The Australian team of Sam Griffiths, Clayton Fredericks, Lucinda Fredericks, and Chris Burton took the lead after the CIC3* dressage in Aachen Friday morning. But Team Great Britain charged from 4th after the dressage to take the lead after show jumping by adding…wait for it…zero raills in the show jumping between all 4 of their team riders. New Zealand jumped one spot to second, the hometown Germans dropped to third, and Australia fell to 4th. The cross country is scheduled for Saturday morning to conclude the competition.
Michael Jung and WEG champion La Biosthetique Sam have a commanding 7 point lead in the individual competition. Italian Stephen Brecciarolli and Apollo van de Wendi Kurt Hoeve are in second, but, more importantly, that horse has the coolest name I have ever seen, which is only enhanced by the fact that I have no idea what it means in translation. Lucinda Fredericks is third for Australia and William Fox-Pitt is fourth. Michael Jung is riding two horses, Sam and Leopin, with Leopin’s score counting towards the German team results.
[Individual Show Jumping Reults, Team Results, Schedule]
The cross-country starts tomorrow at 10:30am. Aachen, Germany is GMT+1 and 6 hours ahead of Eastern Time, meaning that cross-country starts at 4:30am ET.
The German horse video site clipmyhorse.de is hosting live video of Aachen all weekend, some of which is available for free and some of which is only available with a subscription. Sadly, their programming schedule does not include the cross-country. We will keep you posted if we can find an online video feed for the XC anywhere. Go eventing.
For the unitiated, the World Equestrian Festival is a huge horse show for eventing, dressage, show jumping, vaulting, and driving held in Aachen, Germany each year. The even lasts a week and a half and concludes this week and is expected to draw over 300,000 spectators. I don’t know how to put this, but Aachen is kind of a big deal. Go eventing.
