience, confirmed his season’s good results by winning the top race in the event, Vincenzo Muccioli Challenge Grand Prix, riding his Friso. “An important victory - Dominici himself defined it - because it was achieved on a very technical course. Leopoldo Palacio - ground director at the Olympics in Sidney - designed a racing course that needs to be run with a lot of concentration and without a resting jump. I have to thank my horse, Friso: he is a true athlete, sensitive and capable of interpreting every obstacle in the best of ways. In San Patrignano he confirmed he is up to the best horses in this field”. Only two more out of the thirty-seven couples who took part in the Grand Prix completed their basic course without any mistake, thus accessing the barrage which concluded the race: the Swiss Stefan Lauber riding Royal Future and the other Italian, Natale Chiaudani, riding Rheinegold de Luyne. Chiaudani was the first to run the last course of the Challenge and, without the advantage of referring to anyone before him, he ended up scoring the best time. Right after him it was Dominici’s turn: he was fast, determined and sure of himself and he ended with an excellent time, 38’’43. After him, the Swiss champion, Lauber, immediately launched Royal Future at a galloping pace and the stopwatch stopped at 38’’67. At the end those 24 hundredths of a second were the only separation between Lauber and Dominici, but they were enough to determine the Italian’s success: it was the first Italian victory at San Patrignano’s competition.
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CSI-A 1997
For the first time great horse-riding takes place in a drug rehabilitation community
Form August 4th to 6th San Patrignano’s horseriding centre hosted the first edition of the Vincenzo Muccioli Challenge, an International horseshow that the community dedicated to its founder’s memory. It was an event of high technical and athletic level but, above all, it was an event of great human and social meaning. For the first time, the world’s best horses and riders raced in a drug rehabilitation community, thus expressing their support for such a dramatic social problem. After all, San Patrignano is well known by all horse-riding fans around the world for the extraordinary results achieved by its horses and riders in the most important competitions, from those reported by its top athlete, individual and team world champion Franke Sloothaak with his S.P. Weihaiwej, to those of riders such as Michel Robert - individual and team silver medal in the World Championships with S.P. Miss - or Hubert Bourdy - Olympic bronze medal in Barcelona with S.P. Razzia Du Poncel. For its importance the competition attracted a lot of the strongest riders in world ranking: Nelson and Rodrigo Pessoa, Ludger Berbaum, Willi Melliger, Alexandra Ledermann, Ludo Philippaerts, Emile Hendrix, Otto Becker, Philippe Rozier, Fillippo Moyerson, Markus Fuchs, Leslie McNaught and Urs Fah. The event ended on Sunday evening with the most awaited contest, the Grand Prix, where Dutch Champion Jos Lansink riding Bachus Z made first place. Right after him, strongly supported by the community’s 1800 guests who attentively followed the competition’s final barrage, came the home horseman, Fernando Fourcade, the Spaniard who directs the athletic activities within the community. Fourcade and his horse Billy de Moulin were preceded by Lansink only by a few hundredths of a second. The third place completing the podium of this first edition of the Vincenzo Muccioli Challenge was the Swedish horsewoman Maria Gretzer with her Feliciano.
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