The French team won the Nations Cup at the LOTTO Strzegom Horse Trials where the new Olympic format was tested with a British substitution occurring on the final day
The French team of Christopher Six with Totem de Brecey, Francois Lemiere with Ogustin du Terroir and Maxime Livio aboard Opium de Verrieres took top place on the podium in the Nations Cup team event at the LOTTO Strzegom Horse Trials and Maxime was pleased with their overall performance
“We did a good job with the team, two of us were clear. Yesterday the cross was quite hard, but our three horses were clear, and mine was very close to the time. We came here to try to win the Nations Cup and we did, so we are very happy”
Christopher Six has moved up from the fifth to finish in second thanks to a clear round and Wills Oakden finished third with Cooley Ramiro for Britain. This competition was the first test of the new Olympic format of the team competition before the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo and the substitution penalty came into play when Coral Keen had to withdraw before the show jumping
“It’s a bitter sweet ending to Strzegom for us. SO proud of this great team and the podium finish that we were honoured to be a part of” said Coral on her Facebook page “Sadly our event finished early as following his cross country round Derby was not sound enough to present at the trot up and we had to take the 20 penalties that came with not jumping instead. While it’s always gutting not to complete we have to remember that we wouldn’t be here without these amazing horses and Derby owes me nothing. Having come back from injury previously when I thought he would never run again he put his heart into yesterday and I am over the moon with him. A few days of rest and some TLC and his foot will be fine. Huge congratulations to the rest of the team”
This meant that James Somerville and Talent took part in the show jumping as part of the team although his scores from the previous phases came from Coral’s results. James jumped clear and finished in fifth place individually whilst the third member of Team GB, Alice Dunsdon and Sambo had two rails down to finish sixth
The British team finished on a total of 139.40, including 20 penalty points for the substitution, while France led on 115.80. Even if Coral had completed the final phase and jumped clear therefore the British team would not have won; on the other hand they could not have completed under the old rules and would not have taken silver if substitution was not allowed. Italy finished in third on 209 points
One man to watch at this year’s World Equestrian Games will be Japan’s Yoshiaki Oiwa who won the CIC 3* individual competition with Calle 44.
“I’m very happy and very lucky to have this horse, he is a super jumper. He is a really careful horse, he jumped really well today, and I’m pleased with him”
Sweden’s Sara Algotsson Ostholt had a good day at the office, winning the CCI3* on Wega and the CCI2* on board Cesar V and took home second place with Arpertina
German riders had a lot to be happy about on the final day with strong jumping performances. Sophie Grieger (GER) won the CCI1*with Costakovich, Niklas Bschorer (GER) finished second with Back In Time 2 and Frank Ostholt (GER) was third aboard Luvis
Andreas Dibowski (GER) won the CIC2* with FRH Corrida, Julia Krajewski (GER) was second with Amande de B’Neville and third place went to Maxime Livio (FRA) aboard Billy Elmy.
Nations Cup Final results here
