Sir Mark Todd will be a spring chicken at Haras Le Pin!
Riders from 18 nations, aged from 17 to 72 years, will be competing at Haras Le Pin in Normandy at the 22nd running of Le Grand Complet this week
The venue for the 2014 World Equestrian Games eventing, Haras Le Pin is hosting the CICO3* FEI Nations Cup along with a CCI1*, CCI2* and CCI3*, CIC1* and CIC1* for Ponies and it has attracted not only some of the best eventing riders in the world but some of the oldest!
Seven Olympic champions will be taking part and France is of course well represented including two of the gold medal winning team at Rio 2016 - Mathieu Lemoine and Karim Laghouag – along with three members of the Athens 2004 Olympic Champions, Arnaud Boiteau, Nicolas Touzaint and Jean Teulère
Le Grand Complet is always popular with Antipodean riders; from Australia Andrew Hoy, Chris Burton, Catherine Burrell and Katja Weimann are competing across the classes while New Zealand’s Sir Mark Todd and Tim Price have also crossed the Channel with a few horses but there are also some new countries looking to make their debut here as India and Chile both have representatives competing
Laura Collett and Mr Bass, Imogen Murray and Ivar Gooden, Georgie Spence and Wii Limbo and Holly Woodhead on Parkfield Quintessential are the all-female British squad hoping to add more points to the British tally in the CICO3* FEI Nations Cup series.
This will be the Senior British Team debut for 23 year old Imogen from Leicestershire who will be riding Mr and Mrs Aivar Ward’s 10-year old gelding Ivar Gooden, with whom she finished 21st at The Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials earlier this season while Laura and Mr Bass are coming off a strong recent win in the CIC3* at Burgham Horse Trials
Other young talents include Britain’s Will Furlong and France’s Romaine Sans but the youngest rider (outside of the CIC1* Pony class) will be Belgium’s Victoria Tubes who will celebrate her 17th birthday on August 17th. At the other end of the scale the oldest rider is The Netherland’s Max Trenning, competing in the CIC1* at a fantastic 72 years of age, making Jean Teulère and Mark Todd look like spring chickens at 63 years and 61 years of age!
