Classic Eventing Nation

Michael Jung and fischerChipmunk FRH deliver one of their best-ever tests to take the overnight lead. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

We’ve got to give credit where credit is due: 24-year-old Brit Mollie Summerland certainly put the pressure on the maestro. Her score of 22.5 with Charly van ter Heiden, which saw her take a decisive day one lead, wasn’t close to being usurped for much of the day today, even with many of the world’s best among the 109 competitors delivering first-phase performances. But if you’re going to be beaten by anyone, it’s probably not too disappointing when that ‘anyone’ is Herr Michael Jung and his Kentucky champion (and veritable superhorse) fischerChipmunk FRH, and it’s got to be even less disappointing when he only actually managed to beat you by a piddling 2.5 penalties. Which isn’t, of course, to say that a first-phase score of 20 isn’t wildly impressive — of course it is, even by Michi’s standards. In fact, it slides right into his top ten all-time best tests, which is saying something when you consider that he once dropped a 15.5 at Strzegom like it ain’t no thang.

“Chipmunk was very nice to ride today in the dressage; he was very relaxed and listening very good,” says Michi, who was awarded an 81.9% and first by both James Rooney at C and Nikki Herbert at M, but just a 76.19% and third by Emmanuelle Olier at E. “It was everything like I hoped and wished, so it was just fun today to just enjoy riding him.”

While Haras du Pin is in the spotlight for its role as a selection trial for Pratoni, Michi is, perhaps, the only person who can come here to focus on the fun of competition — it’s hard to imagine any circumstances in which the pair won’t be selected for the World Championships, though we reckon second-placed Mollie will be hot on his heels tomorrow.

Maxime Livio and Api du Libaire lead the way for the home nation, sitting third overnight. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

The home nation got a big boost in the form of stalwart competitor Maxime Livio, who piloted his 2021 European Championships top-ten finisher to an excellent 26.7 — good enough for third, though by a margin of over four penalties off second-placed Mollie Summerland and Charly van ter Heiden. But although his mark puts him in an enormously competitive position after 109 tests, Maxime felt that the work was lacking in just a touch of match practice, and eking out the best possible marks was an exercise in tactful, sympathetic riding.

“He was a bit excited — not tense or worried, but just excited to compete for the first time in a long time,” says Maxime, who last ran an international with the gelding back in May, when they finished ninth at the Pratoni test event CCI4*-S. “But he was so focused and he gave his best; it wasn’t so comfortable for me, because I could feel that excitement, but the horse was ready to do it well. All his halts were very square, and he was very generous in the extended movement and very focused, so I’m very happy with him.”

The gelding, who dipped down to 21.3 at last year’s Europeans, is certainly a not-so-secret weapon for the French, but nevertheless, Maxime doesn’t intend to leave the start box tomorrow with a point to prove.

“I know that when he’s a bit more relaxed he can be better, so hopefully with this competition and the new competition plan I have for the rest of the season, he’ll have the same mind but with less excitement. Then he’ll be easier to ride for me, but I was very pleased with his test — and I think tomorrow, too, he’ll be so excited, so maybe I’ll take my time and make it a bit smooth and easy for him. I won’t be riding for the time as the priority; it’ll really depend on the way he feels, because I want him to restart the new part of the season with a good round. I’ll ride the time depending on the way he is.”

Christoph Wahler and Carjatan S join an impressive German front in the top ten. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Germany’s Christoph Wahler probably hadn’t quite intended to wait until August to run his Badminton ride, Carjatan S, again — “but we had to wait until he regrew a part of his hoof that’s still at Badminton!” he says. The rangy grey, with whom he finished second at Luhmühlen CCI5* last season, could have been justifiably fresh as a result today: we’ve often seen him fizz up in this phase in the early part of the season, when he’s not had a huge amount of exposure to atmosphere, but today, he emerged as a consummate professional. That allowed Christoph, whose family business of breeding and producing high-performance dressage horses means he’s something of a master craftsman in this phase, to push Carjatan’s expressive movement very nearly to its fullest potential, earning himself a 26.9 and equal overnight fifth in the process. It’s not a shabby start, considering what’s on the line — Christoph, who finished just outside the top twenty at Badminton with Carjatan, is one of a small number of very good German riders who are fighting for a World Championship debut next month, and it all hinges on this weekend.

“We’d thought about Aachen with him, but he’d barely done any canter work at that point, and as a German, if you go to Aachen you want to be competitive,” says Christoph. “And looking ahead for Pratoni, I didn’t want to show him in not his best condition. So I’m happy with the way he is now.”

Though Haras du Pin has quite a unique arena set-up, in which horses warm up in an adjacent space in the main arena, that suited Carjatan perfectly as he was able to do his final moments of work in the same atmosphere he’d face during his test.

“I think it’s a perfect arena, actually, because there’s not too much atmosphere and they all seem to be pretty calm,” says Christoph. “[Warming up in that way] was good for him, even though I was early because they were running ahead of time, so he was alone in that final warm-up. But that didn’t seem to make much difference. And I have been taking him to other shows just to ride a bit — not to compete, but just training, so for him, it feels like he’s far into his season, and that’s when he gets better and better.”

For Christoph, getting a ‘clear round’ test — which Carjatan typically begins to deliver after the mid-point of the year, when he’s settled into his season, was the highlight of the day.

“We all know he can be very spectacular, but when I put the pressure on him to make the trot even more extravagant, that’s when he can get a little bit tense — but for me, actually, we had probably the best walk he’s ever done today, and all the halts were good. I wasn’t super happy with the lateral work, because we led with the hind legs for a couple of meters in the half-pass, but we did get it back.”

Now, Christoph is looking forward to a run around the typically tough cross-country track, which blends European-style technicality with British-style dimensional boldness and galloping lanes – a combination that should suit the gelding perfectly.

“I don’t like it when courses don’t have big fences but they just twist and turn all the time, but this is very big — it does feel almost like a British course,” he says. “That usually suits him, and it’s good to have several undulations, too, which will be super good for getting them fit for the hills at Pratoni. That’s important for him, because this will be his only run before the World Championships if we’re selected — but I think it’ll prepare him well.”

Gireg le Coz’s Aisprit de la Loge looks better than ever en route to a spot in the top ten in the first phase. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Another Badminton runner to make his first international start since his trip to Gloucestershire is Gireg le Coz‘s 12-year-old Selle Français Aisprit de la Loge. The pair took eighteenth place at Badminton, which was their debut at the level, and though they couldn’t quite rival their 26.7 there today, they nearly made it: they posted a 26.9, which sees them hold equal fifth with Christoph and Carjatan, as well as German duo Malin Hansen-Hotopp and Carlitos Quidditch K, who did their test yesterday.

Jerome Robine makes his second appearance in the top ten this week, this time with Black Ice. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

After taking a top ten spot yesterday with Brave Heart 10, who now sits 22nd on his score of 29.8, 24-year-old German up-and-comer Jerôme Robiné made it happen again today, coming forward near the end of the day with his excellent Black Ice. The gelding, with whom he finished fifth in Luhmühlen’s German National Championship CCI4*-S in June, delivered a very good score of 27 — the same he’d earned at Luhmühlen. That was enough to see them take overnight eighth going into tomorrow’s cross-country, though they’re just a tenth of a penalty behind ninth-placed Tim Price and Coup de Coeur Dudevin. Another tenth of a penalty is all that separates Tim from overnight tenth-placed Kevin McNab and Willunga, who lead the way for the Australian contingent in this truly global (though arguably German-heavy) leaderboard.

Tomorrow sees the CCIO4*-S competitors take on a bold, technical cross-country course designed by Paris Olympics designer Pierre le Goupil, though there’s been some consternation in the ranks — justifiably so — by riders concerned about the extreme heat forecast for tomorrow. But although the officials were lobbied to relocate the afternoon cross-country session to the morning, which would mean displacing the CCI2*-L to the afternoon, or even consider moving it to a considerably cooler Sunday, they were firm in their resolve, citing the FEI’s heat index guidelines as justification for their call. That means we’ll see the CCIO4*-S cross-country run from 12.30 p.m. local time (11.30 a.m. BST/6.30 a.m. EST) to an estimated 18.00 local time (17.00 BST/12.00 p.m. EST) — and you’ll be able to follow along with all the action via the dedicated livestream.

Until next time: Go Eventing!

The top ten at the culmination of the dressage phase at Haras du Pin.

Mollie Summerland and Charly van ter Heiden dance their way to a 22.5, putting them at the front of the pack by over four penalties. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Few riders have captured the public’s collective heart so wholly as 24-year-old Mollie Summerland, who became Luhmühlen’s youngest-ever winner last year with her longtime partner Charly van ter Heiden, and who has been so open about her mental health journey. But far from just being a pair that inspires deep sentiment, they’re also an enormously formidable duo — particularly in the first phase, for which they receive valuable help and training from pure dressage riders Carl Hester and Olivia Oakeley. But while it might come as little surprise to her many fans that she scored a 22.5 today to take a 4.3 point lead, Mollie actually arrived at Haras du Pin wondering if she might be in too deep with such a high-calibre field. Since settling into her surroundings, though, she’s embraced the challenge with a smile on her face, viewing the chance to compete against most of the world’s best riders as an exceptional educational opportunity.

“It definitely is the toughest field that we’ve ever competed against — probably on a par with the standard that was at Badminton, but obviously here we’ve got the Germans out in full force,” says Mollie. “So I’m trying to use it as a really good experience, just to be inspired by the way that they work their horses, and having the opportunity to compete against some of the world’s best. I’m trying to spin it on its head and look at it really positively!”

But although she’s learning from the riders around her, Mollie is determined not to change anything for her thirteen-year-old gelding, who comes here off the back of a comeback win in Barbury’s CCI4*-S last month.

“It’s an amazing opportunity to be able to see some of the best riders in the world and how they work their horses and their ringcraft whilst they’re in the arena. I’ve seen people like Michael Jung and Julia Krajewski working their horses and lunging them, and I’ve tried not to let that dictate what I do with Charly — because at the end of the day, I know him best and what works for him, and the system I use to get the best out of him. It’s quite hard not to be tempted to try what other people are doing, but at the end of the day, everyone has their own system for their horse. The dressage is something I definitely have a lot of confidence in, and so I can trust that system.”

Mollie Summerland and Charly van ter Heiden. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Despite the soaring temperatures, which tipped into serious heatstroke territory today, Charly has been particularly fresh since his arrival on Tuesday evening — which required some serious planning for this morning’s exercise sessions.

“Yesterday, he was a very different horse — he was quite lit up in the trot-up. There were bad flies around, and he’s actually quite sensitive to things like that, so I had to make a plan so that he was definitely as rideable as he could be in the arena today. That obviously really worked, because he’s a different horse today,” says Mollie.

That meant that Mollie could use Charly’s residual spice to her advantage — particularly when she realised that Haras du Pin, unlike most other events, has riders complete their final warm-up in the main arena, with all of its considerable atmosphere.

“It’s quite a strange set-up that they’ve got here — it’s unique,” says Mollie. “You can work your horse in an arena that’s right next to the one in which you’ll do your test, and I think for some horses that’s not going to work, because they might switch off and lose that bit of sparkle that they’d normally take with them into the arena. So I was quite conscious of that, and I kept doing lots of walking in the arena next door, because I didn’t want him to lose that bit of wow factor. I was definitely not tempted to do too much in there, and I was also very conscious that the more I did in the heat, the more sweaty he’d get, and the more the flies would come after him — that was something I was really conscious of. When he foams up and starts getting irritated by the flies, that’s when things like the walk work become really difficult.”

That had been an issue that plagued the pair in their nonetheless leading Luhmühlen dressage test last year, but they had no such issues today, and never scored lower than the odd seven throughout their test.

“He felt brilliant in the test,” she says. “I’m always such a perfectionist that I’ll pull it apart and think there’s things that can be better, but apart from the left shoulder-in, which I need to learn to ride better, I couldn’t pull it apart too much. He did everything I asked of him and he was very rideable. His halts were very good, which is nice, because it’s actually quite a difficult movement for him, just to stand still and square.”

Though their test went much smoother today than at Luhmühlen, it was that experience that provided much of the intel Mollie needed to prepare her horse today. Today’s temperatures reached a balmy 33 degrees Celsius — that’s 91.4 Fahrenheit — but even they weren’t a patch on Luhmühlen’s weeklong highs of 96.8, which the gelding coped with remarkably well, despite his blood percentage of less than 25%.

“Whenever I feel myself worrying about the heat or the flies, I try and think about what situations I’ve been that have been similar, and I take confidence from that. I know he’s gone in seriously hot weather a few times before, like at the Fontainebleau Young Rider Europeans and at Luhmühlen, so I just use that to reassure myself that we’ve done this before and we can do it again,” she says. And, of course, it’s a real confidence-giver to be back abroad, where the tracks have a very different flavour to those in the UK — and it’s one that suits the German horse down to the ground.

“Foreign tracks always have plenty of places where you can run out — it’s lots of things like corners and arrowheads,” says Mollie. “I think there’ll be plenty of places where people will have 20s; it definitely won’t be a dressage competition, but every time I come abroad I feel that these tracks really suit Charly. He’s not strong and he’s easy to turn, but equally, you have to be on your game the whole way around. It’ll definitely reward the riders that have good partnerships with their horses — and hopefully that’s us!”

Sophie Leube and Jadore Moi make a great start to their final bid for Pratoni selection. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

The German entry at this year’s event is arguably the most formidable national front, and so it comes as little surprise to see their team lead the Nations Cup by a healthy 7.4 points — but the competition within the German rankings, of course, remains formidable, as they each fight for their chance to go to next month’s World Championships. One of the ‘new’ faces looking to join the ranks of Michi and Julia is Sophie Leube, a former apprentice rider for Ingrid Klimke who made headlines when winning Boekelo last season with Jadore Moi — in just a second-ever CCI4*-L run for both horse and rider. Those in the know, though, are achingly aware of the rider’s exceptional talent, which has seen her pilot the hot, clever mare to the dressage lead at Aachen in 2021 and follow it up with a fifth place finish there this summer. Arguably, she’d have been the one rider to go head to head with Mollie today – but such was the accuracy and expression in our overnight leader’s test that even a very smart bit of work and a 26.8 wouldn’t see them top the board on day one. Sophie and Jadore Moi will head out of the start box on Saturday in second position for the German team — but with their eyes firmly on a prize that could come to fruition in five weeks’ time.

Malin Hansen-Hotopp’s expressive Carlitos Quidditch K impresses a tough ground jury for overnight third. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

German team pathfinder Malin Hansen-Hotopp got the team’s day off to a super start, posting the first of just nine sub-30 scores with her expressive ten-year-old, Carlitos Quidditch K. Though the day felt, by and large, like a tough-scoring one, their test was a significant international personal best of 26.9, proving that the rangy gelding is really coming into his own this season as he gains in strength.

Tim Price ends the day with two in the top ten — including last year’s Pau winner and Pratoni pick of choice Falco. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

It was a good day in the office for Tim Price who, along with wife Jonelle, brings a packed lorry of contenders to this event. He’s finished the day with two in the top ten, taking overnight eighth with last year’s Pau winner Falco and fourth with the ten-year-old Selle Français Coup de Coeur Dudevin, a former Chris Burton ride who did two internationals with Jonelle last season before joining Tim’s string. They earned a 27.1 today, easily besting their only previous international score — a 31.7 earned at Millstreet CCI4*-L in June, where they finished second.

Gaspard Maksud and Zaragosa. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

UK-based Frenchman Gaspard Maksud has been floating around at this level for a couple of seasons now, accruing mileage with his first four-star mount Cado Louvo, but it’s since debuting the excellent Zaragoza at the level that he’s really stepped into the spotlight. Though she’s just nine years old, she’s picked up some seriously exciting results since making her debut at Bicton’s tough CCI4*-S last year: she finished twentieth there in an enormous field, wherein the final Tokyo selection trial was taking place, and followed it up with tenth in Blenheim’s eight- and nine-year-old CCI4*-S. This year has seen her take fourth place in Burnham Market’s CCI4*-S and Saumur’s CCI4*-L, and she was Gaspard’s partner for his French team debut at Aachen last month, where the pair were on excellent form until they had an unlucky stumble in the final water. It’s hard to hold that against her, though, particularly when you consider that the mare had not only never faulted previously in an FEI event — she’d also made the time in eight of her ten international runs.

Today, aware that the eyes of the selectors would be upon them, they upped their ante even more, delivering a 27.4 that puts them in equal fifth and represents their best-ever international score.

Alina Dibowski delivers another competitive test with the excellent Barbados 26. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

They’re joined in fifth place by Germany’s Alina Dibowski, the supremely talented 21-year-old daughter of Olympian Andreas Dibowski. She partnered Barbados 26, her former Junior and Young Rider Europeans mount, to a characteristically smart test that very nearly rivalled the 26.8 they earned when finishing sixth in Luhmühlen’s hot CCI4*-S in June.

Jesse Campbell and Diachello overcome a near disaster to earn a 28.1. Photo by Bruce Haskell.

New Zealand’s Jesse Campbell has an undeniable talent in his Olympic ride Diachello, who particularly impressed at Kentucky in 2021, where he finished 11th — but the first phase hasn’t always been smooth sailing. The 12-year-old Holsteiner can fluctuate between excellent scores in the 20s and tenser efforts in the mid-30s, even nipping up into the 40s at the test event at Pratoni — but it’s evident that his rider has been putting in the hours behind the scenes to settle him into his work. That effort was put to the test today when, early on in the pair’s test, an enormous parasol from the neighbouring bar took flight, soaring ten metres and taking out a group of spectators (and one startled German Shepherd). Though no one was hurt, it would have been enough to send most horses running for the hills — but Diachello didn’t so much as flick an ear in its direction, instead continuing his smooth course to a 28.1 and overnight seventh, just ahead of fellow Kiwi teammates Tim Price and Pau winner Falco, who were typically excellent for a 28.6 and eighth.

The top ten is rounded out by a German two-hander, and it’s one that represents either end of the experience spectrum: former World Champion Sandra Auffarth and her 2022 Aachen winner Viamant du Matz sit in equal ninth place on a 29.8 with 24-year-old Jerôme Robiné, who’s part of the German federation’s Warendorf training system, and Brave Heart 10.

Germany leads the way in the team competition, followed by the Kiwi contingent in second place, and Great Britain third out of the twelve nations contesting this Nations Cup, which concluded its first phase today.

Tomorrow sees another whopping line-up of individual horses and riders come forward to battle for the Haras crown — and, of course, coveted spots at next month’s World Championships. You can watch along via the live feed, and tune back in for more updates from Normany right here on EN.

The individual top ten at the halfway point of Haras du Pin’s enormous CCIO4*-S dressage.

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