Oliver Townend and Fenya's Elegance
With twelve British riders competing here at their home European Championship, the local press are being kept busy trying to keep up with each of them as they exit the arena. Two popular British riders were the first cabs off the rank this morning and while Izzy Taylor was slightly disappointed with her ride on KBIS Briarlands Matilda and their score of 44, Oliver Townend was really pleased with his relatively new ride Fenya’s Elegance
“I’ve got mixed feelings” said Izzy “I’m very pleased with her, she was a good girl and kept a lid on it but I would have liked to be a bit closer to the leaders. Maybe I didn’t ask enough or was a bit conservative” while Oliver, who had enthusiastically raised his hat to the crowd in delight as he exited the arena, admitted “She’s got a bit of a tricky past record and we’re absolutely thrilled with the way she’s performed in that phase. There’s still room for improvement but she’s never been in the 30’s before”
Pippa Funnell and Sandman 7
Both Oliver and Izzy were riding as individuals and it was Pippa Funnell, the past double European Champion, who was the next out for the British team after the morning break. Pippa was quite surprised, but pleased, to be chosen as part of the team due to the relative inexperience of her nine year old gelding Sandman and, although the score of 41 for 19th place at the end of the day was not as high as she would have liked for the sake of the team, she was delighted with the way that her young horse coped with the crowds (who gave an enormous cheer as she left arena) and the atmosphere of the event. Pippa and Sandman won at Chatsworth earlier this year, another Ian Stark course, and we talked to her afterwards about how her young horse will cope with the cross country phase coming up tomorrow
Pippa Funnell
The loud cheer you can hear in the background of that interview heralded a new leader of the dressage as the current World Champion Sandra Auffarth and Opgun Louvo went into the lead with a score of 31.40, just slightly ahead of Holly Woodhead’s leading score from yesterday of 31.70
Sandra Auffarth and Opgun Louvo
The young German rider has ridden here only once before and is not likely to repeat her performance here in 2007 when she was a member of the bronze-winning German team but fell off on the cross country. Her flowing test was a delight to watch and she was very happy with the result
While Britain and Germany have both already qualified teams for Rio 2016, several teams are here with one of the two qualifications on offer firmly in their sights. France, who lost their qualification after the disqualification of Maxime Livio after Normandy, are avidly chasing a spot at Rio and their two team riders today kept their hopes alive to finish the day with France in third place. Mathieu Lemoine riding Bart L finished in 14th place on 39.70 while Thomas Carlile on his talented horse Sirocco du Gers, one of his favourite horses, is in 25th on 43.20
Francis Whittington and Easy Target
Catherine Witt, who owns two horses at these Championships, William Fox-Pitt’s 4* winner Bay My Hero and Francis Whittington’s Easy Target, must have had an afternoon of ups and downs. Francis, who has waited a long time to wear the British flag at a Senior Championship was delighted with the grey Easy Target despite a few spooky moments at the start. They settled into the test nicely, produced some lovely trot extensions (“I hope they scored me well for that” said Francis and they did, with a nine) and finished in seventh place, only 6.1 penalties behind the leader. William sadly had less of an easy ride with Bay My Hero simply not looking comfortable in the trot work; they started by circling the arena at a walk and just didn’t produce the work everyone has come to expect of them but hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. They are currently in 23rd place with a score of 43 which is, for maybe the first time, the British discard score
Germany’s Ingrid Klimke (above) who has been on such a roll this year was delighted with her ride on Horseware Hale Bob who ‘was really listening to me and was such a pleasure to ride’. They finished in eighth place with a score of 37.80 but it is in tomorrow’s phase that Horseware Hale Bob should shine “He has a lot of thoroughbred blood in him” says Ingrid “Which will make my job easier tomorrow”
Niklas Lindback and Cendrillon
With just a few riders to go, people started to drift away from the stands but after the first few movements of Niklas Lindback’s test, they were drawn back to watch. The judges’ scores were trending in the 20’s as Niklas’ mare Cendrillon showed some stunning trot work; unfortunately some tightness in the walk and canter brought the overall score down to 38.10 but meant a top ten finish for Niklas and a fourth place currently for the Swedish team, only 4.2 penalties behind France
It has been positively balmy by Scottish standards her at Blair Castle in the past few days but sadly it appears that is all about to change. With heavy rain forecast for Saturday’s cross country, the weather conditions could play an influential role in how Ian Stark’s course rides. The riders generally seem to agree that although not a course huge in its dimensions, the challenges here are set by the terrain combined with some very tricky questions, especially late in the course
View the complete cross country course here
Final results after dressage – individual
