A world-class group of horses and riders will be traveling to Kentucky in just a couple weeks. The seasoned nations such as Great Britain, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, and France will all bring horses and riders that are fully capable of putting in three solid performances at the toughest Championship event in the world. Not every horse and rider will be able to do so however. It really will come down to who can handle the pressure; as Jimmy Wofford famously describes what he terms “Sunday afternoon nerve; the rarest of qualities for a rider to ride better in the afternoon in formal attire then in a morning practice session.” This quality will separate the winners from everyone else. Karen O’Connor’s got it, Phillip Dutton’s got it, and in less than two weeks, the world will get to see who else does.
The only thing left for the riders to do now is trust in their abilities and those of their horses, and hope that all the training and preparation they have put in over the last few months or even years will prove to be enough. Minute fine tuning will be done in training sessions taking place this week, but all the foundation work is complete. Was that twenty minutes spent warming up for the WEG dressage test, or twenty years?
Let the Games begin.
