This is the second major blow for the Mechelen Christmas Horse Show, thatalready saw its World Cup status taken away in 2012 by the FEI Dressage Committee with the official reason that its dates conflicted too much with other World Cup qualifiers held Frankfurt and London.
With help of Dutch company World Dressage Masters Mechelen could however continue to with the CDI5* competition. But now head Camil Smeulders says that they can no longer financial back Mechelen forcing the organisation to drop its status from 5* to 4*.
"At the moment World Dressage Masters has not been able to fully pay its sponsorship of 2015 and has indicated to have found insufficient sponsors for 2016 and thereby ending our existing agreement which still ran in 2016," Mechelen show director Peter Bollen told Eurodressage.
"Because Jumping Mechelen can not find sponsors for the CDI 5* at such short notice, we have decided to organize a CDI 4* for 2016. For 2017 Jumping Mechelen will be looking for a new title sponsor for Dressage. If we don't succeed, the future of dressage at Jumping Mechelen will very uncertain."