Michael Jung and fischerChipmunk FRH. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
After the soggy excitement of the morning’s CCI5* cross-country at Luhmühlen, the afternoon’s sunny Meßmer Trophy CCI4*-S felt almost relaxed, despite a red-hot field vying for Olympic selection and a tough, technical track with a tough-to-catch time.
Plenty did happen on course, and our field of 66 starters has thinned to 53 to present at tomorrow’s horse inspection ahead of showjumping – but much, too, stayed unchanged.
Like our leader, for example: Michael Jung and the indomitable fischerChipmunk FRH remain in the top spot, though they didn’t quite catch the time – a feat that just two riders, Germany’s Anna Siemer on FRH Butts Avondale and New Zealand’s Clarke Johnstone on Domasco, managed.
Instead, they added two time penalties, thinning their leading margin down to just 0.3 penalties going into showjumping, which doesn’t even give them a second in hand.
Michael Jung and Kilcandra Ocean Power. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
The reason for that, Michi explains, comes from a change of plans in two striding patterns on the course, which he rode first with Kilcandra Ocean Power, who sits sixth overnight after adding 5.6 time penalties.
“On two lines, I added one extra stride. It was, I think, 6AB. In the beginning I thought, ‘it’s a nice six strides’, but I rode it as seven strides with my first horse, and it felt good, and so I did the same with Chipmunk. I did the same at a vertical to a skinny – it was seven strides, where normally I prefer to do six, but I didn’t get the nicest jump on the vertical, so I stayed quiet for the seven strides. It was the only thing I wish I could have done different, but everything else was a pretty good feeling.”
That puts him on pretty remarkably solid footing – though was he ever not? – for selection for the German Olympic team with one phase left to come.
Laura Collett and London 52. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
His nearest competitor also looks, at this point, to have her team spot pretty well in the bag. That’s British Olympian Laura Collett and her three-time five-star winner London 52, who won the CCI5* class here last year and looked every inch as on-the-ball today as he did twelve months ago. They added just 1.6 time penalties to retain the second-place spot they’d held after dressage.
“I’m absolutely delighted with him,” says Laura. “I just wanted to make sure at every combination and just give him a really good, confident ride, and let him travel around, and just try and make sure he stayed in one piece and understood all questions.”
The four-star track here, she says, is a much more intense iteration of the Luhmühlen track she knows so well from last year.
“ In the 5* you have a lot more time between the fences to regroup and think about the next fence, but in the 4*, it came thick and fast, and you had to be really on your game and on your line and the horses had to think quickly,” she says. “Luckily, London 52 is very good at doing either — he’s good on the long courses and he’s good on the short, and he’s just been an absolute pleasure to ride.”
Now fifteen, London 52 only appears to be levelling up again.
“He’s just getting better and better with age. He wasn’t a natural cross-country horse, so he’s had to learn to go cross country, and he really does trust me, and I trust him now and I think that’s the biggest thing – we’ve just built up a partnership over the years. I know how lucky I am to ride a horse like him, and every time I go out ,I enjoy him for what he is, which is just a spectacular horse.”
Yasmin Ingham and Banzai du Loir. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
The Brits are one of the major nations targeting this competition as a way to gauge who should get the slots for Paris – but if the selectors had hoped that today’s competition might make their job a bit easier for them, they’ll be sorely disappointed. World Champions Yasmin Ingham and Banzai du Loir sit third overnight, up from seventh, after adding 1.2 time penalties, and Tom McEwen and JL Dublin step up from tenth to fourth overnight, having added exactly the same amount of time penalties.
“We had a great round today – he was pretty bold everywhere, and he was always looking for flags, and he was fast,” says Yas. “He’s an absolute pleasure to ride cross country – he absolutely loves it. It’s just great fun to ride him round, and of course to climb up to third after Dressage is also really exciting. I know I’m sat on a very good jumping horse for tomorrow, so we’ll see!”
Yasmin and Banzai originally teamed up years ago with the Paris Olympics in mind as their specific long-term goal, and their round today won’t have hurt them in the pursuit of that.
“Of course it’s my goal. It’s my dream,” she says. “So I’m doing absolutely everything I can to try and put myself in the right place for the selectors. At the end of the day, it’s their decision on who they take to the Olympics, and I really hope that I make the cut. We had a great result in Kentucky 5* a few weeks ago, and he’s obviously come here to have a bit of a spin around the 4* and get ourselves onto the podium, hopefully, so we’re very excited to finish just as well.”
Tom McEwen and JL Dublin. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Tom, too, was full of praise for JL Dublin, who also finished very well at Kentucky earlier this year, where he was second and Yas and Banzai were third.
“Dubs was phenomenal; he absolutely flew aound,” he says. “He was quick, he was sharp, he was on it. It was really nice; he felt very fresh after his Kentucky trip, so absolutely delighted with him. We came here and got the job done, and that’s very good.”
Tom’s scant few time penalties, which represent three seconds over the optimum time, came at the very end of the course.
“I came here with the intention of being as close to the time as I could, and I was on the time the whole way, but actually, just through the woods at the end was really cut up, so I thought, ‘there’s no point preparing for something if you’ve got no horse’,” he says. “So I just looked after him all the way back. But I’m super delighted. It’ll be really tight tomorrow, and I have seen how busy it gets in the afternoon, which he will absolutely love. So I’m really looking forward to it!”
Sandra Auffarth and Viamant du Matz. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Germany’s Olympic individual champion Julia Krajewski rounds out the top five with Nickel 21, who finished third here last year, after adding 3.2 time penalties and stepping up from 11th place, while fellow Tokyo Olympic team member Sandra Auffarth slips from fifth to seventh and just below Michi and Kilcandra Ocean Power, having added 5.6 time penalties with Viamant du Matz.
Calvin Böckmann and Altair de la Cense. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Young talent Calvin Böckmann climbs from 27th to eighth with Altair de la Cense off the back of a very good round, which added just 1.2 time penalties to their score sheet, while two Frenchmen finish up the top ten: Benjamin Massie and Figaro Fonroy climbed from 19th to ninth with 2.8 time penalties, and Astier Nicolas and Alertamalib’Or rise from 15th to 10th with 3.6 time.
Ryan Wood and Cooley Flight. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
US-based Aussie pair Ryan Wood and Cooley Flight had an excellent round to add 3.2 time penalties, boosting them up from 55th to 28th place.
And so, really, there are no changes in the hunt for Olympic places so far, though there certainly could be tomorrow – so join us again for an in-depth analysis at the close of play, where we’ll take a look at the potential impact of the competition in full.
Tomorrow will begin with the morning’s horse inspection, which the CCI4*-S will take part in from 8.00 a.m. (7.00 a.m. BST/2.00 a.m. EST), and then this class will showjump after the CCI5*, starting at 12.15 p.m. (11.15 a.m. BST/6.15 a.m. EST). You can follow along with all the action on Horse & Country TV, and right here on EN. Go Eventing!
The top ten following cross-country in the Meßmer Trophy CCI4*-S.
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