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Britain's number one show jumper Robert Smith scooped Saturday's �12,000 winner-takes-all Christmas Masters at the London International Horse Show. Smith and Kalusha thrilled the sell-out crowd when they beat Germany's Marcus Ehning and Sandro Boy by three seconds in the fifth and final round jump-off.
The two riders were left alone to battle it out after Dane Michael Aabo went out at the fourth-round stage.
Jubilant Smith said: "Kalusha is fast and competitive. I knew we could win."
The world number six won the same class three years ago and arrived at Olympia in terrific form having finished the leading rider in both Geneva and Belfast.
Germany's Alois Pollman-Schweckhorst was first to slip out of the competition for the show's seven leading riders to date when he jumped the wrong course.
Briton John Whitaker was next to exit, with four faults in the first round, followed by his son Robert whose mare Qualite hit the planks in the third round.
Aabo then paid a four-second penalty for refusing on a hairpin turn with Mosegardens Dilight, leaving Smith and Ehning the only two to go clear over every round.
MMIX
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