Michael Jung will be competing three horses at Fontainebleau CICO 2013 including Halunke
Sadly no Australians are competing at the French Nations Cup event this weekend, either as an individual or team (since Clayton decamped to America the lure of France seems to have lessened) however there are plenty of competitors from several nations who will be there. These include Michael Jung, Sandra Auffarth, Dirk Schrade and Andreas Dibowski from Germany (last year’s winner of the inaugural FEI Eventing Nations Cup), Britain’s Pippa Funnell riding three horses and Jonelle Richards and Mark Todd from New Zealand. Indeed Sir Mark is very recently returned to Europe after his quick visit to the Horse of the Year show New Zealand, tweeting “Back from a crazy week in NZ – leaving for France at 6pm Tuesday with 4 horses – mad week ahead!” Mark is entered with NZB Campino and NZB Regent Lad while Jonelle is taking The Deputy and Flintstar
Kitty King is one of the riders on the British Nations Cup squad and will be riding Zidante at Fontainebleau
Although Pippa Funnell is competing, the British Nations Cup team is likely to be made up of four of the five promising young British riders at the event; Laura Collett, Kitty King, Emily Llewellyn, Gemma Tattersall and Izzy Taylor. These five were amongst the squad of nine recently selected to represent Britain during the FEI Nations Cup Series. The other four squad members are Sarah Bullimore, Tom McEwen, Francis Whittington and Lucy Wiegersma.
In a smart move the British Eventing Senior Selection Committee has decided to give these younger riders, who do not have a depth of senior team experience, the opportunity to compete in a team environment. According to Britsih Eventing, for each event a team of four (with a travelling reserve), will be selected by the Team Manager, Philip Surl, in consultation with the Performance Manager, Yogi Breisner, to represent Great Britain at the Nations Cup competitions, although Aachen may be used to test other riders as well.
In all there are 86 combinations in the 3* from 16 nations competing at Fontainebleau plus 109 competitors in the CCI 1* and 111 starting in the CIC 1*.
As well as the eventing, the venue will be hosting a leg of the Horse Ball Championship of France Pro Elite. Horse Ball is very popular in France and will be one of two demonstration sports, the other being polo, at the 2014 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games in Normandy.
HorseBall - an equestrian sport for the flexible rider!
