Lara de Liedekerke-Meier and Origi. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

One of the predictions that EN editor Sally and I made when we first walked Pierre le Goupil’s Paris Olympics track was that this, almost certainly, was going to be a week in which the “Big Six” eventing nations – the Brits, the Germans, the US, the Aussies, the Kiwis, and France – would finally have their reign of domination threatened by a slew of smaller nations.

That idea didn’t come from a vacuum. Instead, it was the coming-together of a few different threads: more immediately, as we had boots on the Versailles grass, it was a reflection on a 2022 World Championships, which was similarly built at “championship level” – that is, a five-star dressage and showjumping, and a consolidated CCI4*-L cross-country, with more jumping efforts over a shorter distance.

In Pratoni, we saw that slightly lower level of track catch out experienced five-star horses, who had little to back them off; that was most apparent in the team performance of the Brits, who were odds-on by a country mile to win, but didn’t even step onto the podium (though they did, notably, have an individual champion in Yas Ingham, who wasn’t riding for the team, and a very-near podium finish for team riders Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo).

The course at Versailles didn’t necessarily feel similar; its use of terrain, for one thing, was very different, and it had a lot of flat, turning, wooded areas in comparison to the long pulls of Pratoni’s volcanic hills. But like that World Championships, it walked as a clever but not dimensionally stand-out sort of course, and we began to wonder – could this be the most influential thing about it? And would it, ultimately, best suit horses that had been specifically targeted at Championship pathways via technical four-star courses – a very European approach – rather than those that had run well around Badminton and Burghley?

That was one of the threads. The other, which we’d been following for a long time, was the continued progression of a small handful of the “developing” eventing nations.

Ryuzo Kitajima leads the Japanese portion of the victory lap, quite enthusiastically, on foot. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

 There was Japan, who had sprung into contention between the Rio and Tokyo Olympics, with the allocation of a huge amount of funding from the Japan Racing Association (a spate of big-ticket horse purchases on the run-up to Tokyo saw the JRA spending, allegedly, €1.25 million apiece on a selection of already well-known campaigners) and the relocation of several talented riders from their home nation to the UK to train under some of the sport’s most experienced coaches.

There were also discipline reallocations: Kazuma Tomoto was a top-level showjumper, but was told just after Rio that the country had enough riders in that discipline ahead of their Tokyo campaign, but needed more eventers. Could he switch? Would he be willing to leave his wife and their young child at home in Tokyo for years to base himself abroad and focus fully on becoming a medal contender?

Over the course of the last seven years ago, he and his fellow UK- and European-based Japanese riders have been making themselves a force to be reckoned with as individuals, and team success was sure to follow at some point. It didn’t, alas, come off on their home soil in 2021, though Kazu himself came achingly close to the podium with his fourth place finish. They managed to secure support for the next Olympic cycle, but when they initially failed to qualify as a nation in last year’s Asian and Oceania qualifier at Millstreet, nor at the World Championships the year prior, much of it fell away again.

Theirs is the redemption story of this Games, and one we’ll be diving into in much more detail soon: they were awarded a retroactive qualification after China lost their team space at the end of last season, and spent the next few months battling to get the wheels back on the bus and their heads in the right place after a tough, demoralising year. They rallied, they fought, they resecured support and funding and some new horses, too, and they trained, constantly and consistently.

This season, their results crept up and up and up, culminating in a superb finish for all four riders at the selection trial at Bramham CCI4*-S. And in Paris, they once again faced a setback and then got the job done: after the withdrawal of Ryuzo Kitajima and Cekatinka at the final horse inspection, they slipped from bronze position to fifth, but then clawed their way back up with three clear showjumping rounds that overcame that 20-penalty substitution fee to become bronze medallists. Theirs is the second medal ever won by Japan in any discipline, and the first in eventing – the previous came at the 1932 LA Olympics, where Baron Takeishi Nishi was the Olympic champion in showjumping.

Their system can be distilled to this: advantageous matches and total immersion over a period spanning the better part of a decade. They’ve taken on excellent horses, paired them with riders showing great promise, and then thrust those riders into established European systems operating at the top level, and over time, the confluence of all those elements has created a squad of athletes well-accustomed to competing against, and triumphing in the company of, the very best in the world. That total immersion will have played no small part in each rider’s ability to maintain their own focus and programme in those wild hinterlands between not qualifying for, and ultimately qualifying for, the Paris Games.

Japan feels like a necessary jumping-off point when we talk about the success of developing nations at this year’s Olympics, but it’s also important to point out that they’ve sat on the cusp of being major players for a long time: in Tokyo, their aim to win a medal wasn’t an outlandish one, even if it didn’t come off in the end. They certainly had more setbacks to overcome this time, but they also had several years’ more mileage competing at the top levels in good company, and that longevity and dogged commitment to their now well-established systems is what allowed them to make this result happen. And what a result it is; just twelve years ago in London, none of Japan’s riders completed the cross-country, though Yoshi Oiwa made history when leading after the dressage. Now, they can follow through.

Felix Vogg and Dao de l’Ocean. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Beyond them, though, we’ve seen a remarkable week of competition for several nations that truly do fit the “developing” bracket. Switzerland has been on an upward track for the last five years or so, and it’s one that can be traced back to their appointment of Andrew Nicholson as cross-country coach en route to Tokyo. There’s always been talent in spades in the country, but something shifted drastically when Nicholson stepped into his role: they learned how to progress forward from their habit of riding slowly, carefully, and defensively at team competitions, in the hope of simply completing, and instead take calculated risks and ride positively and, as such, competitively.

At Tokyo, the Swiss finished tenth of 15 teams, in part because of the non-completion of cross-country of Robin Godel and Jet Set. But the performances were demonstrably on the up and up: both Mélody Johner and Toubleu de Rueire and Felix Vogg and Colero finished in the top 20, giving both the team itself and its observers the feeling that a competitive placing at the global level was well within reach.

Just weeks later, the Swiss team at the 2021 FEI European Eventing Championships at Avenches finished fourth of thirteen nations on home turf. They were just one penalty from bronze. Their 2022 season began well, too; they were victorious, both as a team and individually for Robin Godel, at the first Nations Cup leg of the year, which was also the test event for the World Championships at Pratoni.

And when that rolled around in September, they didn’t finish on the podium, but they did accomplish something huge: they finished seventh of the sixteen teams, earning themselves direct qualification for the Paris Olympics. En route to Tokyo, they’d qualified in the last possible opportunity, using accumulated Nations Cup series points to scrape into the roster. Now, they were secure in the first round of qualifications.

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.

Last year’s tough European Championships at Haras du Pin gave Switzerland the chance to test its mettle over a course designed by Paris designer Pierre Le Goupil, and team manager Dominik Berger opted to send a line-up that was very nearly the same one we’d ultimately see at the Games. Felix Vogg, who’d become Switzerland’s first five-star winner in over fifty years in 2022, helmed the team with Colero (he’d do the same at Paris, though with young gun Dao de l’Ocean); Mélody Johner and her evergreen Toubleu de Rueire once again occupied a banker role, delivering a reliable clear; Robin Godel and Grandeur de Lully CH put another smart three-phase performance on the board, even if underperforming slightly on the flat; and eventual Paris travelling reserves Nadja Minder and Toblerone jumped a classy double clear. The team finished fifth.

Now, they’re fifth place finishers again, this time at the Olympics, beating Big Six nations including Australia, Germany, the USA, and New Zealand. They came into the final phase in bronze medal position; though rails ultimately dropped them out of it, their finishing score saw them just three poles off of the podium. For context, there was three poles between gold and silver, and another three between silver and bronze, so those margins aren’t to be quibbled with.

Switzerland came good at Paris thanks to that concentrated four years of exactly the right kind of focused training – and their achievement, and that step-by-step, piece-by-piece, absolutely undeniable upward climb becomes more remarkable when it’s put into a broader Olympic context. At Paris, they were fifth; at Tokyo, they were tenth; before then, you have to go all the way back to Atlanta in 1996 to find them even fielding a team at a Games. On that occasion, too, they finished tenth. The country’s only Olympic medals came in 1960, where they took team silver and individual bronze; now, as they look ahead to LA, they can do so with a long-term plan in mind to add to that list of hardware.

Team Belgium celebrates a stellar test from pathfinder Karin Donckers. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

The greatest fairytale of the week, though, is that of team Belgium. Longtime readers of EN won’t be surprised by this finish; we’ve spent plenty of airtime on the Belgians over the last few years, predicting an upward trajectory that felt sure to come. And come it did, on the biggest stage of them all: the all-female trio of Lara de Liedekerke-Meier, Karin Donckers, and Tine Magnus finished fourth, less than two rails from the bronze position, having flitted on and off the podium throughout that hugely influential final phase. In doing so, they became the highest-placed all-female team in Olympic eventing history; they also proved just how effective the system they’ve been developing over the last four years really is.

Let’s rewind a bit. The last time we saw Belgium field a team at the Olympics was at London 2012, where the finished tenth; back in those days, there wasn’t really much of a system at all, and certainly not a throng of supporting trainers around the team. Instead, each rider was in charge of working with their own horses, with their own trainers, and then bringing their results to the world stage and hoping it all came together in something like cohesion. Often, it didn’t; as a result, Belgium has just one Olympic eventing medal to their name – a team bronze in Antwerp in 1920.

But since the appointment of Kai Steffen Meier four years ago, there’s been a total overhaul. Gone is the wilderness non-system of ‘old’ Belgium; instead, the former top-level competitor for Germany has brought the best of his home nation’s much more regimented approach into how the Belgian system operates. Now, there’s a fleet of support professionals – coaches for each phase, a small army of people dedicated to keeping horses in top condition and riders firing on all cylinders, too.

The team now trains together, though it’s been an adjustment process to convince them all to leave home and travel to camp to do so – but after two initial years of settling in and bedding down, we’ve begun to see the fruits of Kai’s labours over the last two seasons. And when that trajectory began, it moved really, really fast.

Belgium went from a country that scrambled and faltered and fell out of contention at championships to one that could perform well enough to qualify directly for the Games, as they did at the European Championships last year, and then, to one that could reasonably be expected to put in a medal-contention performance. In the meantime, they scored their first-ever five-star win, thanks to team leader Lara de Liedekerke-Meier, at Luhmühlen in June, and they began, so compellingly and so clearly, to believe in themselves. The force of that self-belief has been extraordinary.

And now? Now, they can reasonably be expected to take a medal at next year’s European Championships, if they go ahead, and in the longer term, they should absolutely be aiming for success at the 2026 World Championships and the 2028 Olympics.

Lara de Liedekerke-Meier and Origi. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

“When I went out of the arena, I thought someone died,” laughs Lara, moments after her showjumping round in the team decider at Paris. She’d just had an uncharacteristic rail with young star Origi; that, added to a rail apiece for Karin Donckers and Tine Magnus, had pushed them into fourth place from the bronze medal position they’d had a light grasp on in the latter stages of the competition.

“They all looked so disappointed, and I was like, ‘I mean, just to remind you, we just finished fourth at the Olympic Games!’ When, ten days ago at our media day, I said ‘we’re going to go for top five,’ they all looked at me like, ‘yeah, yeah, yeah, this one, she’s still on her cloud nine!’” she continues with a grin. “And for sure, they’re all disappointed because all these horses are super jumpers. But fourth, I mean, come on! We were so close! Sometimes it just works out this way. Fourth, I mean, we have to be happy with that. I think it’s going to give so much more vision of eventing in Belgium worldwide.”

Tine Magnus and Dia van het Lichterveld Z. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

That, she continues, is hugely important – both Belgium becoming more visible as an eventing nation to the wider world, and the vision of its continued success becoming more widespread to the riders within it.

“We’re a little country, and we overtook Switzerland, which is also a small nation – so the smallest nations were the closest,” she muses. “But I know I’m really, really happy, and I think all three of us did a really good job. I think I picked up the best horse I could to bring the three of us here and that was a wonderful result, even though I’m disappointed in my rail.”

One person shred Lara’s high expectations for a competitive finish in Paris – her husband, and chef d’equipe, Kai Steffen Meier.

“I think Kai wanted a medal. But I don’t think he said it like that, because obviously it would sound a bit arrogant!” says Lara. “But it’s always, when you come to the Olympic Games, either you’re really an amateur who just wanted to go or you dream of a medal, so we shouldn’t be afraid to say that we were dreaming about a medal. Were we close? Yes. Did we have luck [on cross-country]? A little bit. But that’s why we do this sport in general, because sport is not about just being a robot and just executing what you have to do. He just asked us to do our best and to perform the best we could as individuals, and then bring everything we can into the team. I think that’s what we did.”

With Paris behind them – Lara went on to finish 13^th individually with the expressive ten-year-old Origi, while Belgian stalwart Karin Donckers was 16^th with Leipheimer van’t Verahof in her seventh Olympics, and high-flying chicory-farmer-slash-eventer Tine Magnus was a top thirty finisher with her impressive Dia van het Lichterveld Z, also a ten-year-old. That’s two horses who’ll be 14 and just reaching their peak at LA, and one who will be seventeen, but is a full brother of Fletcha van’t Verahof, who continued to shine at championships with Karin when he was older than that. It’s an incredibly promising foundation, and one that Lara says needs to act as the building blocks for creating strength in depth over the next four years.

Karin Donckers and Leipheimer van’t Verahof. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

“I think Karin won’t give up, which is good because she’s sharp and she keeps me on my toes. I hope we’ll bring more upcoming riders to fight for this in LA because it’s like in England – the more there are, the better you have to be. And there is more in Belgium, just sometimes they don’t know [they’re capable]. The lack of professionalism is not letting them know that they’re good enough. So I’m confident that we can make it. Obviously, if we will repeat that [result] again, it will already be good enough. But we don’t have to be afraid. We can ride and we want to go in and grab those results.”

A nod, too, must go to sixth-place finishers Sweden, who are finally translating their consistency at Nations Cups to championship prowess. Their strengths – fast, consistent, reliable cross-country horses and riders, and good-jumping partnerships – were well-evidenced in Paris, and they’d actually have finished ahead of the Swiss had Sofia Sjöborg and Bryjamolga van het Marienshof Z, the first to come home inside the time, not been awarded a contentious 15 penalties for a flag at 21ABCD, where so many were awarded penalties, launched appeals, and were roundly dismissed.

Frida Andersen and Box Leo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

The only thing standing in Sweden’s way now is the first phase, and that’s something they’ve long been aware of. It’s no easy feat to be part of the Swedish system; though it’s very well-led by chef d’equipe Fred Bergendorff, it also has to function across a number of borders, because its riders are based in Sweden, in Germany, in the UK, and scattered, essentially, across the continent. Individual systems become hugely important; team-wide weaknesses are, then, harder to address. But if each of these talented riders can find a way to shore up their systems and their training in the first phase, Sweden’s moment to play for a podium finish will come around, and it’ll come around fast.

While the Netherlands finished tenth as a team and feel a couple of steps behind their neighbours in Belgium, where finding their groove is concerned, they proved just how much talent they have at home in the Low Country while in Paris. That was crystallised by an excellent showing from Janneke Boonzaaijer, who finished on her dressage score of 31.9 to take ninth place with longtime partner ACSI Champ de Tailleur. That makes her the first Dutch rider ever to make the time at the Olympics, and the first ever to finish on their dressage score.

It’s a timely reminder to her compatriots in orange that, despite difficulties securing ownership and funding in the small nation, they do have what it takes, and it can happen. Time will tell if that will have an effect on the riders and their system – and, indeed, their self-belief – but we’ve watched it happen so powerfully with other nations that perhaps the Netherlands’ star will be the next to rise.

Whatever may happen in LA’s final standings, Paris left all of us with an important lesson to take away: no matter how small a nation is, its riders, its teams, its chefs and trainers, must never, ever be afraid. To innovate, to change their tactics, to reimagine how structures can work, and above all, to dream.

Michael Jung and Chipmunk FRH. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

After a tough first session of showjumping – nearly three-quarters of the class had at least one rail in the team final and individual qualifier – there was a palpable feeling of tension in the air as we approached the individual final at Versailles.

Just 25 riders would come forward to battle for the podium, carrying whatever penalties they’d picked up in that first round; very few headed into the fight with a clean slate. The leaderboard had seen plenty of changes already: Michael Jung retained his lead with Chipmunk FRH (Contendro I – Havanna, by Heraldik), though with a fence to his name; dressage leaders Laura Collett and London 52 (Landos – Vernante, by Quinar), too, had lowered a pole en route to finalising the British team’s gold medal. Australia’s Chris Burton had, to no one’s surprise, managed a clear – though even the eventer-turned-showjumper, who’s made a return to his original sport this year solely to focus on Paris, picked up a time penalty with Shadow Man (Fidjy of Colors – Favorite van de Keezerswinning, by WInningmood van de Arenberg).

That meant that there was a single rail covering the top four, which was rounded out by first-round clear-rounders Tom McEwen and JL Dublin (Diarado – Zarinna, by Canto), and the rest of the class weren’t far behind, either – and so everybody knew that if the second round was built as big, as technical, and as relentless as the first, hearts could be broken, or seemingly unlikely dreams could be achieved.

Michael Jung and Chipmunk FRH. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

It must be an odd sort of feeling, having that in mind as you ride down the long chute into a packed stadium: you know that in a matter of less than two minutes, you’ll either feel as though you’re on top of the world or you’ll feel as though it’s stopped turning. Your fate is in your hands, your horse’s hooves, and the curious whims of the jump cups, which were set around the course in various levels of shallowness and cruelly fickle in throughout so much of the day. You can be so, so close to something you’ve wanted your whole life, and also so, so close to watching it slip through your fingers.

But then, something unexpected happened. A clear round, and then another, and then another – and then more, and more, and more as the crowd roared them home. Perhaps it was the cumulative effect of having had what was effectively a warm-up round; perhaps it came down to the caliber of horses and riders in this upper echelon of the class. Or, perhaps, this second course was just built to be friendlier and more accommodating, anticipating equine tiredness after three intensive days of competition – and, perhaps, the fact that every horse came out looking so fresh and well and ready to jump is a testament to just how well-prepared they’d been for this competition. That’s a gold medal for the sport, after a 2024 season that’s been peppered with so many losses.

Kazuma Tomoto and Vince de la Vigne. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

But it’s not just the sport that won today. At the close of the competition, 68% of the final 25 managed a clear round, and 60% of the field added no penalties at all – including much of the top ten. Switzerland’s Felix Vogg and Dao de l’Ocean (Kannan – Heddy, by Heraldik) tipped a rail, dropping them a couple of places down from their earlier sixth place; Japan’s Yoshiaki Oiwa and MGH Grafton Street (O.B.O.S. Quality 004 – unknown), fresh off winning that extraordinary bronze medal just an hour or so earlier, did too, which similarly toppled them a couple of places down from fifth. His teammate, Kazuma Tomoto, though, jumped a faultless round with Vinci de la Vigne (Esterel des Bois SF – Korrigane de Vigne SF, by Duc du Hutrel), despite a roaring heckler in the crowd who waited until he was approaching the first fence to start bellowing – something he repeated midway through Yoshi’s round.

That allowed Kazu to close out his competition on a score of 27.4, which meant that he was less than a rail off of the podium. Tom McEwen and JL Dublin, who’d jumped clear in the team final, somehow looked even better in their second round, and retained their score of 25.8 – and then the pressure was truly on for the prospective podium.

Provisionally third-placed Laura Collett and London 52 had had a rail down in round one, despite ranking as one of the best showjumping pairs in the class; their uncharacteristic two total rails at the Tokyo Olympics, which cost them an individual medal then, can’t have been far from the rider’s mind. But then she, too, got the job done, adding neither rails nor time to put a fine point on the end of a week that’s seen her set a new Olympic dressage record and take her second Olympic team gold.

Chris Burton and Shadow Man. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Chris Burton, in silver medal position, had already had one clear with Shadow Man – but if they were to have one this time, they’d slip straight off the podium. Could they keep their heads and rely on a partnership that only dates back a matter of months?

They could. They, too, added nothing to their cumulative score of 22.4, and so it was that two-phase leaders Michael Jung and Chipmunk came into the Versailles stadium, which crackled and thrummed with thousands of racing heartbeats, with just a single time penalty in hand.

They’d been here before. At the 2022 World Championships in Pratoni, they led coming into the final phase; they did the same again at Luhmühlen’s CCI4*-S a few weeks ago. On both occasions, when it really counted, they had rails and lost their grasp on glory, despite ordinarily being incredibly consistent showjumpers.

And then there’s their championship form as a partnership: other than a Europeans individual silver back at the start of their partnership in 2019, their campaigns on the world stage have been plagued with bad luck, including a fall at last year’s European Championships and, so memorably and so contentiously, a late-falling MIM corner at the Tokyo Olympics, both of which cost them gold medals.

But this, perhaps, could be described as the redemption Olympics.

Janneke Boonzaaijer and ASCI Champ de Tailleur. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

We’ve seen Japan rally back after a demoralising Tokyo as a team and an initial lack of qualification for Paris, which affected their funding and support – and now they’re Olympic medallists. We’ve seen the likes of Lara de Liedekerke-Meier, who had to withdraw following dressage in her Olympic debut three years ago, heralding the start of a couple of seasons of relentless disappointment, lead the Belgian team to a remarkable podium finish and flirt with the outskirts of the top ten herself. We’ve seen the Netherlands’ Janneke Boonzaaijer, who was eliminated at Tokyo for jumping the wrong fence in a combination, return to become the first Dutch rider ever to make the time at an Olympics – and then she finished on her dressage score and took ninth place, to boot.

Stephane Landois and Chaman Dumontceau. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

We’ve seen two horses formerly ridden by women whose lives were tragically cut short finish in the top fifteen in honour of their much-missed friends, in Boyd Martin and Fedarman B (10th) and France’s Stephane Landois and Chaman Dumontceau (14th).

And so it was only right that Michi’s turn for redemption had to come around, too – which is exactly what it did. He and Chipmunk put their earlier rail behind them and jumped an easy clear, securing the individual gold and making Michi, who was Olympic champion at London in 2012 and at Rio in 2016, the first-ever three-time individual eventing gold medallist. Michael Jung, it appears, is back.

But did he ever dare to dream that this might happen again?

Michael Jung and Chipmunk FRH. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

“I tried to stay really focused and concentrate through the whole week,” he says. “I’m not thinking to the ceremony! So I try also to say to myself, ‘it’s just a normal show’. It’s not always easy – with so many spectators and on such an important show.”

But, he continues, “I think it’s quite important that the horses feel that nothing is really special, and to have a really nice process. It worked really well; in the end, I had a not-perfect round from myself, but he helped me, especially in the last combination.”

Once he crossed the finish line and heard the roar of support from the crowd, he admits that he had to see it for himself to believe it. Then, in a rare moment of vulnerability, he began to weep.

“I needed to look at the board a few times [to see] it’s if it’s really true and to realize it all,” he grins. “I think I need to I need a moment to realize all of it, and what it means – but it’s a very special moment for me.”

Throughout the week, Michi has been waxing lyrical about how, even with his extraordinary experience, being in the thick of an Olympics still feels brand new every time. But how do his three experiences of winning the biggest prize of them all compare to one another?

Michael Jung and Chipmunk FRH. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

“I think, for every athlete, it’s a dream to go to the Olympic Games, and of course I can remember [the thrill of winning], but today, it’s just this one – this one is amazing,” he says. “It’s unbelievable. Another dream come true – and I’m so happy and thankful for Chipmunk. He’s an amazing horse, and it’s so fantastic to have him. To have this success again, there’s no words for that. It’s unbelievable.”

Michi’s win means that the individual Olympic title stays in Germany – in 2021, it was won by teammate Julia Krajewski, who produced the gelding to the top levels before losing the ride – which is some consolation for a tough week for the team, which saw them finish fourteenth of sixteen teams.

“[This victory] is very important, of course, for Germany,” he says. “It helps us a lot.”

Also helped by the competition here, he continues, is the sport.

“I think, for the whole eventing sport, we had a fantastic sport this week. Out there in the park, that was amazing yesterday,  and the dressage and the jumping today. It was fantastic for the eventing sport and the whole world,” he grins.

Chris Burton and Shadow Man. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Chris Burton was once known as the fastest man in eventing, and then, suddenly, he wasn’t in eventing at all anymore, having walked away from the sport to pursue showjumping instead. But at the tail end of last year, he began thinking seriously about a return, just for a little while, and just to try to make it to Paris – something he was also aiming for in the jumping ring. He didn’t make it onto the Australian team in that sport, though he got close – but from the moment he first climbed aboard Ben Hobday’s five-star partner Shadow Man, who he took ownership of on a limited-length contract, he knew he was onto something special.

Now, the pair are the individual Olympic silver medallists on only their second-ever long-format outing as a partnership – and this marks a return to the sport for ‘Fidgy,’ too, whose last event before this season was Badminton in 2022. And so to earn a 22 in the first phase, and then add just 0.4 for tipping the clock in today’s first round, isn’t a shabby outing at all, really.

“I was delighted with [Shadow Man],” says Burto. “But it was annoying — when I came out [from my first round], I didn’t know I’d had that time fault, so that sort of ruined things for me a little bit. But isn’t he a lovely animal? And what a lucky person I am to be here in Paris, having so much fun here. The atmosphere at the Olympics is indescribable, isn’t it? You wish you could bottle it.”

Burto credited his long-time owners with playing a crucial part in his return, as well as his family, and Ben Hobday, who is expected to take the horse back at the close of his campaign with Burto.

Chris Burton and Shadow Man. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

“I just can’t thank Kate and Geoffrey Guy at Chedington Equestrian enough, because without them I wouldn’t be here — and my wife who, eventually said yes [to my plan]. Without her, I wouldn’t be here either — and Ben Hobday, thanks for the horse, mate!” he grins. “He’s a ripper. The horse is unbelievable – he’s big and he’s got a lot of scope. What an amazing animal to go in and also try hard to be really careful like he is. A real treat.”

The electric atmosphere in the ring turned out to be a benefit to the sensitive gelding.

“We all saw him get a bit lit up in the dressage with the crowd, whereas today he did a little bit, but then he just put his nervous energy to good use and went higher — so that was fun,” says Burto, who tried twice, he explains, to buy the horse from Ben, so sure was he of his potential to be a medallist on the world stage.

Chris Burton and Shadow Man. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

“It was all this horse. I thought, what sort of horse you could get on the team with? I suspected that he was a very good horse, but I was so delighted to get to know him and learn that he’s more than a very good horse. He’s just such a delight. Someone asked the other day, ‘How long did it take you to get to know him?’ I just picked up the reins and that was it. Off we went.”

Though it’s easy to imagine that this extraordinary return to the sport, and to his form of old, might tempt him to stick around for a while longer, Burto, who has long been based in the UK, has other plans.

“Actually, my wife and I are going back to Australia,” he says. “We’ve been able to go back there and build up a nice little yard. But maybe one day Michi or Laura will ring me up and say, ‘I’ve got a nice horse for you’ and then I might want to come back!”

Laura Collett and London 52. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Like Michi, Laura Collett has been on the hunt for championship redemption, and today, she got it. She’s had an enviable run of form with London 52 – they won Pau’s CCI5* on the horse’s debut, and have won Luhmühlen and Badminton on their two starts at the level since.

But at championships, they, too, have been plagued by bad luck. She fell while in medal contention at the gelding’s first European Championships in 2019; in 2021 at Tokyo, they took a team gold but lost an individual medal due to a hugely uncharacteristic two rails. At the 2022 World Championships in Pratoni, they had their first run-out in three years; at last year’s European Championships they once again took team gold, but picked up 15 penalties for a missed flag in the process.

Today, though, they put it right, taking individual bronze as well as another team gold for their collection.

“Things haven’t really going to plan really at any of my senior appearances, and Tokyo I really thought I should have would have won an individual medal, but things didn’t go as planned,” she says. “Luckily, I’ve learned from my mistakes. We had a great plan coming here that we weren’t going to make the same mistakes we made in Tokyo, and the plan paid off. I’m just so lucky to have been given a second chance — not many people get to go to one Games and try and win a medal. I was lucky enough to go to two, so I’m just very relieved.”

Laura Collett and London 52. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Though there must be some small sting to not taking the individual title, which she looked in position to do as first-phase leader on a record-setting 17.5, Laura’s purely in celebration mode.

“The best man won – Michael is the big master. He’s raised the sport to 10 different levels and he’s missed out on so many championships on that horse, and I wanted him to win just as much as I wanted myself to win,” she says. “I had an amazing time in Tokyo. but no one was there sharing it with me, and now my best friends are here (and) my mum, so it’s going to be a big party tonight – and plenty of parties when we get home, too.”

“Honestly,” she continues, “I can’t really believe it. That horse is phenomenal, and I owe everything to him.”

Tom McEwen and JL Dublin. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Laura’s teammate, Tom McEwen, took fourth place with the former Nicola Wilson ride JL Dublin, narrowly missing out on adding another individual medal to the silver he won with Toledo de Kerser in Tokyo, while Japan’s Kazuma Tomoto and his Tokyo fourth-place finisher Vinci de la Vigne closed the deal on fifth place by finishing on their dressage score of 27.4.

Tim Price and Falco. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Tim Price put a turbulent week for the Kiwis – they finished eighth, ultimately, of sixteen teams – behind him to jump a duo of clears today and take sixth with his World Championships double-bronze medallist, Falco, while Japan made a second feature in the top ten, thanks to a one-rail round for Yoshiaki Oiwa and Pippa Funnell’s 2019 Burghley winner, MGH Grafton Street, who finished seventh.

Felix Vogg and Dao de L’Ocean. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Eighth went the way of Felix Vogg, who took a rail in each round with Dao de l’Ocean while helming the upward-rising Swiss team, who finished fifth after starting the day in bronze medal position – a bitter disappointment, no doubt, but still an incredible long-term trajectory for the nation is it continues its climb from being a ‘developing’ nation to one that can hold its own in the brightest of company.

Ninth place went to Janneke Boonzaaijer and ACSI Champs de Tailleur (Quidam de Revel – Vera, by Oberon du Moulin), who made history for the Netherlands with their excellent starting and finishing score of 31.9. We’ll be bringing you a full story about Janneke, and the Dutch effort, in the aftermath of the Games.

Yoshiaki Oiwa and MGH Grafton Street. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

The U.S. rounded out the top ten thanks to a superb duo of clears from Boyd Martin and the Annie Goodwin Syndicate’s Fedarman B (Eurocommerce Washington – Paulien B, by Fedor), and further into the top twenty-five, there was a spate of results that bodes extremely well for nations on the rise (more on the U.S. below).

Sweden, who finished sixth as a team earlier today and would have been bronze medallists but for a flag penalty, took twelfth place, thanks to Frida Andersen and Box Leo (Jaguar Mail – Box Qutie, by Quite Easy), who finished on their dressage score of 33.3, and 24th by way of Louise Romeike and the expressive Caspian 15 (L.B. Crumble – O-Heraldika, by Heraldik), who tipped a rail in the first round but jumped clear in the second.

Frida Andersen and Box Leo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

It’s incredibly promising and hugely heartening for Sweden, a nation that is, perhaps, developmentally a step or two behind the likes of Switzerland, whose clear upward trajectory stretches back over the last Olympic cycle, and Belgium, whose own upward trajectory has happened over just the last two years, but has been so undeniable. They, too, very nearly had a grasp on bronze today, but a rail apiece in the first round saw them settle for fourth in their first team since London 2012.

Lara de Liedekerke-Meier and Origi. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Two of their own, though, were able to pin down top twenty finishes individually. The best of them was Lara de Liedekerke-Meier, still riding the wave of an ongoing high that has seen her turn her remarkable work ethic into undeniable results for the last year. She came to Paris off the back of becoming Belgium’s first-ever five-star winner in June; now, she’s a thirteenth-place finisher individually with ten-year-old Origi (Indoctro – Espada Wonderland, by Darco), while stalwart Karin Donckers took 16th with Leipheimer van’t Verahof (Vigo d Arsouilles STX – Southern Queen xx, by South Gale xx) in her seventh Olympics.

The North American Update

Boyd Martin and Fedarman B. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

It certainly wasn’t the weekend the U.S. was aiming for, finishing in seventh place as a team with a score of 133.7. It would have been the goal to build on the country’s silver medal finish in Pratoni in 2022, but a series of small errors would keep the team from competing heavily.

For his part, chef d’equipe Bobby Costello remains positive. “I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m being overly “Pollyanna”, but I really truly believe that there were more positives this weekend, and there are still signs that we are here competing with the rest of the world.”

The Olympic format, with its lack of dropped score (the only competition that currently runs with this structure), is challenging as it’s difficult to “practice” for. Bobby acknowledges this. “I don’t think we can be obsessed about it for every competition, but we really do have to think about the things that we can definitely pinpoint and concentrate on and improve, that will make us more successful in a competition like this. I’m heartened when I look at the quality of the riders that we have here. They all have a very deep bench of horses coming along. When I’m looking to the future, I get a little bit worried about the deep bench of athletes, honestly, so that will be one of the things that I really concentrate on. There’s still a little bit of that gap between the developing and the Elite. We can really knuckle down and look into the next four years and map a blueprint of what it’s going to take, every day, every week, every month, every year to make sure that the improvements keep going.”

Boyd Martin and Fedarman B. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

To be sure, several cycles ago, we would have been over the moon with this performance. When the result is staring you in the face, it’s easy to see what could have been, but it is key to look at the body of work for the U.S., which has its own unique set of challenges in terms of ability to compete on the world stage.

“It’s heartbreaking to be honest — I’ve felt like I’ve been so close, so many times,” says Boyd Martin, who was the highest placed of the U.S. in 10th place with Fedarman B on a final score of 32.1. “This is my fourth Olympics; my career is probably in the second half now. At the beginning of our week, we felt doomed a bit after the kerfuffle with Will’s horse, and I thought everyone tried hard. This is a tough sport. It’s a game of inches; it’s sort of a bit deflating. You have all these dreams of wearing a medal, and it’s not gonna happen this weekend.”

Liz Halliday and Cooley Nutcracker. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

“Obviously it’s not the [team] result we wanted,” says Liz Halliday, who finished 19th individually in her Olympic debut with The Nutcracker Syndicate’s Nutcracker (Tolan R – Ballyshan Cleopatra, by Cobra) on a score of 40.0. “I got drafted in so late, it was kind of crazy — but I think for all of us it was still a wonderful experience to be here. We’re very grateful, very lucky, to be in this position. I think it’s just made us hungrier for the future. I think we have very good horses in the U.S. — we have three very good horses here. Now we just have to polish up a few more things, because I think we’re in a place now where we have the horsepower — we have the riders, and I think it will come.”

Caroline Pamukcu and HSH Blake. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Caroline Pamukcu has been vocal about her belief in the U.S. system, through which she has come up the ranks from her Young Rider days to, now, this Olympic debut with Sherrie Martin and Mollie Hoff’s HSH Blake (Tolan R – Doughiska Lass, by Kannan), but it’s a bittersweet feeling to complete with a result she knows she could have and should have bested. One’s own worst critic is too often the self.

“You know, it’s unbelievable what my Federation has done for me, and I’m so proud to represent my country, but just keep trusting in the process they have planned out for me, and keep working and work even harder than ever,” she said. “Every year I have horses to plan, how to get them to peak, and it just keeps giving us more and more practice till the next Olympics.”

With Los Angeles hosting the 2028 Olympics — and presuming eventing is eventually approved, as it has not been confirmed as of yet — the U.S. will automatically secure a berth without needing to qualify a team in another way. The Aachen World Championships in 2026 also loom large, and this next cycle gives the U.S. an opportunity to focus, without the added pressure of Olympic qualification, on building and improving.

“We just have to stay focused and positive,” Bobby said. “But not be patting on ourselves on the back for being seventh. We can be better. We need to be better than that, but we also can’t get discouraged either.”

Jessica Phoenix and Freedom GS. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Canada finished their weekend in 11th place on a score of 174.00, with Jessica Phoenix and Freedom GS posting the sole clear round in the team final. Karl Slezak and Hot Bobo were the top-placed Canadian pair, and Mike Winter and El Mundo also put in a solid performance as members of the team. It’s very much still a time of development for Canada, who has really come on with more talent to pull from for championship experience and deftly coached by chef d’equipe Rebecca Howard this weekend.

Over and Out (for now, at least)

Laura Collett and London 52. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

With that, we wrap up an intense weekend of Olympic coverage, and what an honor it’s been to bring these stories to you each and every day. We aren’t done yet! We’ll have more content coming your way in the coming days and weeks, including some additional features on stories we couldn’t quite get to during competition, Reporter’s Notebooks from Tilly Berendt and Sally Spickard, analysis and insight into the inexorable rise of developing nations, and much, much more.

The weekend was truly incomparable in many ways, not the least of which was witnessing the sheer amount of fan engagement with and support of our sport.

We’ll leave you with some photos taken by Lisa Barry (who’s been #supergroom for Jessie Phoenix this week) and Robert Kellerhouse, who will be busy with his team and partners preparing Galway Downs to host the LA 2028 equestrian sports. It’s a true, global eventing nation that we’re proud to be a part of, and we feel fortunate to have experienced what has been a once-in-a-lifetime weekend of sport. Thank you for coming on the ride with us.Go Eventing.

Sally Spickard contributed to this report. 

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Laura Collett and London 52. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Perhaps this was always going to be the way of things, with 64 tests crammed into one day – but when the morning dressage leader at the Olympics is someone like Great Britain’s Tom McEwen and JL Dublin, and they’re sitting on a score of 25.8, you start to convince yourself that perhaps only a few competitors will be able to best them in the afternoon.

But there was something in the water over that lunch break, evidently, even though Paris is operating an almost entirely dry venue here. (Well, we say dry – it’s certainly alcohol-free, though after a full day battling the elements, we’re not sure anyone can really use the word dry with a straight face.) In the early afternoon, we saw the ground jury of Christina Klingspor, Xavier le Sauce, and Robert Stevenson enter a period of next-level joie de vivre, and suddenly, records were being smashed, leaderboards were being overturned in rapid succession, and enough excellent scores were being thrown around that we’ve ended the day with a sterling 22 competitors coming in under the 30 barrier – and a top ten that features absolutely none of our morning riders.

Tom’s not far off the pace, though, and a gold medal still feels well within his grasp: he and ‘Dubs’ now sit eleventh on that 25.8, and have contributed to the best post-dressage team score ever recorded at a Games. The Brits go into tomorrow’s cross-country on an aggregate score of 66.7, smashing the previous record of 68.6, held by the Australians since the 2008 Beijing Games.

Laura Collett and London 52. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

But the rider who had the biggest part to play in that overnight success for her nation also finds herself so close to individual gold that she can taste it. Laura Collett and London 52 are certainly no stranger to extraordinarily competitive first-phase marks – nor, even, to scores that dip below the 20 barrier. And today, in her 389th career international test, the Tokyo team gold medallist and her three-time five-star winning partner truly put the pedal to the metal to deliver Laura’s best-ever score – a 17.5 that also sets a new Olympic record by nearly two points.

“I loved every second of it,” beams Laura, whose incredible finish was met with a sea of Union Jack flags from the strong British support front in the stands. “That horse is unbelievable. What he’s done throughout my whole career is amazing, and he just keeps on delivering. So I’m just very grateful to him. I had the time of my life, to be honest. From the moment I entered the arena, he had his ears pricked and loved it, and so did I.”

Laura Collett and London 52. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

On this, the beginning of their second Olympic adventure, Laura’s taking everything she’s learned over the years with ‘Dan’ to try to coax his very best out of him – going back to Tokyo in 2021, where they were individually ninth after an uncharacteristic couple of rails, and further, too, to his early years at the top levels peppered with genuine, though achingly high-profile, teething moments.

But time, and patience, and learning from both the great days and the tough ones, has been the making of the now very nearly infallible partnership.

“It takes years and years of hard work [to develop a relationship], and he’s a horse that’s actually very shy,” she explains. “It’s taken him quite a long time to understand cross-country, mainly because he’s a very shy horse. In 2019, we had a roller coaster year, and at the end of the year, he won a four-star long and went into a prize giving, and that, for me, was the turning point. He really believed in himself; he had full trust in me, and I can feel it on top of him.”

In today’s consistent downpour, Laura had to rely on that trust in the fishbowl of the main arena, where the stands were full of people utilising any method possible to try to stay dry.

“He doesn’t like umbrellas and things like that, so it’s about reassuring him every step of the way and making him believe, because then you can go and do a performance like he did there,” she says. “You never really think you’re going to do it, but everything’s been gearing towards this. It’s been three years in the making, since the moment we stood on the podium in Tokyo. We thought there, he’s still young enough to aim for Paris, and I’ve been very lucky that everything’s gone to plan in the lead up. He’s just a horse that luckily gets better and better with age.”

Laura Collett and London 52. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Laura’s continued remarkable reign of domination in the sport isn’t just impressive because of ‘Dan’s’ wobbly 2019 season; it’s also a testament to the force of her will, which saw her battle back from a nearly catastrophic injury eleven years ago that left her in a coma and took the vision, irreversibly, from one of her eyes. Her motivation then was much the same as it is now: to keep moving towards the next goal, the next step, the next dream, whether that dream is learning how to see a stride again or hunting out an individual gold medal.

“I look back it only to see how lucky I am and just to be here, let alone be literally here. It’s in the past and we try not to dwell on the past, but I know full well that I was very lucky to walk away from that and be able to carry on doing the job that I love. It’s my life, and I love these horses and love working with them day in and day out, and being able to come perform on a stage like this with a horse like London 52… I’m very, very lucky,” she says. “To be honest, I don’t think about [my impaired eyesight]. There’s no other option than to carry on. It’s amazing how quickly my body adapted, and depth perception was very difficult to begin with, but the only thing I wanted to get to do was get back on and ride horses. You have to find a way, and for me it’s normal now to only have one [working] eye. I might be better if I had two, but we’ll never know!”

Michael Jung and fischerChipmunk FRH. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that a 17.5 would lend a commanding lead and perhaps a fair chunk of time in hand in tomorrow’s cross-country phase, but no such luck: sitting second overnight is Herr Gold Medal himself, Germany’s Michael Jung, who delivered a 17.8 to slot in just three-tenths of a penalty behind Laura and helms the German team into second place, too.

This is a personal best at four- and five-star for the sixteen-year-old gelding (Contendro I x Havanna, by Heraldik), but, remarkably, not an all-time international personal best – that came earlier this year in a CCI3*-S at Radolfzell, where the pair put a 17.3 on the board. We’ve heard of aiming to make your bank account balance match your phone number, but inching towards making your dressage score match your horse’s height is a whole new set of niche goals, frankly.

“It was an amazing feeling to gallop into the stadium — it was a goosebump feeling, but at the same time a really great feeling, because Chipmunk was so well concentrated and so good with me, so well listening,” says Michi. “It was so nice to ride every second — and directly before I started the dressage, I knew I could take all the risks and I could try everything.”

Michael Jung and fischerChipmunk FRH. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Like Laura and Dan, Michi and Chip are tackling their second Olympics together – they finished eighth at Tokyo after a contentious safety device activation. Now, five years into their partnership after Michi took the ride over from teammate Julia Krajewski, he’s ready to throw all his own considerable experience (Michi’s won three Olympic golds already, in case you’d forgotten that reign of domination) at the job at hand – and the years of learning he’s done to unpack the inner workings of his horse, too.

“At every competition, everything I did was experience and learning, trying to get a better partnership with him together and get information, and everything was training for this competition,” says Michi. “I think everybody had the same idea because the Olympic Games are such a special competition and everyone is really, really well prepared.”

Alex Hua Tian hears his score as he leaves the arena with Jilsonne van Bareelhof. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

China’s Alex Hua Tian and Jilsonne van Bareelhof didn’t match their four-star personal best today, but for a first crack at a five-star test, they certainly acquitted themselves admirably. They sit in equal bronze medal position going into cross-country on a score of 22, the same score as Australia’s returning eventer Chris Burton and Shadow Man.

“He’s good in this space, but you never know going into arena like that — especially with a horse like ‘Chocs’,” says Alex, who tells EN that his horse’s stable name was chosen because he’s ‘big, brown, indulgent chocolate.’ “He’s very extravagant, and he knows it, and he’s very arrogant; he loves the attention. I think for him, he was always going to trot in there and think, ‘Oh, I finally found a venue of similar majesty to myself!’ That was either going to go this way, which thankfully it did, or it was going to go the other way, and he was going to get over the top about it. He’s done a 21 at four-star, so he can do a really good test – it’s mainly whether he walks, basically!”

Alex Hua Tian and Jilsonne van Bareelhof. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Now-four-time-Olympian Alex has primarily targeted Chocs at CCI4*-S format, with his last long-format run coming in March of 2023 at Montelibretti’s CCI4*-L – and that, he explains, is largely a management decision.

“He’s jumped around a lot of four-shorts, but he’s a horse that I always liken to a human athlete that’s at Olympic level — weightlifting, marathon running, and gymnastics — one body cannot have that much talent and that much range,” says Alex. “Chocs is the most talented horse I’ve ever sat on in my life. There are other very talented horses that have been more consistent, or more successful than him over years, but if you look at him in each phase, he just goes extra — and I think because of that, through his career he’s picked up little bits and pieces on his way to big events, and so he’s quite often not made it. Last year, he was our first choice for the Asian Games, and picked up a little injury in the month beforehand, and that would be his story.”

But if the gelding isn’t historically easy to manage, he does, at least, have the great benefit of having been built up, trained, and strengthened in order to hit his peak this weekend.

“For me, this has always been his goal and his target. We’ve saved him for seven years to come here, and tomorrow we unleash the beast and see what happens!”

Chris Burton and Shadow Man. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Unleashing the beast is no doubt exactly what Burto, historically dubbed ‘the fastest event rider in the world’, has in mind with his new partner, the former Ben Hobday ride Shadow Man. The fourteen-year-old Belgian Warmblood (Fidjy of Colors x Favorite van de Keezerswinning, by Winningmood) joined his string just before the mid-winter Olympic transfer deadline, and marked Burto’s return to eventing after swapping to pure showjumping for several seasons – and getting himself shortlisted for the Australian showjumping team here, to boot.

Today’s 22 was the horse’s career-best international score – and the key to it, it appears, was riding the wave of the colossal buzz in the ring after the previous rider, Michael Jung, laid down a game-changing score.

“Shadow Man was on his toes,” laughs Burto. “He’s a very relaxed horse, and he got really excited because some guy went before me that the crowd liked to cheer for, but then I was just delighted with him — he went back to work, showing what a lovely gentleman he is and showing how well-schooled he is. That was a real treat for me, and it’s always a buzz to be at the Olympics. He’s a pretty cool guy — if they are a good nature, they’re a good nature.”

Taking on the gelding, who Ben rode up to five-star, was a no-brainer for his return to the sport, he says.

“I said to my vet when we went up to Ben’s to ride him and vet him — in the same day! — I said, ‘I feel like I know him already,’” he explains. “We were made for each other the day we were both born. This horse came over the tables, like: ‘Would this be a suitable one for that client that someone was speaking about the other day, for a Championships?’ I said, ‘No,’ and walked straight in and saw my wife, and said, ‘How do you feel about going eventing again?’ She said ‘No, absolutely not. No way.’ I rang our High Performance Manager, Chris Webb, and thanks to the support of Geoffrey Guy at Chedington Equestrian, I was able to secure the ride on Shadow Man for the season, and it’s been a delight. I’ve loved it – I really enjoy eventing him.”

The strength of the partnership has been a massive boon in his return to eventing, but ultimately, says Burto, “riding doesn’t change, does it? Riding horses is riding horses. I was away from [eventing] for a while, and I was delighted when I got back to it. Your skill set doesn’t leave you. I got very nervous at Aachen actually, because I thought, ‘What if I ruin my career and what if I’m old and I can’t go fast anymore?’ But that was nice to see that it doesn’t leave you. I am old, though.”

Felix Vogg and Dao de l’Ocean. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

This is a truly international top ten – which is particularly nice to see in the flag-collecting atmosphere of an Olympics – and at this point in the competition, we’ve got nine different nations within the top ten. One of those is Switzerland, whose ongoing upward trajectory is led by five-star winner Felix Vogg, who rides the relatively inexperienced Dao de l’Ocean this week. Today, the eleven-year-old gelding (Kannan x Heddy, by Heraldik) posted a best-ever international result – yes, another one – to sit fifth overnight.

“He gives me so much confidence, because I know when I do it right, he’s doing it right, and I give him some confidence, I think,” says Felix, who has had the Olympics in sight for this horse, rather than his more experienced team horses Colero or Cartania, since last season.

So far, that call is paying off.

“It was pretty awesome. I think I could have done some stuff a little bit better, but it’s always like this,” says Felix. “I think what we had outside, I got 90% inside, and that’s all I could ask him. I know he’s not as far as other horses here, maybe like Chipmunk or London, a horse like that — he still needs the strength and everything — but I’m happy to think about the future now.”

Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

After those huge tests from Laura and Michi, there was plenty of buzz throughout the stands about what British team anchor – and reigning European Champion – Ros Canter might throw down with Lordships Graffalo. The pair posted a 21.3 at last year’s European Championships en route to the win, and there was plenty of speculation that they could dip into the teens for the first time today – but no such luck.

Their test, though, was smart, polished, and cadence, with just one slightly laboured flying change and a late halt dropping their marks down slightly. They ended up on a final score of 23.4, good enough to clinch overnight sixth place.

“Mark-wise, I had no expectations,” says Ros. “I kept in my own little bubble, really, apart from watching my guys and a couple this morning. I’ve very much tried to stay process-driven today.”

With a competitive start in the bag, she says, “I’m over the moon with him. We all forget that ‘Walter’s’ actually only twelve years old; that, yes, he’s won Badminton and the Europeans and everything else, but he is still a green horse. I still very much feel like we’re only scratching the surface, particularly in a test like that, which is significantly harder than the tests we normally see. I’m absolutely delighted that he got all four changes and everything, because he’s still not fully matured yet, and I do think there’s much more to come from him. We halted a bit late and it had a bit of an effect, unfortunately, on the two movements. But these things happen with horses, and the rest of it, he was spot on.”

Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

The imposing grandstands towering overhead – and the vocal British cheering sections scattered around them – worked in favour of the British-bred gelding (Birkhof’s Grafenstolz x Cornish Queen, by Rock King).

“He absolutely loves attention. So, yes, he lifted, but only ever so slightly; he just seems to kind of revel in it, and he’s so self-confident and so self-assured that I think he thought he was well up for being there,” laughs Ros. “He was quite happy. I think when I finished him patted him, he had a little scratch, and then looked up and thought, ‘Yeah, I’m all right.’”

While she may have been able to avoid the pressure of trying to mark-match today, Ros has certainly felt the effects of expectation in the longer term as she’s approached an Olympics at which she’s a hot favourite to win.

“Oh yes, I’ve had plenty of wobbles — but actually, the closer it’s got, the better I felt,” she says. “Everybody knows me so well; we’re so grateful to the National Lottery for all the funding we get and the staff that we have around us — Ian Woodhead, Chris Bartle, Richard Waygood — they know me inside out, they know what the wobbles mean. Ian was delighted that I snapped at him yesterday, apparently, because apparently that means that I’m getting towards being on my A game. So I’ve had a few wobbles, but once I got on today, I felt very clear minded.”

Over the last few seasons, Ros has taken more and more of the pressure off her top horses at home, and Walter, like Pau winner Izilot DHI, spends more time hacking than he does schooling. But nailing a test like today’s does still take mileage in the ring running through the movements, and Ros has a secret weapon in her pocket where that’s concerned.

“I’m very lucky I’ve got my old five-star horse Zenshera at home — he’s 20 years old now, so he’s always in work, but often only light work. The last month, he’s been working hard as well, helping me to practice the test and make sure I know it inside out. He’s absolutely amazing, and to be quite honest, I think he would have stood in for Walter if we needed him this week, he thought he was about ready to go!”

Overnight seventh place goes the way of Olympic debutant Stephane Landois, who is the best of the home nation at this stage of the competition, and whose 24.4 with Chaman Dumontceau was arguably the most poignant moment of the day. He took the ride on after the tragic death of the gelding’s former owner and rider, Thaïs Meheust, who lost her life at the age of 22 in 2019 while contesting the French seven-year-old national championship with the horse.

Since then, they’ve been part of the bronze-medal-winning French team at the European Championships last year on their Senior Championship debut, won Chatsworth’s tough CCI4*-S last spring, and now, made Thaïs’ dream come true by representing her, and their country, at the Paris Olympics – a competition she had dreamed of for so long.

Stephane Landois and Chaman Dumontceau ride for Thaïs. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Stephane Landois and Chaman Dumontceau. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

As they finished their test, Stephane bowed his head down to Chaman’s gleaming grey neck, held him in a tight embrace for a moment, and then looked up, somewhere beyond the low-hanging cloud cover, and blew a kiss into the sky as the crowd roared for him, for his horse, for France, and for their much-missed Thaïs.

“I am very, very happy with my ride. There’s a lot of emotion in this place, so coming here has been really quite special — all of us are feeling it,” says Stephane, who guides his team into overnight bronze medal position with his result. “There’s really an emotion that we’re all feeling as we come into the arena. I was really emotional, but proud that there’s a crowd out there that really appreciate the sport and appreciate everybody that comes in. I’m just full of emotion for it, and actually, [the significance of this selection with this horse] has probably given me more strength to come out and to perform well, knowing the history of all of this and the ride.”

Yoshiaki Oiwa and MGH Grafton Street. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Japan’s Yoshiaki Oiwa is very familiar with the business end of Olympic leaderboards – he made history in 2012 by leading the first phase at the Olympics and making the first steps towards putting Japan on the map as an eventing nation. These days, they’re much closer to superstar status – they currently sit fifth of sixteen as a team – and Yoshi’s still here, making it all happen for himself and his country. He sits eighth overnight on a score of 25.5 with MGH Grafton Street, the former ride of Pippa Funnell, with whom he won Burghley in 2019.

“He knew that today, it was the time, you have to show something, so I’m very happy with this,” says Yoshi, who has just four FEI runs under his belt with the sixteen-year-old (OBOS Quality 004 x unknown dam). “It’s a very new partnership, actually. My first competition with him was this year — February or March — so only a few months. It was challenging for us, but it went well, so I’m very, very pleased.”

Yoshiaki Oiwa celebrates his test. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

While ‘Squirrel’ has historically been a mercurial ride, the ability for the pair to build a solid partnership so fast has come down to a couple of factors – Yoshi’s experience, of course, but also the help of Pippa, whose condition for the sale was that the horse would have to stay on her yard, where Yoshi, too, is now based after years in Germany at the yard of Dirk Schrade.

“I went to the previous rider’s place, so the system, everything is the same. She is kind of a legend, Pippa Funnell — so she is the coach for me now, and so his routine is the same as before,” says Yoshi. “Basically, all the team members have been based in Europe for a long time now. We don’t have big shows in Japan, so we all have to come to Europe or another country. This is something that makes it difficult for us to make it. But we all came to Europe long enough now, and everybody is a very experienced rider now. So we hope we can do something here.”

Clarke Johnstone and Menlo Park. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

New Zealand’s Clarke Johnstone and his 2022 World Championships ride Menlo Park (Berlin x Faerie Queen, by Rock King) put a 25.7 on the board, bettering their four-star personal best of 27 and guiding the Kiwi team into overnight fourth, to boot.

“He’s been training so well. He’s so with me, he feels amazing in his body, he’s fit but calm, and I’ve been thinking he could do a test like that — to actually do it, I’m just so, so proud of him,” says Clarke. “He’s been to the World Championships, but that was nothing like this. I bravely decided not to pre-ride him this morning, because that’s normally what I would do to get the best out of him — he’s really solid, he always walks — and after I watched the first few go, I thought, ‘Well, that looks very electric in there. Maybe I should pre-ride it.’”

Clarke Johnstone and Menlo Park. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

But, he says, “we decided to stick with what we’ve been doing, which has been steadily getting the scores lower and lower over the last couple of years – and he was just so with me. He did have a little look at the gate stewards when I went about to go into the ring, and I thought, ‘Don’t let me down, Jacko.’ He pulled it back, and he was just a delight to ride in there, really on the aids, and just giving me everything.”

That puts him into equal ninth place with Italy’s Giovanni Ugolotti, who has been on an undeniable upward trajectory with the elegant – if slightly inelegantly named – Swirly Temptress. Though this is her first test at the five-star level, their 25.5 bests their form across her four-star career, too, and gave Italy much to celebrate after a heartbreaking morning following Emiliano Portale’s elimination after his ride, Future, bit his tongue in one of the half-passes.

The individual top ten at the culmination of the first phase at Paris 2024.

The North American Update

The U.S. riders delivered solid tests today, though certainly some points were left on the board. A collective three-rider score of 88.9 sees them slot into sixth place in team competition, sitting just 7.7 penalties off the podium and 22.2 penalties behind Great Britain in current gold position. Despite any marks left in the dressage ring today, we all well know by now that those could well be long forgotten when the dust and leftover mud from today’s rain settles after cross country.

Liz Halliday and Nutcracker. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Latecomer Liz Halliday, who was added to the team after Will Coleman’s withdrawal of Diabolo, secured the top standing for the Americans with The Nutcracker Syndicate’s Nutcracker on a score of 28.0 as the second pair to go for the team. You can read more from Liz’s ride, as well as our pathfinder Caroline Pamukcu, in our midday report here. After starting the day within the top 10, the Liz will be the top-placed in 19th individually, followed by Caroline in 25th and Boyd Martin in 26th.

Boyd Martin and Fedarman B. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Boyd was the sole U.S. rider of the afternoon rotations, securing a 30.5 to sit just behind Caroline Pamukcu and HSH Blake in 19th overnight. After enjoying a trending score hovering in the mid-70s percentage during the trot work, Boyd lost ground with two mistakes in the four flying changes that feature in the test. Boyd admits he’s “probably done 20,000 flying changes” in practice, but has historically struggled with the left to right change on this horse.

“We’ve been getting it really good at home and in training, but just when the atmosphere is a bit electric out there,” Boyd said. “He’s got a bit of anxiety, and I think I’ve mistimed my aids a little bit. The same thing happened a Pau. He does get a little bit more electric in the flying changes and it’s a shame. I felt like I gave my all, and it would have been awesome to have four great changes, but it wasn’t to be today. I felt like we still came out of it with a respectable score. But today wasn’t our day in the flying change department. Other than the flying change, I think it was our best work ever.”

Caroline Pamukcu and HSH Blake. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

“Overall our horses did some very fine work, but it was very competitive and I think it showed that we just weren’t going to be in the top tier today, but I’m still very proud of our athletes and horses,” U.S. chef d’equipe Bobby Costello commented. “The amount of work that they’ve put in this year has been immense and all of these horses will just keep getting better and they will have to be because the world is getting better as well.”

The riders will follow the same rotation they did today on cross country. Bobby explained a bit about the strategy behind the U.S. running order. “I believe that the first two slots in the running order could be very much interchangeable between Caroline and Liz. I think Caroline actually quite likes not to have too much information in her head going out there, so I think that would be a great slot for her, and Liz you could honestly put anywhere and she’s going to perform. I don’t think it was ever a question that Boyd would be our anchor rider with all of his experience of being in that position.”

Mike Winter and El Mundo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Canada currently sits in 14th position as a team on a collective score of 106.4, with Mike Winter and Jonathan Nelson, Emma Winter and his own El Mundo (Numero Uno – Calvaro’s Bria Z, by Calvaro Z) currently the top-placed of the team in 42nd on a score of 35.2. Jessica Phoenix and Freedom GS are in 43rd on a score of 35.4 and Karl Slezak and Hot Bobo sit in 46th on a 35.8.

Jessica Phoenix and Freedom GS. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

“I was so proud of the composure that she had going into that ring,” Jessie said of the 14-year-old Freedom GS (Humble GS – Friedel GS, by Fidertanz), who is owned by longtime supporter Charlotte Schickedanz. “It’s her first time doing a test at the five star level, and it is by far the biggest atmosphere she’s ever felt. And I was over the moon with how much composure she showed in there, and honestly, how much brilliance she showed in the movements that she’s really solid in. Her future looks bright. She’s one of the most straightforward, competitive thinking mares I’ve ever ridden. Like she fights to do the right thing, and sometimes she just doesn’t have the strength to be able to carry through the movement yet. But like she has the heart, she’s 100% in it, and she’s mentally fighting for you.”

Karl Slezak and Hot Bobo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

“I was pleased with [Hot Bobo], she was such a good girl — she held it together,” Karl Slezak said of his test with Hot Bobo (Arkansas VDL – Taneys Leader xx, by Supreme Leader xx). “We all know that she can get a bit spooky in the dressage ring, and I thought that she held it together really, really well… Just a little tension [in the flying changes], and specifically the left lead to right lead.”

In terms of the cross country, we’ll have more from the U.S. riders and beyond in Cheg’s Cross Country Riders React column coming later. We’ll be back tomorrow with another Companion Guide to cross country, as well as much more from Paris. In the meantime, you can check out the cross-country ride times in full here and have a walk around the course with us in our full preview here. Cross-country will begin at 10.30 a.m. CET (9.30 a.m. BST/4.30 a.m. EST) with Germany’s Julia Krajewski and Nickel 21 (15th on a 26.9) pathfinding. This is a tightly packed field with 22 horses and riders sitting sub-30, so we’ll be expecting a huge amount of movement across the leaderboard throughout the day.

Stay tuned, and Go Eventing.

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An overhead view of how Pierre le Goupil’s Olympic track will criss-cross the canal and avenues of the Versailles estate, courtesy of Cross Country App.

There’s nothing quite like designing an Olympic cross-country course. Firstly, it has to slot into a tract of land that’s rarely or never hosted the sport before; secondly, it has to be friendly enough to allow less experienced nations to have a chance of completing, while also testing the big guns and providing a spectacle to represent the sport. And, on the world stage, safety and horse welfare become even more important than ever.

But Paris 2024’s course designer, Pierre le Goupil, who also designed last year’s tough European Championships track, isn’t buckling under the pressure – he’s relishing it. And along the way, he’s allowing himself to be surprised, too.

One of the biggest surprises on unpacking the gorgeous, beautifully-built course today is how much space there actually is to open up the stride and gallop on. We’d all been expecting a much tighter, twistier, more intensive track, because it uses a reasonably compact area to get the job done – but even Pierre was pleasantly surprised at how much usable space he had to play with once he got his boots on the ground for the first of his fifty or so site visits over the last couple of years.

“When I first heard about the cross country being here, I said, ‘Ah, it’s going to be flat. Straight lines. Crooked, very sharp turns, nothing to play with,’ and it’s totally different. There’s a lot of things to play with,” he says.

And so, rather than a go-kart track of a course, it’s something a little bit different – more, perhaps, akin with a Luhmühlen-style course, though held at ‘championship level’, which is effectively a short CCI4*-L, rather than five-star. And in the unusually short time Pierre’s had the role – he was given it in 2022, rather than straight off the back of the delayed Tokyo Olympics, as would usually be the case – he’s set to work to maximise the space as best he can, while also managing the estate’s need to continue allowing tourists on site and to protect its heritage trees and flora.

On first walk, it doesn’t, perhaps, read as a hugely difficult track – but then, maybe that’s just right. We saw a not-hugely-difficult track exert huge influence at the World Championships in 2022, particularly for very experienced five-star horses, who weren’t, perhaps, quite as rideable with nothing enormous to back them off. Could that kind of influence be exerted again here? Could Pierre, whose difficult Europeans course last year took many by surprise, have a few tricks up his sleeve here? Let’s give it a walk and see.

You can take a virtual walk around via the Cross Country App here, too.

THE ESSENTIAL INFO

Optimum time: 9:02

Length: 5149m

Fences: 28

Efforts: 45

There might be hustle and bustle and excitement around the main stadium, but the first fence on course takes us well away from that – a solid twenty minute walk, in fact, into the spectacular woods of Versailles. It’s a lovely spot to start, not just because it’s so peaceful, but because it’s so cool, too. It’s hot – though not stiflingly so – here in Paris, and the humidity is pretty high, but when you find yourself in the avenues, nestled underneath the estate’s ancient trees, it’s absolutely perfect, and ideal for intensive sport.

Fence 1: a straightforward ramped table that gets horses and riders off to a confidence-boosting start.

As with all courses, the Olympic course uses the first few fences to settle horses and riders into a rhythm and allow them to get some confidence-building airtime. And so these first few fences aren’t particularly big, nor are they complicated – they’re a warm welcome into the most important cross-country round of each horse and rider’s life.

There’s no forgetting you’re at the Games, though: fence one features the Olympic rings on the take-off side, as well as the Olympic motto, Citius, Altius, Fortius – or Faster, Higher, Stronger. That motto was actually used for the first time back at Paris 1924, and one hundred years later, it still feels like the perfect summary of this phase. As another thoughtful decoration, the fence is made to look as though it’s flanked with laurel wreaths – which does give it a sort of owlhole effect that should encourage riders to tackle it positively so their horses don’t take a peek.

An Olympic start.

The second fence is a ramped timber oxer, decorated with oversized workmans’ tools – a nod to the hard work of the course builders here, who have definitely had their chisels out creating some incredible artwork across this track. That team is helmed by Christian Aschard of EQUIBOIS, assisted by Dominic Moore and Benoit Marchand, and they were painted by Christine Houdayer.

“As I like to say all the time, designers are not as good as builders,” says Pierre. “If they don’t have proper skilled builders, they can’t achieve what they want. So this is important, and builders never have enough recognition. We always talk about the designers, but it’s very important to be able to rely on high level of skills, and as you can see we have them.”

The idea, he continues, first came about after the fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral, and the flurry of skilled rebuilding that’s been taking place there ever since ahead of its reopening in December.

Fence 2.

A massive hammer? No problem. This fence is clear, and friendly, and equipped with MIM clips for added safety just in case someone has a bad shot to it, which they shouldn’t – though sometimes the first three fences are where those little mistakes get ironed out.

The distinctive avenues of the Versailles estate.

The first galloping stretch on course comes between fences two and three, and keeps competitors under the cover of those cooling trees. Somehow, this still doesn’t feel like just another event, or just another field, or just another bit of woodland – Versailles’ trees and avenues are so distinctive, and so revered, that it feels a bit like stepping into centuries worth of history.

“If these trees could talk,” muses EN head honcho Sally, “I wonder what stories they’d have to tell?”

They’d probably, we decide, say a thing or two about guillotines.

Fence 3.

Then, after a long straight run, fence 3 appears. It’s a table, which could be jumped straight on or at an angle, depending on how much set-up a rider feels their horse still needs. Also notable here, though, is the unjumpable fence decoration on the approach – that’ll impact the choices riders can make on their line, but it also gives them the chance to be watched over by… a carved peacock. Delightful!

A closer look at fence 3.

We’re starting to see a bit more dimension now, and this opportunity to jump on an angle is also a great chance to sharpen up ahead of the combinations to come.

Fence 4.

There’s one more single fence to jump before we’ll get to that first combination, and it’s a classic eventing question. The ditch and brush at 4 isn’t quite the same sort of spectacle as, say, the capacious and terrifying Cottesmore Leap at Burghley, but it’s still a fence that requires a positive, forward ride and a galloping approach. That a fence like this comes just after an angled option is no accident: that progression allows riders to ensure they can adjust the canter and go from a more accurate ride to a more attacking one. Once they find themselves in the thick of a combination, they made need to switch between those approaches in quick succession, so this is a way to ensure that all the gears are in place.

Fence 5ABC and 6AB (the pale, skinny fountain fence in the back middle of the photo.)

There’s a shorter galloping stretch that takes us out of the woods and into the striking open vista of the first water, which is situated in one of Versailles’s historic fountains – one that’s been reinvented to become a horse-friendly complex. It retains an amphitheatre-style historic seating area, which adds some serious gravitas to the scene, and xx

This actually wasn’t where Pierre had originally intended to place the first combination on course – but the logistics of placing the start and finish, he says, meant that the course had to start a little bit later in the reserved area, and so as a compromise, he’s made sure to keep this water friendly and inviting.

It begins with a log drop into the water (5A), after which our competitors will pop a left-handed brush corner in the water itself (5B). Then, they’ll cruise out of the water up a step (5C), and then head to a skinny, angled, MIM-clipped fountain fence (6AB). It’s all about putting the pieces of the puzzle together sensibly here – each element is dimensionally friendly and there’s plenty of space between them to plan a line, and there’s options, too, in case of any difficulties, including a long route that has two efforts at 6AB rather than one as in the direct route.

“It’s the first combination, so it comes quite early on the course. But this is also why it’s not massive for four-star,” explains Pierre. “At this level we could have had something a little bit tougher, but the technicality will stay the same. When you work on a project like that, the first thing to consider is where do you start from, where do you do the warm up, and the terrain. I would have liked to start earlier, but that would have been where is now the cooling area. I would have liked to have maybe 500 meters more and maybe have a combination where we have the [undergrowth] over there. But we went to a compromise. For the moment, nobody has complained — so far!”

Fence 7A.

The first three combinations on course come up in very quick succession, and after making it through the water, our competitors will head back into the woodland via an entry point at 7A – a step up onto a pretty sharp incline. Then, they’ll head straight to 7B, an angled white birch upright.

Fence 7B.

This is the straight route, but there is a slow option here – that’s another collapsible birch rail, but jumped in the other direction, and riders will need to be careful of the route they choose so that they don’t cross behind the fence (that is, on the landing side) on their way to present to it. Further defining their route is a set of carved wooden animals guarding the centre of this copse. Most should go straight here.

Fence 8.

There’s options, too, at fence eight, a wide, brush-topped bench with some cushions on it that look like they might have been nicked from Marie Antoinette’s bedroom in the palace. There’s a left-handed one and a right-handed one, and nothing notably different between the two – the choice made here will simply come down to the line the rider wants to place themselves on. This fence comes after one of the most significant galloping stretches on the course and will be best tackled out of the forward, positive stride that riders have set in the lead-up to it.

Fence 9.

They’ll land running from 8 and maintain their pace for another reasonable stretch, after which they’ll meet this wide, timber oxer, which still needs to be ridden positively but must be set up for properly, because it’s big, imposing – and MIM-clipped, so a tidy effort will be key here. It’s a simple fence made visually striking by the little sea of wildflowers framing it.

Just a little view from the Versailles summer house, darling.

This oxer needs to be used quite tactically: we’ve just finished a fast minute with lots of galloping and not much jumping, and then it’s just a short run on to the next combination fence, so by moderating the approach and ensuring their horses are listening, our competitors will put themselves in good shape to adjust again soon.

Fence 10A.

The next combination is the second water complex, which is jam-packed with options, and so horses and riders alike will need to be focused and committed to find their line and pick their way through. Any discombobulation, and a horse might be so busy wondering which fence is his next one that he drives by his intended route without even seeing it. First, they’ll jump this big bridge, which is set on a serious angle over a wide open ditch.

Fence 10BC.

Then, they’ll pick their route of choice though the water, the fastest of which will see the jump into the drink over a broad-armed skinny brush, and then up, out, and over a right-handed brush-topped corner.

The numbering here is very friendly, mind you – there’s a lot of options to mix and match without getting into trouble over missing or doubling up on a lettered fence, and there’s even an open ditch option if that angled bridge doesn’t appeal.

Here’s another look at that direct route into the water, which utilises a visually impactful style of brush fence that we’ve been seeing more and more frequently over the last couple of seasons.

This third of the course is really the gallop-y area, and from 10ABC, we get another little pipe-opener before completing the loop.

Fence 11 and 12.

Then, they’ll meet a pair of hefty tables, styled as a desk and a bookcase, which sit on a left-handed turn on a related distance. They’ll be able to make a few of their own decisions here, because there’s enough space to go wide and jump both elements straight on, or they could take a more economical line and save a couple of valuable seconds by allowing for more of an angled effort.

Fence 13AB.

The next galloping run takes us back into the cool, calm, and quiet of the woods, and when we re-emerge, we find ourselves right on the edge of the Grand Canal, dotted – for now – with visitors soaking up the sunshine in rowboats. But even if we don’t see rowboats on the water come Sunday, we certainly get them here – two of them, in fact, overturned and decorated with oars, half built and half a skeleton, once again paying tribute to master craftsman. These both sit on an angle, and as the riders tackle them, they’ll be able to see the grandstand in the distance, urging them on.

Fence 14.

They’ll continue to follow the Canal around to its left arm, and as they turn, they’ll leap over a huge picnic table dressed in gingham. Then, they’ll hang a right and take the first pontoon crossing on the course.

“What has been [the determining factor] for the choice of that final track was where we start, where we arrive, and do we go across the Grand Canal twice, once, or not at all?” says Pierre. “Everybody wanted to go across the Grand Canal twice, but then you have money issues, technical issues… Finally, everybody wanted to go twice, especially the broadcasters.”

The temporary pontoons were trialled at last summer’s test event with great success, and are immovable and dressed with arena surface – and, in the very unlikely case that someone jumps over the side of one and ends up in the Canal, a trained rescue team, who underwent drills at the test event, is on hand to safely guide horse and rider back out.

Crossing the first of the Versailles pontoons.

Safely across the Canal, competitors dip, momentarily, back into the woodland to tackle the combination at fence 15 and 16ABCD. The first fence is an open ditch with a lip on the take-off side that has horses landed on uphill ground, on which they’ll nip up to the top of a mound and make a decision between a left- or right-handed route.

Fence 15.

The left-handed route is made up of a drop (16A) to two brush skinnies (16B and 16CD), while the right-handed route has two drops (16A and 16BC) and a single brush skinny (16D), which is on the inside line and therefore a touch quicker, though there’s not a huge amount in it, so riders can pick their route based on their horses’ strengths.

The drops at 16, as viewed from the landing side.

“It’s not very difficult. The problem is it’s really much a test for the rider,” says Pierre. “He needs to be solid on his feet, elastic, fluid, and he needs to go with the horse, but stay balanced, exactly right in the saddle. So a step like that at this level is not a problem. But you still need to stay on your feet and you have the ditch, and you have a skinny there, so they can go left, they can go right. They need to be fast. But it is a very safe combination, and it’s spectacular. I don’t know, I love that fence!”

Skinnies galore at 16ABCD.

The next pontoon crossing is ‘the’ pontoon crossing – the one that runs our competitors directly across the heart of the Grand Canal, with the Château de Versailles sunbathing alongside in all its glory.

There. She. Is.

At this point, we’re past the halfway point of the course and snaking back towards the grandstands once again. On our way there, where we’ll find the feature water jump, we’ll first meet fence 17AB, which is a double of offset angled brushes with picket fencing in front of them.

Fence 17AB.

Then, it’s a right-handed turn into the woods, where we find fence 18 – one of the most visually striking jumps on course. It’s a cordwood pile shaped like a stag’s head, with antlers stretching up to the heavens.

Fence 18.

Fences 19 and 20 are separately numbered but the same profile of fence on a related distance. These big, beefy woodpiles will give a great feeling and demand a powerful jumping effort.

Fence 19.

Fence 20.

There’s a decent galloping stretch on this surprisingly open track before the combination at 21ABCD, which is actually a three-effort fence. On the direct route, this begins with an airy upright at 21AB, followed by a sharp downhill approach to a brush skinny at 21C. Then, they’ll jump another brush skinny at 21D. Again, cognisant of the fact that he has developing riders and nations here as well as major heavy-hitters, Pierre has given options – though the lettering means that no mixing and matching of routes can be done.

The Czech riders and support team walk the line from 21AB down to 21C.

The next galloping stretch winds competitors out of the woods and spits them out at the far end of the Grand Canal, in the shadow of the huge grandstands at the main arena. They won’t be entering the arena itself on this track, but the next couple of fences allow them to come very close to it. First, they’ll jump a beefy treasure chest at fence 22, before looping directly in front of the stadium to enter the water complex at 23ABCD.

Fence 22.

The first element of this water complex is a log drop in, facing towards the grandstand, which is followed by a brush fence in the water, marked as 23BC. Once on dry land again, they’ll jump an open oxer at 23D. There’s a number of alternative options here to replace various fences within this complex.

The water complex at 23ABCD.

The view of the complex from the other side.

The best method, Pierre says, is to jump that log drop on the left-hand side, giving enough space on the landing side to arc out the right-handed turn to the brush in the water, which is perpendicular to the log. We could see that final corner playing an influence – even without tonnes of terrain here, horses will be starting to tire at this late stage, and it’s a wide, big effort equipped with sensitive yellow MIMs.

Then, it’s a left-handed turn and a pop over fence 24, a dimensionally imposing elephant trap.

Fence 24.

Now, we’re heading back down the side of the canal once again en route to the finish – but there’s still a few more key fences to jump before we get there. Fence 25 is a brush fence that’ll be jumped on an angle to create a solid line to its twin at fence 26.

Fence 26.

Continuing straight along the canal edge, we then come to fence 27, an upright, bright white representation of the IOC headquarters, framed by a nod to the Hollywood sign and Paris’s successor, the LA Olympics in 2028.

Fence 27.

And from there, the finish is in sight – all our competitors will need to do is pop over 28, a house emblazoned with the French motto, Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. Add in a bit of cross-countré and we’ve got ourselves a deal, France.

Fence 28.

In all seriousness, though, this is the moment where dreams come true – whether those dreams are a clear inside the time and a shot at a podium finish, or a completion in an Olympic debut, and the extraordinary rush of making it here will be something beyond words.

Pierre, as course designer, is so conscious of those varying goals and wins within his field, and has had the tough job of designing a track that tests the best while nurturing and educating the developing horses, riders, and nations in the field.

“If you compare with the European Championships [which he designed last year], there may be more difference between the strongest team and the less strong, or some individual who has less experience, which means that we need to give a chance for everybody,” he says. “In terms of safety or respect, there needs to be an opportunity for everybody to achieve, but still be testing enough. I think the new format with three riders only in the team, and the possibility of changing, it’s not clear for everybody what is going to happen. How can you react, including for the Chef d’Equipe? What has to be the strategy, what instruction to give to the first riders, the second, the third. You can decide to play it safe, but can you win like that? So having multiple options… I will say, this is why some of them are very much longer and a bit more easy, because if it’s not lower, you still have a question, but you have more time between the question, so it gives more chance to achieve it. We know that it’s very important.”

“It’s more important here than in the Europeans, for example, where the density of the level of the teams is a little bit different,” he continues. “I had the experience of the Pan American Games last year, which was important too, because this was really, really what was at stake, and I have been briefed very seriously about that. And it’s always a team effort. So working with experienced Technical Delegatess and listening – I mean, that’s the way you learn, and I’m still learning. This is the most important year to find the right balance. Even if you can never tell what is going to happen, depending on the weather condition, and you don’t know the riders; you don’t know necessarily their last achievements. And doing that in a venue that has never hosted any competition, in a venue that is, like Versailles, with all the constraints, all the factors – economical, touristic, environmental. Every decision, every step needs to be considered from many different angles. It’s been a tremendous experience.”

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