The week before the European Championships, the Dutch served up a small reminder to the rest of the world that they are still the reigning champions as  the  GCT of the Netherlands continued today by keeping  most of the prizes at home.   

The day began with the 16^th renewal of the CN Worldwide  Derby worth 6400Euro to the winner. The course included  two sorts of banks, water ditches, a devils dyke and the familiar white Derby rails. Rodrigo Pessoa was an early clear round but his time of 113.24 looked beatable and it soon was by Julien Epaillard on his grey horse Commissario, more often seen in Grand Prix classes. However Julien may well be deciding on a career change as the horse thundered round to stop the clock five seconds faster then Rodrigo. Michel Robert had a good crack but Kronos D'Ouilly could not turn quite as smoothly and was just over a second slower. The class was looking all over like a French one-two until to the crowds delight, last years second, Henk Van de Pol, entered on black Tennessee W, and showed everyone how a real Derby specialist could do it. Henk never had to take a pull and was a hefty 3.5 seconds faster with a time of 103.63 as they shot through the finish. The horse who was previously ridden by Henk's brother has been with them since a five year old and now nine, will be back next year to defend his crown.   

Later on there was another GCT class with similar prize money up for grabs  but this was an ordinary 1.50m jump off class, if ever that height can be called ordinary! And there was nothing mundane about Uliano Vezzani's course either. 17 of the 41 starters had been before Lauren Hough and Quick Study managed to jump clean. A tricky combination caused all manner of problems including a fall for John Whitaker (Sultano) who stopped dead at the first part. Five others  swiftly joined Lauren in the jump off including Denis Lynch and Bernardo Alves.   

Earlier Eric Lamaze had won the Young Horse Final on his seven year old Darco mare Coriana Van Klapsheut who is owned, like Take Off his winner of yesterday, by Artisan Farms. He beat a strong field of the best 25 young horses from this weekends proceedings, and kept two Dutch favourites, Leopold van Asten and Eric  Van der Vleuten off the winners rostrum. The Special Invitation classes had a prize for the best rider over the three days and that was won by Rio organiser Alvares de Miranda's younger brother Fernando. Having taken a break from riding for four years he returned to the saddle three years ago to help his brother with their horse import business that they run in partnership with Stal Tops. “Usually I stay more in Brazil but sometimes I get the opportunity to come over here to maybe show a horse for a client. It has been a huge thrill for me to ride in the main arena here in front of this crowd with the atmosphere and the beautiful show ground.” Just to complete a Dutch treat, Peter Geerink won the CSI2* Grand Prix on Lonesome Diams Hogue.