After the second horse inspection, in a slightly unusual start to the final day of the eventing test, two convoys of trucks pulled out of the peaceful surrounds of Le Haras du Pin travelling one hour north to the city of Caen.
Mingling aound the outdoor arena where the show jumping was held
Caen is of course to be the focal point of the 2014 FEI Alltech World Equestrian Games with the majority of the events taking place in the stadiums or areas around the historic Norman city. The eventers will only visit the main stadium d’Ornano for the show jumping phase and presentation on the final day but, as this stadium is not yet ready, the Test Event jumping phase took place at Centre Equestre de Caen.
The Centre (known as SHUC) is located in one of the least glamorous areas of Caen (basically a riding school on an industrial estate) and, after the lovely venue at Haras du Pin, it was a bit disappointing but obviously is not representative of what we will experience next year.
Graf Liberty is ready to show jump after his little journey
Having negotiated our way through the outskirts of Caen and parked in a large field (I started to feel as if I was back in Australia) we finally found the riders who had unloaded the horses from the trucks and were familiarising themselves with the new venue. One poor eventing horse was startled to find himself so close to a little holding paddock of riding school ponies who in turn seemed amazed to find themselves surrounded by such activity. No stabling was available and with the horses and riders mingling around it had the feel, as Mark Todd said, of a small winter indoor show
It had rained on and off during the journey to Caen but the weather cleared a little for the actual show jumping in the Centre’s quite intimate outdoor arena. The final fence and a triple combination down the far side of the arena caused most of the problems and there were only five clear rounds under time from the final 20 riders. Ireland’s Jonty Evans jumped a lovely clear round but had one time fault riding the seven year old Cooley Rorkes Drift moving them up to 15th and his colleague Camilla Speirs also moved up to 11th with a double clear.
Kevin and Casperelli
Australia had three riders in the top six and Kevin McNab riding Casperelli jumped a lovely round to finish fifth overall on his dressage score of 48.1. Piggy French and Westwood Mariner were on the same score as Kevin but had four faults to finish in seventh when France’s Martin Denisot and Maxime Livio both jumped clear.
Chris and Graf Liberty
Japan’s Toshiyuki Tanaka, who had enjoyed a good few days here so far, sadly had three rails dropping him from fourth to 19th and the top three combinations – Chris Burton, Andrew Hoy and Vittoria Panizzon each had one rail. Chris and Graf Liberty finished in fourth, having added just four penalties to their dressage score finishing on 48.1 while Andrew and Cheeky Calimbo finished second on 46.1.
But it was Italy’s Vittoria Pannizon riding Merlots Magic who took the honours at the WEG Test Event and she is no doubt looking forward to the real thing next year
Andrew and Cheeky Calimbo enter the arena
A member of the sporting arm of the Italian Air Force, Vittoria salutes during the Italian National Anthem
Only one hour after the presentations, performed by Ground Jury member Australia’s Gill Rolton, the FEI Head of Eventing Catrin Norinder and the Normandy Organising Committee’s CEO Fabien Grobon, the jumps and decorations had been cleared away and girls on the ponies were back on the outdoor arena, no doubt dreaming of riding for France at a future World Equestrian Games
The hoopla is over and the ponies are back on the arena - is there a future WEG champion among these young riders?
