Vittoria Panizzon and Merlots Magic still lead after cross country
Italy’s Vittoria Pannizon held on to her lead today in the cross country phase of the WEG test event on a course that everyone seemed to agree was a perfect ‘test’.
Vittoria and her 12 year old Merlots Magic looked great on course and she had no trouble finishing well under time and clear jumping to hold off the Aussie assault from Andrew Hoy and Chris Burton lying in second and third place.
Chris was the first Australian rider on course and Graf Liberty (above) ate up the course looking as if it was a walk in the park. Chris said afterwards that he had had a really good ride and Graf Liberty looked in great shape afterwards.
Most of the riders completed the course without too many problems, with only one elimination; Ecuador’s Ronald Zabala riding Wise Equestrian Master Rose fell at fence 23 but both horse and rider were fine. Four riders incurred penalties from refusals including France’s Geoffroy Soullez riding Madarin Du Liot who was lying in fourth place after the dressage.
This meant that Japan’s Toshiyuki Tanaka (below) moved up into fourth place behind Andrew Hoy in second and Chris Burton in third place.
French rider Maxime Livio moved up to fifth and Kevin McNab, who also had an easy looking clear round on the young horse Casperelli moved up one spot into sixth place.
Britain’s Piggy French, riding Westwood Mariner, who was equal seventh with Kevin yesterday, is on an equal score of 48.1 with Kevin but, as Kevin was marginally closer to the optimum time (0.01!), Piggy takes seventh place.
Kevin and Casparelli (video below)
On the whole the placings didn’t change dramatically although our blogger Alfie Bleekman riding for Holland had a stop at the same fence (Fence 12) as Geoffroy Soullez and was pretty annoyed with herself afterwards but soon got her smile back – it’s hard to be cross for long when you’re wearing bright orange sunglasses!
We did a video blog that I’ll upload in the next few days and let Alfie tell you all about it herself. The other fence which caused two refusals was Fence 10 where Mexico’s Anibal Garrido Viveros and South Africa’s Victoria Scott had problems (click here for our Cross Country Fence gallery to view all fences)
Alfie and Anmarsch looking good early in the course
It was a perfect day for cross country with slightly cooler weather and a breeze and it would have been a great day out for spectators had it been a public event. However there were still enough officials, team supporters and test event organisers to make the course seem positively busy compared to some events in Australia!
The venue will undergo many changes between now and the actual event in 2014 but the main aim here this week is to test the logistics and all seemed to run really well. It is also a very friendly atmosphere – following the cross country the Normandy Organising Committee laid on a thank you for all of the volunteers who have worked here at Le Pin during the past two days. As well as the brief speeches there was, of course, Normandy cider and the official mascot Norman made an appearance (I’m sure you’ll hear more about this from NormAus)
The second horse inspection takes place here at Le Pin at 7:30am in the morning then the horses, riders and whole shebang move off in convoy to the city of Caen for the show jumping phase. This obviously is slightly unusual and has some of the riders a bit perplexed but no doubt they will find out how well it all works tomorrow.
A similar thing happened in Jerez in 2002 where the cross country was held at a separate venue and the horses moved out there so it is not completely without precedent but it is obviously quite different to what happens normally at high level events
Andrew and Cheeky Calimbo (see video below)
We talked to Andrew Hoy later in the day about his cross country round and he also gave his thoughts on moving the horses
Andrew Hoy interview after cross country
