Ingrid Klimke and Hale Bob OLD
“Bobby came into the arena saying ‘Here I am’ and I said, ‘Okay then let’s go’. Then I could ride all the extensions because he really wanted to go for it. It really was pure fun, I don’t think he could do much better” said Ingrid Klimke as she and Hale Bob OLD moved into fourth place on a score of 39.50 as one of the last riders of the day.
With that score they also moved Germany into the position they are very familiar with – the lead. However this is not the German dominance of the past and they lead by just a whisker on 122.00 with France hot on their heels on 122.20. Ingrid is the leading German rider with Michael Jung now in fifth place (40.90), Sandra Auffarth in eighth (41.60) and Julia Krajewski in 18th (44.80)
Julia’s horse was a little distracted by the noise and cameras, causing a little blip as she moved off into the trot from the first halt but the rookie German team member who took her place on the team only in the past few days was happy with her Olympic debut
“The changes were not the best we can do but they were there and there were no major problems. It’s the first time for him in such an atmosphere and I know he can do better but I think he did a really good job. He actually likes jumping more than dressage but he tries his best in everything and he’s always in a good mood, he never has a bad day; from the moment he stepped off the plane he was looking around with his ears pricked saying ‘Well hello Brazil, here I am!’”
Julia is patriotic to the very fingertips
However while Germany just squeaked into the lead, it was the French team today that really shone. Astier Nicolas and Karim Laghouag got the team off to a good start yesterday and Thibaut Vallette and Mathieu Lemoine followed it up today with scores of 41 and 39.2 for sixth and third places respectively.
Thibaut, a Lieutenant Colonel in the French army who works for the famous Cadre Noir, entered the limelight last year when he won the individual bronze medal at the European Championships and now finds himself at his first Olympic Games. The 41 year old who is the father of five children (where does he find the time?) admits that this is all a new experience for him and, as he didn’t start competing until he was 28, he had never really expected to be at an Olympian. Today he focused on keeping his horse Qing Du Briot cool during the hot morning and didn’t work him too hard in the warm up
“The atmosphere in the arena is no different for my horse and doesn’t really affect him but I was concerned about the heat. He’s a horse that needs to conserve his energy for the test so I didn’t want to overwork him; today we did more walk work in his warm up and took lots of rests to keep him fresh”
Mathieu Lemoine riding Bart L
In the afternoon the temperature cooled considerably as the clouds rolled in and Mathieu Lemoine riding Bart L produced a test that moved them into a very competitive third place
“I was really happy with the test and the score but I always think I could have done better” said Mathieu “The counter canter could have been better and the left half pass but I’m still happy. He is a bit of a ‘looky’ type so I need to keep him calm in the dressage but he is really a horse that goes well in all three phases”
Unlike the German team that have been together for a while now, the French team is a newly formed one. However they have been working hard on forming the team camaraderie; earlier this year they all travelled to Chatsworth for a successful event and in the lead up to the Games they spent 20 days together at a camp in Granville using the beach there to gallop the horses and do fitness training. It seems to have worked with them now in a silver medal winning position
Shane Rose and CP Qualified
Not very far behind, currently in bronze medal winning position is Australia who had mixed fortunes today. Stuart Tinney’s big grey Pluto Mio also found the atmosphere of the arena a bit much and certainly didn’t bring his A Game to the table (read more here) but Shane Rose finally had some luck at an Olympic Games. CP Qualified strutted his stuff for a good score of 42.50 and 13th place and, although Shane was a little disappointed with the score and the variation in judges’ marks, he was happy with a ‘really nice test’
“Maybe he could have been a little more through and a bit more expressive but I was really happy with him. He did four nice changes and his lateral work in his trot, which is potentially a weakness for him, wasn’t too bad. His walk was good with three even paces and no mistakes, he was really submissive, had good impulsion and I didn’t fall off so it wasn’t so bad!”
Shane thinks the course tomorrow will cause plenty of problems and time will be an issue but he hopes that CP Qualified will rise to the challenge again “He’s really fit although he’s not a very fast horse but I’m able to ride him in a way that he doesn’t take too long. People probably didn’t think he’s go as fast as he did in Aachen so hopefully I’ll try and replicate that for 10minutes and 12 seconds and hopefully that will be the finish line”
Pippa Funnell and Billy The Biz are in 16th place
In fourth place is Great Britain with Pippa Funnell and Kitty King in the arena today and William still leading on the chestnut stallion Chilli Morning while Ireland is in fourth place. Ireland’s Jonty Evans put up a great performance individually for ninth place on 41.80 on the 10 year old Cooley Rorkes Drift, a horse that ended up in his stable thanks to a broken down lorry
Jonty and Cooley Rorkes Drift
Jonty is having a wonderful time and feels very much at home in the new environment but brought his four leaf clover good luck charm (worn on the inside of his jacket in case it violated any Olympic rules) made by his step father for a bit of extra luck
“We arrived here and rode around the arena on the second day and I immediately thought ‘I love this’ and it’s been a bit like that all week. We’ve been saying to ourselves (the Irish team) that all we’ve got to do is what we normally do and doing what we normally do is good enough. But of course the butterflies kick in so doing what you normally do becomes a little bit challenging!”
“He couldn’t have done any more today, I loved all of the test but it felt like a hellish long time to get into the arena! But when they opened the boards, I just said to him, let’s go do this”
“It has seemed like a long time since we got here and it’s been quite hard to know what to do with the spare time but on reflection now I think it’s good thing because you settle down a gear into this lifestyle. I think if you had arrived yesterday and started to compete you’d be a bit frayed around the edges”
Karin Donckers and Fletcha Van’t Verahof
The Italian team may be in eighth place overall but Stefano Brecciaroli and the very impressive Apollo VD Wendi Kurt, who were second at London 2012 after the dressage, are leading the charge in tenth place individually. Belgium’s Karin Donckers, competing as an individual, put up another lovely performance on Fletcha Van’t Verahof for seventh place on a score of 41.10. This pair were impressive in Normandy two years ago when Fletcha was just nine years old; with two years more experience and Karin’s great cross country riding, this will definitely be a pair to watch tomorrow.
“My personal goal toady was to get a sub 40 score” said Karin “But Fletcha was very good in the test. He was very focussed, concentrating and relaxed. It’s such a nice feeling as a rider when you’re at one with your horse and you can ride just as if you were in the arena at home. When I’m at home I think of riding as if I’m at the Olympics and when I’m at the Olympics I think of riding as if I’m home
There are five or six places it would be really easy to have a run out but I have confidence in Fletcha if I don’t make mistakes. I always say “If I don’t mistakes” because I have a great horse and if I have to blame somebody, it’s myself”
It wasn’t a great day for everyone. Jonelle Price was touted as one of the big hopes in today’s dressage but it didn’t quite work out the way she had hoped when Faerie Dianimo lost her trademark spectacular trot in the last minutes of their warm up
Jonelle Price
“i don’t really know what say – maybe, let’s go back to Aachen!” said Jonelle with her big trademark smile despite her disappointment with a score of 49.50 and 43rd place “Obviously the medium and extended trot are typically her party pieces but moving from the second to last warm-up, where she was very good, to the last warm-up I picked up the medium trot and it just didn’t happen, which she has never ever done before. Then we just ran out of time so we were on the back foot coming in and hoping for some miracle that sadly just didn’t happen”
“Obviously New Zealand needed something special and I was pretty confident that we could do it. I think that the team tactics for cross country now will be pretty straightforward, there’s not much to decide, it’s just going to be hard and fast”
In fact it is very open and anything could still happen tomorrow and, with just 4.9 penalties between the top ten after dressage leader and only 5.7 penalties between the top four teams, it is as exciting a day of cross country action as you will get.
“When Germany is far ahead (after the dressage), everyone is not happy so they have all decided to catch up” said Ingrid Klimke today “Now we Germans have to do a really good job tomorrow!”
They do indeed
