If this morning’s showjumping session proved anything, it’s that the riders to come won’t have an easy final day. It’s easy to make the assumption that once the gruelling cross-country test is behind them, the leaders have the competition in the bag – but tired horses, tricky courses, and tight time allowances have historically made the final phase influential. Looking ahead to our top twenty, who take to the ring shortly, we’ll see this play a massive role.
We’ve teamed up with the stats chaps at EquiRatings, who have crunched the numbers to give us all an idea of how, exactly, this might play out. This morning saw 33 horse and rider combinations post final phase rounds, and here’s what we learned:
So what does that mean in real world terms – i.e., in terms of the top ten contenders, those horses and riders who stand the most chance of lifting the trophy at the end of the day? Let’s take a closer look. This is how the jumping historically plays out at Badminton:
And how does that compare to the field of horses? Well, here are the top-rated showjumpers in the field. We’ve seen two of them this morning – Alex Bragg‘s Zagreb and Gemma Tattersall‘s Pamero 4 – and they notched up 4 and 8 penalties, respectively, indicated that we could see further issues for lower-rated showjumpers.
So let’s take a closer look at the top ten. Here’s where it gets seriously interesting, with only three of those top-rated showjumpers in this group.
Make sure you give the EquiRatings Facebook page a like for more of these hard-hitting statistics – they’re churning out quantifiable predictions across the board. We’ll be back with the full lowdown from this afternoon’s action-packed final phase. Go eventing!
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