Switzerland’s Mélody Johner and Toubleu de Rueire cross the pontoon in front of the Chateau de Versailles on a thrilling day of cross-country at the Paris Olympics. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Update: Since the writing of this report, it’s been confirmed that Britain’s appeal to remove Ros Canter’s 15 penalties has been unsuccessful. You can see the results in full here.
We knew, well ahead of time, that the atmosphere at Versailles for the Paris Olympics would be something beyond words on cross-country day – after all, France is arguably the country that loves eventing, and its home riders, more vocally than any in the world. There’s not many places that you’d see groups of teenage girls bursting into a busy flurry of snotty tears because Astier Nicolas galloped past them on cross-country (which we’ve witnessed at Pau, not just once) or adults hurling small children out of the way so they can hoik their iPhones across the roping and get a video that they’ll… never watch again? Watch every night before they go to sleep for the rest of time? It’s unclear. But what is clear is that they love eventing, and today’s cross-country day was always going to be their magnum opus, their piece de resistance, their Mecca.
And thus unfolded the most deafeningly loud cross-country day we’ve ever had the privilege of reporting on. It began with a general level of overarching madness that sat on the moderate to extreme end of the spectrum; it ended with full-on, balls-to-the-wall, red-faced and wild-eyed insanity.
Nicolas Touzaint and Diabolo Menthe. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Nearly four hours in, we at EN, and our colleagues on the course and in the mixed zone with us, felt fairly well ready to drop from the fast-paced intensity of it all. But not the French, who were just getting started, nor the strong contingent of British supporters, who’d shown up wearing Union Jacks from top to tail, and brought their own faintly horrifying Charles and Camilla (if Camilla was styled by Ginger Spice, that is).
Somewhere in the distance, a small child shrieked “allez! ALLEZ! ALLEZ!” with such ferocity that we couldn’t initially worked out whether the screaming had stopped because she’d finally ruptured a vocal cord, or whether she’d somehow opened a portal to hell and been swallowed up by her demon brethren. People weren’t just shouting: people’s eyeballs were straining out of their skulls and veins were protruding from their foreheads as they fought to be the very loudest, very French-est French person of them all.
The fervor didn’t just stop with the fans, who’d packed into the Versailles estate by the tens of thousands. It also extended to France’s home riders, who triumphed as a trio over Pierre le Goupil’s influential track, logging three quick clears in spite of – or perhaps helped along by – the roars of approval, which began when they were specks on the horizon and only increased in intensity as they approached and tackled each fence. You could log their movement around the parkland just by listening to how the collective roar shapeshifted and relocated; when team pathfinder Karim Laghouag returned home clear and inside the time with Triton Fontaine, despite a very near disaster at the tricky drop-to-ditch-to-brush combo at 16ABCD, you could also log his movements by his interview style. Here’s a snippet from our transcription app for some clarity on the matter, and how he felt about it all:
That clear round, and the two very swift ones to follow from his teammates, Stephane Landois and Nicolas Touzaint, have propelled France one spot up into silver medal position overnight on a two-phase team score of 87.2 – and at the time of writing, that means that they’re just a whisper away from taking over the gold medal position, still held by Great Britain at the end of the day, though not without a hitch in the plan.
The Brits could, in theory, still finish their day on a score of 67.5, which would see them head into the final day of competition with 19.7 penalties, or four rails and nine seconds in hand. But for now, they hold onto a team score of 82.5, which gives them just one rail and one second in hand.
The reason for that variable margin? A flag, deemed to have been missed by team anchors Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo, initially reported to have been at the combination at 16ABCD, and then revised to within those reports to have been at the final element of 21ABC. At the moment, we’re awaiting updates from the appeals process – we’ve seen at least one other flag ruling appealed and removed very quickly earlier in the day, for New Zealand’s Clarke Johnstone and Menlo Park, but this one, which has such significance for the team, and for Ros as an individual, is taking its sweet time. If it stays in place, the Brits have that shortened margin, and Ros will go into the final day in 24th place; if it’s taken away, they have a much more favourable margin and Ros moves up to fifth place and remains on her dressage score of 23.4.
It is, perhaps, the most significant drama of the day at this moment in time – but the rest of the day certainly hasn’t been short on surprises. Germany, second as a team after dressage, is now 14th out of 16 after their second pair, the hugely consistent Christoph Wahler and Carjatan S, were eliminated at the ditch element of fence 16ABCD, which came after a significant drop and wasn’t well-read by several horses in the field. Though Carjatan made a game effort to pop it neatly, his back legs slid off the lip of the ditch and he stumbled, depositing Christoph in a perfect-form forward somersault onto the ground. Despite a clear with just 4.8 time penalties for pathfinders Julia Krajewski and Nickel 21, and a clear inside the time for Michael Jung and fischerChipmunk FRH, the three-to-a-team format here at the Olympics renders them wholly out of the hunt for a team medal.
Similarly affected is the Australian team, who logged 2.8 time penalties via their pathfinders, Shane Rose and Virgil, and a clear inside the time for anchors Chris Burton and Shadow Man, but lost Kevin McNab and Don Quidam, who pulled up mid-course after Kevin felt the horse take a misstep. It’s since been announced by the Australian federation that the gelding sustained a soft tissue injury, from which he’s expected to fully recover. Australia are now 15th of 16 teams.
Alex Hua Tian and Jilsonne van Bareelhof. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
New Zealand, previously fourth, slipped to sixth when their first rider, Jonelle Price, picked up 20 penalties with Hiarado; similarly experienced four-time Olympian Alex Hua Tian and Jilsonne van Bareelhof, who were third after dressage, fell foul of the flag rule and dropped to 32nd as a result. And for the USA, who had been sixth after dressage, 20 penalties for Caroline Pamukcu and HSH Blake means they’ll have to work their way up from eighth, having already moved up one placing since the close of play due to a substitution announcement from Ireland. The Irish, sitting ninth after taking on those 20 substition penalties, will slot Aoife Clarke and Freelance in for Sarah Ennis and Action Lady M, who completed with just 3.2 time penalties today. The Irish federation announced this afternoon that the mare has picked up an injury on course.
They battled enormous atmosphere, changes of light, traitorous flags, and the colossal weight of pressure on the world stage – not to mention a Pierre le Goupil track that walked as much less challenging than it ultimately ended up being – but ultimately, so many constituent parts of the field of competitors also logged huge victories today. Take team Japan, for example, who now sit in bronze medal position after outriding all their Tokyo demons today; or upward rising Switzerland and Belgium, who are fourth and fifth, respectively, after excellent rounds for all their riders. And the Netherlands, too, has much to celebrate: they might sit tenth as a team, but for the first time in Olympic history, they had a rider clear and inside the time, thanks to Janneke Boonzaaijer and ACSI Champ de Tailleur.
Janneke Boonzaaijer and Champ de Tailleur. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
63 combinations started today – China’s Huadong Sun withdrew Lady Chin Van’t Moerven Z this morning, thinning our field by one – and 56 ultimately completed, giving us an 87.5% completion rate, and 41 of them, or 64%, jumped clear. An impressive ten combinations went clear inside the time; a further two – Ros and Lordships Graffalo, and Swedish pathfinders Sofia Sjoborg and Bryjamolga van het Marienshof Z – were inside the time but had flag penalties.
Michael Jung and fischerChipmunk FRH. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Atop the pack at the end of the day? Well, you might think that breaking an Olympic record with a score of just 17.5, and then adding just 0.8 time penalties across the country, would be quite enough to hold onto gold, but first-phase leaders Laura Collett and London 52 will have to settle for a very close overnight second instead.
Those two seconds of time left the door open just enough for Germany’s Michael Jung and fischerChipmunk FRH to overtake them when they sailed their way to a clear inside the time in the final hour of competition. That leaves them on their dressage score of 17.8, giving them a one-second buffer – but nothing even close to a rail in hand – going into tomorrow’s final phase.
“Today there was quite a lot of moments to enjoy,” says Michi, who put his Tokyo MIM-clip penalty firmly in the past with today’s excellent round. “Chipmunk made it very easy for me — every time, the jump was easy. He was listening so well and connected to me, and he was so powerful galloping. I checked the time and said, ‘Okay, we have more time on the next fence. Slow down, slow down.’ It was an unbelievable feeling.”
Michi confesses that even he – a four-time Olympian and the most successful eventer of all time – felt a bit of stage fright heading down to the collecting ring from the stables today.
“So many people are here watching the course — it’s fantastic. Especially in the warmup – there’s many people. I was a bit scared at first, but they are quiet [there], so it’s a very good place to warm up the horses. Outside they are very loud and everywhere on the course, but in the end, you see more when you look on television than when you’re on the course.”
Today’s 5300m course, which had a 9:02 optimum time, was on the shorter side for a four-star long, and didn’t have much in the way of terrain – but one of the major surprises of the day was how many horses appeared to tire in the final stages.
Michael Jung and Chipmunk FRH. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Chipmunk wasn’t one of them, despite a slow start to his season thanks to Europe’s ongoing deluge of rain.
“[For Chipmunk’s fitness, he does] a bit of everything. He is a bigger horse — he needs for sure endurance and muscles, and I started a bit later into the season, with a smaller show,” he says. “The focus was absolutely the Olympic Games this year, so I was — with the conditions and everything — a bit quiet in the beginning of the season. But he’s a horse with so much talent. In the dressage, in the jumping. He’s so brave in the cross country. He makes everything, for the rider, a bit easier.”
Now, two-time Olympic individual champion Michi’s looking ahead to tomorrow’s showjumping phase – a phase which has seen him miss out on some major wins with this horse, including individual gold at the 2022 World Championships and the CCI4*-S at Luhmühlen this summer. He’s determined, though, not to spend too much time worrying about what could come tomorrow.
“If you are in front, it’s fantastic, for sure. At the moment it’s time to enjoy – it’s a dream,” he says. “Today, just today; tomorrow, it’s a new day. I try to really focus — I try to go step by step through the day, not thinking to prize giving or something after. I just concentrate to the vet check, to the first jumping, to the second jumping, step by step. And I have a great feeling. He’s super fit in the finish, is not a little tired. He’s looking like he can go again, so this is very good for tomorrow.”
Laura Collett and London 52. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Snapping at his heels is one of the very best showjumping partnerships in the field, though a pair who have their own Tokyo demons to overcome in that phase. Laura Collett and London 52 had a hugely uncharacteristic two rails down there; this year, though, the three-time five-star champions are taking that as a learning experience to propel them to greater heights.
“He’s a very good jumper, but anything can happen, as we saw in Tokyo,” she says. “Being in an Olympic stadium is a completely different experience to anything that [the horses] have ever seen before. He was very spooky in Tokyo and there were no crowds, so I’m just hoping he likes the crowds — hopefully he’ll show off tomorrow like he has done for the last few days.”
In the meantime, she won’t get much sleep.
“I was buzzing after yesterday, and then the thought of today — it definitely wasn’t very many hours sleep. I’ll sleep for a week when I get home,” she laughs.
That lack of sleep came down to “a lot of head scratching, to be honest” about which routes she’d take in some of the key combinations on course. She ultimately opted to go the ever-so-slightly longer route at 16ABCD, where so many horses misread the ditch, which may have added her marginal time penalties, but also kept her and ‘Dan’ well in the hunt when others had faltered.
“I was always very much wanting to jump left off the drop — I just felt like the ditch was a bit of a nothing ditch and there were too many unknown circumstances for how they would read it and jump it — and with only two strides to the triple brush, I just thought that was an unnecessary risk,” she says. “I think we saw that with quite a few of the first ones that went — they didn’t really make a mistake, but they didn’t understand the question. For me, that was always plan A, and I stuck to it and it rode really nicely.”
An early lost front shoe also meant she had to ride conservatively in some of the twistier parts of the track.
“[The time] is quite tight. There are a couple of places where you can really let them gallop, but there’s an awful lot of twists and turns,” she says. “He lost a shoe and we were slipping all over the place, so I had to be quite careful on those turns and really kill the speed a bit to get around the trees without doing anything stupid.”
Where fitness was concerned, though, Dan certainly didn’t struggle, thanks, in part, to a system well honed over the last five seasons at the top levels of the sport.
“He doesn’t have very much blood, so he’s had to build it up over the years and learn to go that extra distance,” she says. “We’ve learned over the years that it’s actually the runs that get him fit. He finds going up a gallop very, very easy. He’s run quite a few times – he’s done four four-star shorts this year — so we use the runs to really get him extra fit. It’s good because then he doesn’t get too keen like he did at the at the Worlds in Pratoni, where he got to thinking he knows everything. Today he was perfect.”
In the aftermath of her round, she says, she “can’t really believe it, to be honest. I’m just relieved that it’s over and I haven’t let anyone down. London is just my horse of a lifetime. He’s just incredible; he’s just so talented. I think for me, knowing what he was like as a young horse and knowing how much he’s had to trust me and believe in me — he’s not an actual cross country horse, and then he goes around a course like that on railway tracks — it just shows what years of partnership you can build up. You can make him believe in you, and I have full faith in him now, – and then you can go and enjoy yourself out there.”
Chris Burton and Shadow Man. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Australia’s Chris Burton continued his sterling comeback to eventing after several seasons focusing on pure showjumping by delivering a speedy clear inside the time with Shadow Man, retaining their first-phase score of 22 and the bronze medal position overnight.
This is just the seventh FEI run for the pair since they joined forces over the winter, the second long-format run – and the first time Chris has really let the handbrake off in a long format with him, too. For that reason, and because Shadow Man hadn’t evented since the spring of 2022 when Chris took him on, there was something of a question mark hanging over them going into today’s competition. There isn’t anymore.
“You always worry — it’s hard, and then you worry that they get a bit tired and you hope you have them ready and fit enough, but the crowd really sort of picks them up,” muses Chris, who expressed that he has ‘mixed emotions’ after an excellent individual result, but a tough day for his team.
Chris Burton and Shadow Man. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
“Shane [Rose] rode a lovely round this morning and did his job as the pathfinder, and he was outstanding. [But] I’m so sad for Kevin and his beautiful horse. I always want to ride well, but you have in your mind that you have to put up a good score for the team. I wasn’t always thinking, ‘I’ll go slow and clear’ — I was always thinking, ‘I’ll go clear inside the time.’”
The performance also proved to Chris that he hadn’t lost his grasp on riding quick clears in his time out of the discipline.
“I wasn’t out of the sport,” he points out. “I’m still riding jumps; it’s fundamentally all the same. I will tell you, there was a few times this year I woke up a bit nervous thinking, ‘Oh you know what, this might be stupid’. But I’ve always loved jumping — and jumping the Grand Prixes like I’ve been able to do this year actually helped me. I’m lucky enough — thanks to the Australian High Performance program — to train with Nelson Pessoa, so we work together with the jumping and we work together with the cross country. First show I came back to, he rang and said, ‘You think it makes you better?’ I said, ‘I think it does; I feel like I’m riding well,’ and he said, ‘I think so too.’ Eventing is its own sport; show jumping is its own sport. They’re different animals, and it’s a different game. I’m not going to compare them [except to say] – these animals are beautiful, and look what they’re out there doing.”
Felix Vogg and Dao de l’Ocean. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Switzerland’s got plenty to celebrate in camp tonight: the team, which has been on such an upward trajectory over the last five seasons or so, sits fourth in the overnight rankings, while their anchor rider, Felix Vogg, is also individually fourth after a determined clear sans time with Dao de l’Ocean that belied the horse’s relative inexperience – he’s done just one CCI4*-L prior to this, and began his campaign this week, too, with one of his best-ever dressage tests.
“Yesterday he just gave his best again — he’s so clever,” says Felix, who explains that the round really came to fruition when he figured out that he needed to let the gelding make his own decisions.
“I tried to disturb him at the beginning of it, but I had a couple of bad jumps. He made the best out of it — and after a while, after like [fence] 12 or 13, I just said, ‘Look, whatever you do, do it. I’m just a passenger.’ I showed him the way, but the rest he did. He just did what he should do.”
Felix’s round came in the final team rotation near the end of the day, when plenty of trouble had already unfolded. But he was blissfully unaware of much of it.
“I cannot answer who fell or struggled. I saw a couple of struggles at the beginning, and then I went into the lorry and slept a bit,” he says. “The course was, in part, difficult because we didn’t have a test event, and it’s not a usual event where we go often, so the first riders found out a little bit how it’s going and how to the ground is and how fast you can ride. That was the only information we had, and that’s what made it really difficult. The track was really intense — the time was really tight, so it made all of it a little bit tough in this way. Then you had a lot of combinations in between really fast, so there was no time to mess around and think about it.”
Yoshiaki Oiwa and MGH Grafton Street. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Yoshiaki Oiwa and Pippa Funnell’s 2019 Burghley champion MGH Grafton Street lead a provisional third-place charge for Japan after crossing the finish line three seconds inside the time – and giving a great show of partnership despite only half a season, and a few runs, together.
In getting ‘Squirrel’ prepared for today’s challenge, he had plenty of help from the gelding’s former rider, with whom he’s now based.
“[Pippa] gave me a lot of advice, so many things — make sure my balance is back, not pointing down. It is a little thing, but this is very helpful — just to remind me a lot. I think Pippa is always with me as [MGH Grafton Street’s] ex-rider, and she is giving me all the advice — where is the button, and he’s like this, this, this. All the instruction I get from her all the time makes it possible for me to do this,” says Yoshi, who has had an impressive, if short, string of results with the historically tricky horse.
Tom McEwen and JL Dublin cross the finish line with one of the rounds of the day behind them. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Tom McEwen and JL Dublin climbed from eleventh to sixth after delivering a clear inside the time in the British team pathfinder position. Far from being put off by the hugely vocal spectators on course, they relished every moment of the chaos.
“[It’s an] amazing crowd, all the way around the course,” he says. “It’s absolutely wild — not just at the fences, it’s in between the fences, in every single area. The horses love it even more – there’s nothing irritating about it, and even more people would be better! It’s amazing; they’re cheering for you before, over, and after the fence, and it’s just a lovely start, and the horses really pick up.”
He was full of praise, too, for Pierre’s track, after a tough previous experience battling the designer’s efforts saw him fall at last year’s European Championships.
“It’s a fantastic Olympic course. It allows you to be really open and free to begin with, and then requires the riders to think where you need to close up,” he says. “Actually, it’s been such a great course that I changed my mind on some of the elements, just as we were about to start, from how they were jumping. It was great, and for me — I call it the leaf pit — the two drops where there’s an option [at 16ABCD], that’s a big question.”
Their round was masterful, but it wasn’t perfect: I had a huge slip just on the flat coming out of a combination after a lovely ride through there. You’ve got to stay with them; you’ve got to stay connected and give them all the confidence.”
Now, the Tokyo individual silver medallist is within breathing distance of the individual podium once again.
“The job isn’t done, and I’m very lucky my horse is a European champion in his own right with Nicola [Wilson] – he’s a phenomenal horse, and I’ve done enough five-stars on him now to have a lot of experience.”
Stephane Landois and Chaman Dumontceau. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
The cheers for each of the three French riders were deafening – but the loudest of all went to debutant Stephane Landois, who crossed the finish line with 2.8 time penalties aboard Chaman Dumontceau.
“For Thaïs, and for France,” said the announcer with palpable emotion, referring to Chaman’s former owner and rider, who lost her life in a cross-country accident while competing him in 2019. She was just 22 years old.
Representing Thais must add an awful lot of pressure to the already extraordinary weight of riding for France at a home Olympics – but if Stephane was ever going to falter, which he never looked close to doing, he’d have been picked up and carried home by the ferocity of his countrymen’s support. Step by step by step, though, he simply delivered.
“I stayed concentrated through the whole course, and went to my plan — the plan that was given to the whole team — and I did exactly what I needed to do,” he says. “There is so much atmosphere and the crowd is so loud that actually I couldn’t even hear my watch properly, which goes off every minute to give the time frame. I didn’t even have a moment to look at it to know exactly where it was — I just kept going and stayed concentrating on the course.”
Kazuma Tomoto and Vince de la Vigne. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Kazuma Tomoto, who was fourth in Tokyo with Vinci de la Vigne, added nothing to his first-phase score of 27.4 to climb ten places from eighteenth to eighth.
“He was amazing. I’m really, really pleased, and I’m proud of him,” says Kazu of his experienced partner, who was formerly ridden by France’s Astier Nicolas. “He knows everything: what he needs to, do what I want him to do, he’s absolutely a professional horse — especially in the big event, big atmosphere. At home, he’s a lazy boy, but in a big atmosphere, he’s like, ‘Come on, it’s my time’, so he was fantastic today.”
Tokyo was a disappointing experience for Japan as a team – but now, in bronze medal position and on superb form, Kazu’s focusing on taking his first step onto an Olympic podium after having been so achingly close as an individual three years ago.
“We have very good show jumpers, three of them. We are really, really hungry to get a medal and bring it back home, so we will try our best,” he says.
Tim Price and Falco. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Tim Price and Falco boosted a tricky day for team New Zealand by cruising around the track to climb from twelfth to ninth – though he rued his 2 time penalties after finishing his round.
“He was really good – just very focused, and he traveled beautifully, and had plenty of gallop at the end,” says Tim of his World Championships double bronze medallist. “It’s a little bit regretful to have the time faults on one hand, but there’s so many things to take care of to make sure you don’t have a silly moment, and that you jump cleanly and through all those pesky flags, which we did. I’ve had a couple of occasions where I’ve gone for it and then at the end I’ve regretted it a little bit. I didn’t want that to happen again. I wanted a bit of finesse available for the last couple of combinations, and I had that ,and had a really good final water and the one up and down the hill. And then when I galloped, he bloody motored down home. I think I probably made up 10 seconds, but I couldn’t make up 14 seconds. But he’s pulled up super, with a big smile on his face, and ready for tomorrow.”
Like Tom, Tim was full of praise for Pierre’s efforts.
“It felt like an Olympic track. [Pierre]’s done such a good job – I’m going to buy him a drink when I see him next, because it’s not easy to deliver the perfect kind of course. But in terms of being French – when I think French, I think twisty-turny, with lots of acute angles with a really searching distance. He had that a couple of places, that we had to arrive on the right distance to make the job easy. But that’s of the level, I think. The people that didn’t do that got a bit unstuck somewhere along the way, but in a safe way, so I think it was a great course all around.”
Tim and teammate Clarke, twelfth overnight, were able to keep cool heads after Jonelle’s run-out early in the day, thanks in part to prior frank conversation about Olympic fates and fortunes – both good and bad.
“We straightaway chatted [about Jonelle’s runout], the three of us and [team trainers] Jock [Paget] and Sam [Griffiths] — and it was a time to remain very staunch,” he says. “Last night over dinner, we talked about Olympics gone by where there’s been a 20 [penalty rider] put on the podium, on a couple of occasions over the last couple of Olympics. So it’s about being informed and reformed as a team and maintaining that through the whole thing. The mindset was the same really. We did think maybe we need to push a little bit harder.”
Karim Laghouag and Triton Fontaine. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
National treasure Karim Laghouag rounds out the top ten with Triton Fontaine, and in the end, he did say more than just a guttural roar after his clear inside the time.
“I was pretty sure about the course; it was always the number 16 obstacle that I was a bit wary of because of the drop,” he says, referring to the spot on course where he so nearly had an early finish when his horse stumbled in the ditch. “I was apprehensive in the beginning before coming up to it. It was always the one that I was wary of coming into the course. Once we got there, I was like, ‘You’re Triton — you do your thing, you’re Pegasus, so you get us over there and then we’ll keep going.’ But as I just said, it’s a sport for the two of us, so I let him do his thing and then we went on together to finish the course.”
“[The crowd] gives me goosebumps; it’s just amazing to be here,” he continues. “Even 30 seconds before coming into the course — before starting to gallop — I could hear the crowd calling my name. That really was just amazing; that is the most incredible feeling.”
Karim Laghouag and Triton Fontaine. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
This is another partnership that’s been forged through time, understanding – and friendship.
“It’s been seven years that we’ve been together. Already within the first six months of riding together, we won our first four-star. I just knew that this was going to be a partnership that was going to go a long way, and I could then already get into the five-star level and compete with this horse,” he says with a smile. “There was a little bit of Triton that just held back a bit before we got to that point — that’s probably why it took so long to get there — but once we did, then it’s been a perfect partnership. I don’t actually ride him a lot in big competition — it’s really doing a lot of preparation work with him. I take him to the beach quite a lot as well, to run him along the beach. There’s an area in France called Rouen where we go. It’s a lot of physical preparation together that we do, rather than being in big competitions all the time.”
The North American Update
The U.S. delivered strong performances today, but for an unfortunate error from pathfinders Caroline Pamukcu and HSH Blake (Tolan R – Doughiska Lass, by Kannan), in which they were assessed 20 penalties for a runout at fence 16C. Subsequently, Liz Halliday and Nutcracker (Tolan R – Ballyshan Cleopatra, by Cobra) as well as Boyd Martin and Fedarman B (Eurocommerce Washington – Paulien B, by Fedor) secured clear rounds with small amounts of time to put the U.S. onto a team score of 128.5. The withdrawal of Ireland’s Sarah Ennis and Action Lady M due to an injury sustained on cross country (and the subsequent addition of 20 penalties for Ireland to substitute in reserve rider Aoife Clark for the final phase) means the U.S. will move up one spot, from ninth to eighth, in the team rankings, though at the time of publication the team rankings had not yet been updated to reflect this.
Caroline Martin and HSH Blake. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
“[Blake]’s a phenomenal athlete,” Caroline commented. “The course was riding like a dream, and then we came to that bank and he fell in the ditch. When you fall into a ditch like that you only have a few options for what to do. The biggest thing is that I’m fighting for the team. I’m riding for the team. If I were individual, I’d fight and try to jump the skinny, but we’re on a team, so I did the best option I could.”
Caroline is currently in 47th individually on a score of 62.4.
Liz Halliday was over the moon with the performance of Nutcracker, who finished just off the podium in his CCI5* debut at Kentucky this spring and really stepped up to the plate in the biggest competition of his career to date. Liz thought this horse would be among her strongest contenders for Paris at the outset of this year, having really matured and gained strength over the last season, and he proved that he was fully prepared for the task at hand today.
“He’s kind of a freak of a horse — he’s just so powerful and he’s relentless; he can gallop forever,” Liz said. “He was plenty fit for Kentucky, so I just did a similar gallop plan without overdoing it — because I was a little concerned about him being too fit, if I’m honest. He had tons of running left [today]. I’m a little annoyed I wasn’t a bit quicker, but I know I rode smart too, and that was also important today. He had plenty of running left and is fresh as anything right now. The girls are struggling to hold on him — which is also how you want to be, you want to finish the Games with a horse who’s fresh and happy.”
Liz Halliday and Nutcracker. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
It’s been a mixed bag of emotions for Liz, who of course was slotted into the team competition at the midnight hour earlier this week. Realizing two-thirds of the Olympic dream today was an emotional experience for her. “I’ve dreamed of coming to this Olympics for a long time — and then when I was so close, but not quite there, and then suddenly I was there… It’s going to settle in more when I’m gone, and to recognize it. Just to walk around and be standing at a cross country jump and see the Palace of Versailles and recognize that we’re actually on those grounds, it’s something I will never experience again in my life. It’s a moment that I will cherish.”
Liz is currently in 22nd individually with a two-phase score of 34.0.
Boyd Martin and Fedarman B. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Boyd Martin was the last out for the U.S. and is now the top-placed for the country on a score of 32.1, sitting in 17th individually with Fedarman B.
“He is an absolute legend,” Boyd said of “Bruno”. “He just was brilliant every step of the way. I couldn’t have asked for anything more today. He gave me his heart and soul and got a little tired over the last three fences, but he just dug deep and kept going. Very, very pleased with him.”
On a day that featured somewhat slippery going on some of the turns due to yesterday’s day-long downpours, Boyd said he was grateful to be sat atop a “mountain goat” of a horse. “I was lucky, I got a few tips on which turns were the worst [from the other riders], and he’s surefooted as a mountain goat, old Bruno. So I didn’t actually have crazy studs in, and you know I protected him a bit through the sharp turns, which cost me a bit of time but, it would be a bugger to slip over, too.”
While the U.S. is lower in the team rankings that they would have liked, the influence of tomorrow’s show jumping phase should not be discounted (anyone remember a little show in Pratoni a couple years ago?). All of the U.S. horses have strong show jumping records, with just a handful of rails between them in recent competition. In particular, Fedarman B has never had a pole down in international competition. Both Liz and Boyd benefit from the tutelage of Peter Wylde, while Caroline Pamukcu has gotten mentorship from several riders, not the least being show jumping extraordinaire Anne Kursinski.
“I was obviously really looking forward to being in a much better position because we have very, very good jumpers,” U.S. chef d’equipe Bobby Costello said. “They all have shown time and time again, that they can jump clear rounds, and I expect that to happen tomorrow. It’s just a bummer that we’re not in a place right now it looks like we can use that to our advantage, but absolutely, anything can happen. Anything can happen overnight. Anything can happen. Just freak things happen, as we saw today, all the time. So we certainly are not going to you know crawl in a hole. We’re just going to come out tomorrow with a fresh mindset for the day and just finish up as strongly and in the best place that we possibly can.”
Mike Winter and El Mundo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Canada also had a somewhat mixed bag of results, delivering two clear rounds from Mike Winter and El Mundo (Numero Uno – Calvaro’s Bria Z, by Calvaro Z) as well as Karl Slezak and Hot Bobo (Arkansas VDL – Taneys Leader xx, by Supreme Leader xx), while anchor rider Jessie Phoenix picked up an unfortunate 20 penalties at fence 7B with Freedom GS (Humble GS – Friedel GS, by Fidertanz). Canada will take a team score of 158.0 and 11th in the standings forward to Monday’s finale.
Jessie Phoenix and Freedom GS. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
“[Freedom GS] was a little bit within herself,” Jessie said. “She came up that bank and jumped beautifully out over the skinny, and I just didn’t have quite enough room to get her going forward and ahead of my leg again. She jumped up the next bank and just literally never saw the birch railing. Was it really a refusal? No, because she didn’t see it — everything she sees, she jumps. On a day like today, it’s just terrible timing because you feel like you’ve like your entire team and country down. Anyhow, after that we regrouped and she was pure class. I am so excited for this horse’s future. She just galloped around there with such speed and confidence and just got better and better as she went on. I’m really looking forward to show jumping her tomorrow.”
Karl Slezak and Hot Bobo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Karl Slezak is the top-placed Canadian, bringing home Hot Bobo with just 4.8 time penalties to go into 27th individually on a 40.6.
“She was phenomenal,” an elated Karl said after his ride. “She just came out of the box on fire. And we were way up ahead on her minutes at minute two. So I had to back off a little bit. She was just cruising around, never had to kick her once. So, I mean, when she comes out of the box like that, I just know we’re gonna get around. And then yeah, just took that last long route at the end there just to make sure we didn’t have a pin at the corner. And so we had a little bit of time, but I was super thrilled.”
“I just love her so much,” Karl continued. “She loves this ride. I’ve been saving her a little bit this season. She’s just got to put the pedal down and go. She loves it. She eats it up.”
Ian Stark and Pierre Le Goupil’s Thoughts on Cross Country
We caught up with both U.S. cross country advisor Ian Stark as well as our designer in residence here at Versailles, Pierre Le Goupil, to find out their thoughts and reactions to the day.
“I think it was interesting really,” Ian reflected. “As the day started, the ground was a bit slippery and wet. It dried out as the day went on and I think the going — the footing — got better for the later competitors. I thought it was a really good track, I thought Pierre le Goupil designed a great track, it looked magnificent.”
Ian as well as Pierre echoed the thoughts we all had after the first handful of riders made the course look like a walk in the park.
“For a while, I thought it was going to just be a bit of a gallop round,” Ian said. “But you know, as always, the pressure on at an Olympics can cause its own problems. So there was trouble spread well out. The ditch after the big drop caused more influence than I thought it would do. But the horses didn’t really read it [the ditch]. Some of them jumped it beautifully, and others just ran through it. Most got away with it.”
“At the beginning of the course of the day, I was staying by the control center and everybody was going very well,” Pierre agreed. “Too well, I say to myself, ‘Oh, that’s gonna be too easy.’ The time has been obviously influential. My feeling is that they were all riding pretty well. And so that was very impressive. It didn’t look too dirty, like the time was tough. It’s difficult. Horses were jumping well.”
“You don’t have a crystal ball,” Pierre continued. “The problem is making things too easy, doesn’t make it safer. I will say that, it was not a very big course, it was not an enormous course. It was a course to give a chance to everybody. I think it has worked. There were plenty of little locations to make little mistakes.”
Nicolas Touzaint and Diabolo Menthe. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
And there is also the fact that on an Olympic venue, the designer generally has no historical data to draw from in terms of how the ground responds or how the track rides.
“The challenge here is that nothing happened here before and nothing will ever happen here again. For a century,” Pierre elaborated. “So, you have no return. I mean, when you organize on a regular basis at a venue, even if it’s only for one year, it’s really a different job. Because you’re always thinking about the next experience when you’re watching the horses. You prepare already the next course you’re going to design here and if not improve, you take lessons and you can refine your project and change it for the better. And get new ideas. Here is different. It’s one shot and there was no feedback from previous experiences.”
In general, today was a phenomenal display of sport and horsemanship, and at a time when equestrian sports are under a greater microscope than ever before, it was heartening to see the immense attention to welfare and horse (and rider) safety on cross country today. We do this, at the end of the day, out of love for the horse. From the throngs of spectators, to the keen horses, to the determined riders, we saw this in spades today. And may we never lose sight of this guiding moral, always seeking to improve our sport and the lives of our horses.
Go Eventing.
The individual top ten following cross-country.
The team top ten following cross-country.
Sally Spickard contributed to this report.
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