The €100'000 Grand Prix of Portugal, presented by the City Council of Cascais and Estoril Turismo, began with an immediate clear round from Azerbaijan's Patrick McEntee.   But if anyone was lulled into a state of security by this auspicious start, they were soon disabused of the notion. 

The first round course contained an open water, two doubles, and a tricky viaduct wall.   By the end of the first round, it had produced 16 clear rounds. Although Jessica Kurten (Castle Forbes Libertina), Kevin Staut (Le Prestige St Lois) and Laura Kraut (Cedric) were among recent GP prize winners, they did not make the cut.   There were plenty of big names who did, though, including Jos Lansink, Richard Spooner and Marcus Ehning, along with Tour leader and Turin winner Marco Kutscher.

In the second round the last fence, the GCT Planks, stopped Marcus Ehning(Plot Blue) and Richard Spooner (Cristallo).  To the surprise of the audience it was Azerbaijan's Jamal Rahimov (Aramis) who was the first to go double clear and his countryman Patrick McEntee (Ever Mury Marais) who forced the jump off! 

They were soon joined by four riders who only need to be introduce by their first names to identify them to the showjumping world they are so renowned: Marco, Jos, Christian and Meredith. Both the eastern European riders had rails in the jump-off round, as did Christian Alhmann but the latter, who placed well on Taloubet in Monaco, will not be too disappointed with how he is coming along on a relatively new ride. 

Marco Kutscher and Cash were the first to go clear again.   They seemed not to be going too fast, but that is usual with the horse's giant stride and their resulting time of 45.82 was respectable enough so that Jos (Cavalor Valentina van T'Heike) made no effort to catch it. The World Champion crossed the line in sedate 51.82. 

That left the remaining clear rider, Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum, who had been fastest in the second round, to see if she could prevent Marco Kutscher from winning another GCT Grand Prix. To give her horse credit, who lives in the shadow of Shutterfly, Checkmate could not have jumped a more perfect round to bring his clearly delighted rider home penalty free in 44.11.  

Meredith said, “This is my biggest win since I had my baby and I am thrilled as it is so important having missed so much training and competing. Do I ride any different since I had her? No I don't think I do.”  Marco Kutscher's response was, “Most definitely not!”  Jos Lansink observed, "There is still a way to go to [the final in] Rio so it is not over, I may catch Marco yet.”