100 horses, 44 riders, from 18 countries (Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brasil, Colombia, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Isreal, Italy, Mexico, Holland, New Zealand, Switzerland, Sweden, United States) will be on hand to participate in the eighth edition of San Patrignano's CSI horse show. The competition is scheduled for the 23-25 of July on the grounds of Europe's largest drug rehabilitation centre.

Prizes totalling more than 200 thousand Euro will be offered, including a 100 thousand Euro jackpot for the Acqua Uliveto Gran Prix. The courses will be designed by Olaf Petersen from Germany, who will offer his services at this years' Summer Olympics in Athens, and Italian Marco Cortinovis. Some of the world's top riders will be contending for the top honours: four-time Olympic gold medalist Ludger Beerbaum from Germany(2nd ranked worldwide), 1998 World Champion in Rodrigo Pessoa (3rd ranked), Swiss rider and last week's winner of the Grand Prix at Aachen, Markus Fuchs,(7th). Also present will be the 2nd place finisher at the European Championships, Belgian rider Ludo Phillipaerts(18th), and Otto Becker(9th), a rider with an Olympic gold and a European Championship to his credit. The Italian team captains, Giovanni Govoni and Jerry Smit will be riding, respectively Havinia, and Nadir, a horse competing for the first time at San Patrignano, albeit having been born and raised in the Community's stables. Italian riding enthusiasts are pinning their hopes on the Smit-Nadir team for next years's European Championships.

Emile Hendrix, the Dutch rider who won the bronze medal at the 1991 European Championships, is a techniacal advisor for the event. He stated, "The competition is really first-class. For many riders, this is the last stop before competing in the Olympics at Athens. This is one of the reasons that we see some considerable horse and rider teams on the field. I'm thinking of Pessoa-Baloubet, Phillipaerts-Parco, and Beerbaum- Gladys. The competitions in Athens will be held in the evenings, and competing at San Patrignano will be a good way to prepare the horses for this. In additon, all the riders are eager to try out the arena before the European Championships in 2005."

Three classes are scheduled for each day of the event, the first being scheduled to begin at 4.30pm, and the last at 9.00 in the evening. Entry is free to the public on Friday. Rai will be covering the show with live broadcasts on Saturday and Sunday on Raisat and taped segments on Rai2 and Rai3.

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