Equestrianism: Sagrat carries Goosen to puissance victory

Guy Goosen and Sagrat made a stylish leap over a 7ft wall at The Horse of the Year Show last night, when the Briton became the outright winner of the Ikon Office Solutions Puissance. Goosen defeated the Belgian rider Francois Mathy, whose Plantero took a chunk out of the wall in the same round. Sagrat, who won his first puissance here at Wembley Arena two years ago, made it look easy. The horse has won 10 such contests, including the one at Olympia last year when he cleared 7ft 5in.

Earlier, James Fisher employed some sharp turns and impressive acceleration on Renville to win the Fordyce Curry Wembley Internatonal Cup by 1.54sec, thus putting paid to the chance of John Whitaker achieving the second leg of a double.

Whitaker, second of six into the jump-off, produced a typically fluent, corner-cutting round on 18-year-old Virtual Village Grannusch and the double appeared within reach until Fisher followed him into the arena.

Fisher had won the Linz Grand Prix at the Austrian Nations Cup meeting on Sunday with Renville, who spent Tuesday and part of Wednesday in his paddock, before coming here. The horse is jumping with ever-increasing assurance.

Whitaker had won the earlier NSR Silver Bullet Salver on eight-year-old Virtual Village Heyman, who also covers the ground swiftly and could prove to be the future star of the Yorkshireman's yard.

The course for this speed contest was not demanding, but the Dutch-bred Heyman did all that was asked of him in finishing 0.75sec ahead of Norway's Geir Gulliksen on Alex H. Third was Andrew Davies on Into Favour, one of the horses that the Welshman is riding so successfully for David Broome's stable.