For the 31st edition of the FEI European Jumping Championships, the event returns to Spain, 18 years after the Championships in Gijon, only this time to be held at the Club de Campo Villa in Madrid.

The FEI European Jumping Championships take place every two years, in the middle of the Olympic cycle and have been held since 1957, with the introduction of team medals in 1975. The year which also sees women permitted to compete alongside men in the European Jumping Championships.

THE VENUE
The Club de Campo Villa de Madrid (ESP) has been host to an annual CSI for 100 years and will be temporarily replacing its usual grass in the main arena with all-weather sand footing to ensure perfect going for the Championship. .

 The full set of results will be available shortly. In the meantime, the names of the new European Champions are:

OLYMPIC QUALIFICATION
The 3 best ranked nations from Groups A & B at the 2011 FEI European Jumping Championships (excluding the teams already qualified at WEG) will be qualified to take part with a team consisting of 4 athletes & 4 horses or 3 athletes & 3 horses.

GREAT HORSES IN THE EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS…
Some very special horses have stolen the limelight over the past 54 years...

DEISTER - An extraordinary horse with an extraordinary record. With Germany's
Paul Schockemohle on board this brilliant bay Hannoverian gelding won three consecutive individual gold medals - in Munich, Germany in 1981, Hickstead, England in 1983 and Dinard, France in 1985. Bred by Hermann Hahl in Osterbruch, Lower Saxony, Deister was by Diskant out of Adlerklette by Adlerschild, stood 171cms high and had the heart of a lion.

Deister's European medal haul also included team gold at Munich in 1981, team silver in Rotterdam in 1979, and team bronze at both Hickstead in 1983 and Dinard in 1985. Despite his incredibly active career the hardy Deister, who was born in February 1971, lived to the ripe old age of 29.

MR SOFTEE - The closest challenger to Deister for the title of Champion of the Europeans is the Irish-bred Mr Softee - a three-time winner, but with two different riders.

Mr Softee enjoyed a hugely successful career with David Broome. However it was with another Briton, David Barker, that the chestnut horse with four white legs took the individual European title for the first time at the fifth championships in London in 1962. This was then followed up by David Broome’s victory in Rotterdam in 1967 and in Hickstead in 1969.

Broome once said that, like many other top horses, Mr Softee had a big opinion of himself - "He thought he was a king - and he was right!"

BELIEVE IT OR NOT...

• Only 2 women have ever won the European Championships, France’s Alexandra Ledermann in 1999 and Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum (GER) in 2007.
  
• Germany lead the individual gold tally with 14 medals, followed by Great Britain on 6 and France on 4.
  
• In terms of the team medals since 1975, Germany also have the led with 6 gold, followed by 4 for Great Britain and Switzerland and 3 for the Netherlands.