Our good friend Heather Reimer was kind enough to send us her thoughts and observations from an exciting cross-country at Luhmuhlen. As always, many thanks to Heather for her time and insights. We’ll have a post later with a full SJ schedule, but I am told the show jumping will be available for viewing Sunday here.
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From Heather:
Day 3 at Luhmühlen has in fact ended with my prediction for the day. Yes, you may have already heard that Michael Jung is at the top of both leader boards having not added any points to either of his scores (CCI4* Leopin FST32.80/CIC3* Weidezaunprofi’s River of Joy 27.80). I am beginning to feel that this guy is unbeatable on his home ground! His horses gallop around the xc course with an amazing level of concentration, the interaction between horse and rider is remarkable and they never seem to tire.
Andrew Hoy is now lying 2nd in the 4* with Rutherglen and rode one of the only 5 clear xc rounds. Oliver Townend went clear with both his horses and is now lying in 3rd place with Amada after putting in a really convincing performance on Andrew NIcholsons former horse. With ODT Sonas Rovatio he moved up from 20th place after the dressage to 8th place after the XC so now has 2 horses under the top 10!
The fifth CCI4* clear round was from Andrew Nicholson with Calico Joe who finished the day on the 5th place with 41.70 pts.
Lucinda Fredericks, riding Flying Finish, dropped down to 4th place with 9.2 time penalties. However she was more than happy with the performance of her horse. They had slight problems at the Jeep complex where Lucinda said, “I nearly had fish for supper, but he’s a big horse with a lot of power, who tries hard” and she forgave him the time faults this being his first 4* competition. She rode him in his first CCI1* in Houghton exactly two years ago.
Charlotte Agnew and Out of Africa Two moved up from 8th place to 6th place with just 2.40 time faults.
Andreas Dibowski was not 100% happy with his ride even though the 9 year old Butts Avedon put in a strong performance in his first 4*, they lost a bit of time in the first section with Avedon not concentrating on the job in hand and Andreas unable to make up the lost time later on in the course, they came home with 8 time faults and dropped down from 5th to 7th place.
On the other side of the coin we saw some falls and a total of 12 horses either being eliminated or retiring. Selina Elliot took a nasty tumble at 9b but was conscious and talking to the medical team and I will update as soon as we hear how she is.
As predicted by Mark Phillips, 19b a skinny jump just a couple of strides after a large obstacle caused a fair number of run outs as did 11b the second corner of a 2 corner complex in the main arena.
Boyd Martin retired Ying-Yang-Yo at 19b but had seemed to be going well up to this point. Colleen Rutledge is the only US rider left in the 4* and is lying 16th with a score of 70.00.
Paul Tapner was really pleased to finish the course with his Badminton winner Inonothing who seems to be getting back to his old form. Mark Todd withdrew Major Milestone before the XC.
The CIC3* ran in the morning under rain showers. Only 3 horses finished the course without time penalties, Weidezaun’s River of Joy/Michael Jung (1st place), Tabasco/Ingrid Klimke (4th place) and King Artus/Dirk Schrader (8th place). The German and Swedish riders dominate the top of the leader board. Only 5 horses were eliminated or retired and Andreas Ostholt withdrew before the XC after Franco Jeas had banged his leg in the stable during the night.
Frank Ostholt riding Little Paint held on to his 2nd place(34.80) just ahead of his wife Sara riding the beautiful grey mare Wega(35.60). She is closely followed by Ingrid Klimke and FRH Butts Abraxxas(38.80).
Bettina Hoy riding her 8 year old gelding Designer was thrilled with the performance of her young horse and moved up into 15th place. They came home with 10.40 time faults but Designer had jumped the course brilliantly and Bettina couldn’t stop smiling.
I am looking forward to an exciting day of show jumping tomorrow. The rain is supposed to have stopped by the morning and we are being promised 8.4 hours of sunshine and 20°C.
@luhmuehlen2012 will again be running a live ticker on Twitter tomorrow starting with the horse inspection at 8:00 CET and I would like to thank my daughter Kate for her brilliant tweeting that has kept the eventing world up to date on the happenings in Luhmuehlen. More tomorrow!
