Yesterday was full of drama as our own Hayley Beresford was eliminated for lameness during her test and one of the favourites, Parzival was eliminated for having blood showing from his mouth. Then at the end of the day, waiting for the Teams medal presentation Anky dropped by and gave a demonstration as the "reining" dressage champion much to the delight of the audience.
Today the weather was hot and so was the competition. Rachel went early and scored 67.00 to finish in 27th place – Brett Parberry was first on after lunch and performed a faultless test for a score of 72.167 which sent the Aussie supporters wild! With good reason too, as several of the riders above Brett had errors which kept him in the top five for a long time. Isabelle Werth gave it her best shot but Warum Nicht was not up to it today and had lots of problems in the changes and she ended up on 72 behind Brett. Carl Hester of GB also had problems in the extended trot which brought him down to 17th and Hans Peter Minderhoud did an amazing (and unintentional) airs above ground which brought him down to 22nd place.
The final four did not disappoint however and Steffen Peters on Ravel (Bronze medal - USA), Laura Bechtolsheimer on Mistral Hojris (silver medal - GB) and Edward Gal (gold medal – NED) on Moorlands Totillas were all amazing – giving us the three medallists. Brett finished in 9th position which is fantastic and I’m sure he will be celebrating tonight! This puts him through to the Freestyle on Friday night. After the Individual Dressage when the crowds had left it was the turn of the eventers to familiarise themselves with the arena. The trot up for the eventers had taken place earlier today and all Aussies passed. The team was then announced, consisting of Paul Tapner, Stuart, Sonja and Sam with Chris and Peter riding as individuals. Eventing dressage starts tomorrow – we saw Paul, Stuart and Sonja in the main arena for familiarisation after the dressage finished and they all looked great and well. Good luck guys! Photos: Toni-anne Collins
