Piggy and Topper
Piggy French and Topper were the only pair held at this morning’s final vet inspection in the London Test Event CIC2*. To the relief of everyone in attendance, the Ground Jury passed Topper quickly on reinspection. I’m not exactly sure why he was held since several horses that looked maybe a bit worse were passed without a second glance, and I certainly thought Topper deserved to be passed in the end. Jaroslav Hatla of the Czech Republic did not present Killossery Harvery.
Most of the horses looked quite good, especially considering the tight turns on the cross-country and what I felt was slightly firm footing. The riders and vets that I spoke with at the jog agreed that they were really happy with how the horses were looking this morning. The Ground Jury spent time discussing quite a few horses and my feeling especially in light of the 4 holds on Sunday was that it is a pretty strict Ground Jury overall, which is a good thing.
The show jumping starts at 12:30pm local and is running in the Olympic format with two show jumping rounds. Right now a show jumping demonstration from the full-time show jumping folks is just getting underway in the main arena.
Piggy has a 7 point lead and I definitely think she will win the test event. This horse is experienced at the 3* level and although there are two show jumping rounds she has to be the big favorite right now.
The US jog attire looked pretty fresh and made me wish that the US team would ride in US kit even for these smaller team competition. Team GBR rode in their full team attire including white Point Twos yesterday and it looked awesome.
Julian Stiller and Gunston Wallstreet
