Classic Eventing Nation

It’s 5.15 p.m., and we’re moments away from starting the post-cross-country press conference at Military Boekelo – a press conference that’ll be bellowed over the sounds of the two closest beer tents, one of which is playing ABBA’s ‘Dancing Queen’ at top volume, while the other plays ‘You’re the One That I Want’ from Grease at a level that I think the CIA have actually recently adopted as an advanced interrogation technique when dealing with terrorists.

In the media centre, the floor is thrumming. One of the elder statesmen of the press team – a man who once famously asked Bettina Hoy ‘if it might be time for you to be fired’ from her then-role as Dutch chef d’equipe in a press conference here – is chain-smoking inside the tent, and so to add to the sounds of the seventies and the eighties and the debriefing on mud and jumps and all that other stuff that we thought about for many, many hours today, I — a woman with a terrible case of the Boeke-flu — am also quietly preparing to gag up a lung like a cat relieving itself of a half-digested mouse. I’ve made it this far into my career without actively letting loose a throatful of phlegm onto Laura Collett’s riding boots. I’m not sure I can continue on in that vein much longer.

If it all sounds a bit like life is unravelling at the seams, I’d say that’s a fair way to describe the faintly comedic cross-country day that unfolded today for hours, and hours, and hours. No, seriously: what was originally meant to be a seven-hour spread of nearly 100 horses and riders ended up being stretched out over an even long period of time thanks to several holds – for falls and fence repairs, yes, but also because, inexplicably, the power kept going out – and so instead of watching horses go cross-country, we all mostly spent the day watching two probably quite tipsy Dutch guys get their gator so extraordinarily stuck in the knee-deep mud that we’re genuinely not sure it’ll ever come out. But man, did they try: one of them even took off his bowtie to get into the right sort of mindset to continue mostly just sitting there and looking bemused.

Ruh-roh.

Don’t do it, man. It’s not worth it.

I’ve never actually encountered mud at an event like what I saw today. It made that really wet Badminton last year look hot and hard in comparison. In the morning, a man in a digger was hard at work picking up great scoopfuls of the stuff, moving it over by a few feet, and then patting it flat, but if you were silly enough to walk across it (which I was, several times, while carrying several cameras), you still pretty much disappeared into it.

Walking anywhere took about four times longer than it usually would because with every step, you had to excavate yourself, although none of these little details stopped the hoards of young women who’d arrived in black cowboy boots, leather miniskirts, and boxy blazers from doing their (cold? Damp?) thang.

Nothing has ever spoken to me quite the way this fish spoke to me, almost literally, because I’m running enough of a fever that wooden animals could definitely become sentient for me soon.

It’s hard to expect sense outside the ropes at Boekelo, which is more like a festival than any other event in the world, and caters largely to a non-horsey audience who are there for the countless parties unfolding all over the course throughout the day.

But on the course itself, it was a different story: the going was miraculously good, all things considered, because it had been protected as best as it could be in the very damp lead-up to the event, and the one bit of it that had disintegrated a bit too much to be functional – the stretch comprising fences 4, 5, and 6 – was removed from the course before the start of competition.

That did mean, of course, that some things were always going to be a bit harder. Horses and riders would come to the first water at 8ABC much sooner than anticipated, without the first combination at 5AB to help prepare them, and perhaps that did contribute to the fact that we saw eighteen competitors run into trouble there, including the first-phase Dutch National Championships leaders, Olympians Sanne de Jong and Enjoy, or the USA’s Sophia Middlebrook and Prontissimo, who had three run-outs here, or Alexa Gartenberg and Cooley Kildaire, who slipped on the flat between elements.

It was by far the most influential question of the day, followed by the main water at 20ABCD, which proved tricky for eight competitors, and the perennially tough mound question at 23ABCD, which caught out seven.

Laura Collett and Dacapo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

One person who was never going to be worried about course changes, slippery patches, suddenly-much-earlier intense water questions, or any of the normal sort of things that competitors worry about is first-phase leader Laura Collett. That’s because, to put it both honestly and as kindly as is possible, her horse, the fifteen-year-old Holsteiner Dacapo, is just… a Magic 8 Ball of an animal. You give him a shake, and whatever response floats to the surface of the murky blue liquid is the one that’s his truth for the day, even if it makes no sense at all. And so Laura knew that the only thing that would affect his ability to jump a competitive clear and retain his lead today would be whether or not he felt like it. If he did, nothing would be too hard for him – if he didn’t, absolutely nothing at all would be easy.

Fortunately for Laura’s sanity, the former proved true. The pair added just 1.6 time penalties to their first-phase score of 23.7, and will retain their lead going into tomorrow morning’s final horse inspection and the subsequent showjumping finale with a few seconds in hand.

“The kind of things [that might worry other riders] don’t really make a difference with him, because it’s not that he has a problem with anything in particular, like the water coming early wouldn’t make a difference to him,” says Laura. “He’s either going or he’s not. I genuinely didn’t think he would go a yard in the mud, because that would be too much effort for him – but as always, he likes to prove me wrong! I said to the owners last night, ‘enjoy today, because we’re not going to do that tomorrow’. They’re like, ‘oh, but he’s never really been in the mud before’. I was like, ‘there’s a reason for that! Yeah, we don’t go in the mud’. But he was amazing. And the thing with him is you literally know when you leave the start box, he’s either going or he’s not. As soon as he left the start box, he was ears pricked and let’s go, like, ‘I know where I am’.”

There’s something to be said for the kind of mental compartmentalisation that would allow you to get on a horse as black and white – and somehow still as topsy-turvy – as Dacapo is, but over the years, Laura’s figured out that the trick to equilibrium, and a peaceful life, is just taking all the expectations away. At home, Dacapo rarely schools, and is mostly ridden by his best pal, Laura’s head girl Tilly Hughes, and his day-to-day goals are mostly, well, ‘have fun’ and not an awful lot else.

“It’s definitely a love-hate relationship,” laughs Laura. “I don’t really ride him at all at home, because he just drives mad, because you can’t make him do anything. We’d have a lot of arguments. I had a dressage lesson on Wednesday, and it was horrendous, and then he comes out for his test and it’s like butter wouldn’t melt – he’s a little angel and goes and does his test, and it’s all fine. I think it’s because I don’t bother getting worked up about it now, because I’ve learned there is absolutely nothing I can do — like, there’s nothing I can practice at home, there’s nothing I can do to change the outcome. It will be what it will be. So what’s the point in getting stressed? You never know what he’s going to do, and there’s never any rhyme nor reason, and we can’t figure out why he likes certain things – like, he shouldn’t like Aachen, because it’s quite tough on them, but he loves it. He’s a strange character!”

Laura Collett and Dacapo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

He’s also, Laura admits, a very fit character right now.

“He only does the odd bit of schooling, so at home, he’s mostly doing fitness work. He did all the fitness work alongside Hester for Luhmühlen, and then all the fitness work with London 52 leading up to Paris, and then he’s just kept going – so he’s super fit, and really, he has to be super fit, because he doesn’t love to put a huge amount of effort into things!”

But, she continues, “when he’s rideable like that, he’s amazing – he’s so, so good on his lines and lovely to ride.”

This isn’t Laura and Dacapo’s first time leading the way at Boekelo going into the final phase: they did the same in 2022, though had to settle for third place after tipping a rail, and they tipped one, too, last year when finishing sixth here.

“We’ve been in this position before, so we’ll see – but he’s been fantastic so far, so I’m hoping we don’t have a disaster tomorrow,” she says with a grin, before presumably going off to check if Mercury is in retrograde or similar.

Sarah Bullimore and Corimiro. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

First-day leaders Sarah Bullimore and her eight-year-old homebred Corimiro climbed back up from fifth place to overnight second after delivering one of just five clear rounds inside the time today. They came late in the day when, in theory at least, the ground was to be at its worst, but one of today’s great surprises was how well it held up – and how quickly competitors were able to run over it, too.

“He’s an eight-year-old and a CCI4*-L first-timer, so this was a little bit coming into the unknown. And with the state of the ground a couple of days ago, I’d been thinking – ‘is this the best trip for a first time four long, to give him a happy trip?’ But the ground team has done an amazing job, and they’ve absolutely moved heaven and earth. It felt fantastic out there, and he felt absolutely unreal. But then, he’s always been a class horse.”

Getting Corimoro – another son of her former team mount Lilly Corinne, who’s also the dam of her diminutive European bronze medallist Corouet – to Boekelo is something of a breakwater in a stint of rotten luck.

“We’ve had a couple of rubbish years. We had a virus in the in the yard last year, which pretty well wiped us out, so we couldn’t come here last year,” says Sarah, who found Corimiro and Corouet the worst affected by it. “But he’s bounced back. We’ve had our doubters in the past couple of years, but I hope this has put a lot of that to bed.”

Julia Krajewski and Nickel 21. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Julia Krajewski and her Paris Olympian Nickel 21 moved down a spot from second to overnight third after adding 4.4 time penalties – but she won’t be rueing that much after their day very nearly ended early at the Mound at 23ABCD.

“I’m really proud of him, because I basically made no decision [on a stride] to one of the skinnies, and he crawled over it,” she says. “I nearly fell off, but he picked us both up and just went on. I think I’m always learning something new about my horses, and I always knew he was very genuine and honest, but today I’m even more in awe of my horse because he just really, really wants to do the job.”

Their little whoopsy necessitated one of the earlier holds on course, because they managed to yank the top bar of the skinny – a non-deformible fence – from the fence, but what’s a bit of thrills and spills between friends? The pair then cruised confidently home, and while those few time penalties might have cost them the chance at the overnight lead, Julia’s not at all worried about them.

“He’s not a Thoroughbred, but I think he’ll learn in time to be a bit more quick here and there. I couldn’t be more happy with him,” she says.

Britain’s Max Warburton and his Badminton mount Monbeg Exclusive climbed from ninth to fourth after coming home just two seconds over the optimum time, while France’s Benjamin Massie and Figaro Fonroy finished on the same time to move from 14^th to fifth.

Hallie Coon and Cute Girl. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

The best of the US riders was Hallie Coon, who might have been frustrated to find herself on a 30.4 and in 23^rd place after dressage with Cute Girl, with whom she sat second in the first phase last year – but unlike last year, when the still inexperienced Holsteiner had a green run-out on course, this year, they were foot-perfect across the board. That allowed them to deliver the first clear inside the time of the day, and the two years of intense hard work and long, slow bonding was writ large across her face as she celebrated across the finish line. They now sit in sixth place going into tomorrow, and just over a pole off the lead – which is a heartening place to be when you’re sitting on one of the best showjumpers in the field.

Tim Price and Global Quest. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Tim Price added two seconds to climb from seventeenth to seventh with Global Quest, a new ride inherited from the late Georgie Campbell – and while the two haven’t been together long, Georgie’s impeccable production of the gelding, who enjoyed a clear round here with her last year, shone through in his ease in adapting to a new rider.

Calvin Böckmann and Altair de la Cense. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Germany’s Calvin Böckmann and his former Young Riders mount Altair de la Cense looked to be going great guns around the course, although they picked up three seconds somewhere along the way – but their very good effort was still enough to move them into eighth place, up from 14^th. Ninth is held by Aoife Clark and Sportsfield Freelance, and tenth by Susie Berry and Clever Trick, both of whom came home inside the time, and both of whom contributed to the overall lead held by Team Ireland in the Nations Cup. Just over a rail behind them is the USA in second place, and then, it’s a solid three-and-a-bit rails to the bronze position, held by Team New Zealand.

Susie Berry and Clever Trick. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Speaking of team USA, it was a super day for those riders on the fourth-berth lineup: beyond Hallie’s excellent result, Phillip Dutton and the exciting Possante added six time penalties, moving them from ninth to fourteenth; Cassie Sanger and Redfield Fyre added just 1.6 time penalties to climb from 68^th to 21^st, and Mary Bess Davis and Imperio Magic added 6.8 time to move from 65^th to 27^th.

Outside of the team line-up, it was a rather more challenging day: Alexa Gartenberg and Cooley Kildaire had an unlucky slip-up on the flat at fence 8ABC, while Sophia Middleton and Prontissimo were eliminated there for accumulated refusals. Olivia Dutton and Sea of Clouds were going beautifully until they reached the main water at 20ABCD and the gelding stopped suddenly at the log drop question, unseating Olivia, who landed on her feet and was unharmed.

Cosby Green and the young Cooley Seeing Magic had an educational round, picking up 20 penalties at the mound question at 23D and 14.8 time penalties to drop from 19^th to 53^rd, and after running I’ll Have Another to a clear round with just 3.6 time penalties, which saw him climb from 95^th place to 31^st, Lauren Nicholson opted to withdraw her second ride, Larcot Z.

Mary Bess Davis and Imperio Magic. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

In all, 72 of the 92 starters completed, and 48 did so with a clear round – though just five managed to add neither jumping nor time penalties.

There are tight margins throughout the individual leaderboard: one rail and change covers the top four, and two rails covers the top eleven, with tightly packed scores continuing on further down the leaderboard and offering plenty of climbing opportunities tomorrow.

Phillip Dutton and Possante. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

We’ll be back bright and early with news from the final horse inspection, set to take place from 8.30 a.m. (7.30 a.m. BST/2.30 a.m. EST). Until then: Go Eventing.

The top ten at the end of an influential cross-country day at Boekelo.

The Nations Cup leaderboard after cross-country.

Military Boekelo Links: Website | Times & Live Scores | Live Stream | EN’s Coverage

Laura Collett and Dacapo take the first-phase lead at Boekelo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

“Look, if I could understand this horse, my life would be a lot easier,” laughs Laura Collett of the fifteen-year-old Dacapo, who marched into the lead in the final session today with a sparkling, established test and a score of 23.7. “What I do know, though, is that for whatever reason, he loves Boekelo – so I’ll keep bringing him!”

That game plan has worked out pretty successfully for Laura and the historically mercurial Holsteiner so far: the Dacapo of old, the one who, say, got himself eliminated at Tattersalls in 2019 just weeks after making light work of the tough Chatsworth track, or who spent the entirety of his admittedly short 2020 season picking up 20s that all felt pretty avoidable, has never had a blip at busy Boekelo in his three trips here. And more than that, he’s become seriously competitive, too: in 2022 he finished third, having gone sub-22 in the first phase, and last year, he was sixth with a cross-country clear inside the time. And so now, Boekelo is his big party for the year, even if Laura does occasionally give him a go somewhere that she reckons might tick some of the same boxes, such as Luhmühlen last year, where she ultimately retired him on course.

Laura Collett and Dacapo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

He’s a mysterious sort of soul, certainly, but we reckon Laura’s not too sad about having a tailor-made excuse to come to the party capital of eventing each autumn. And when you can come and party AND top the leaderboard? That’s even better – which she knows well, having won the whole thing back in 2019 with London 52.

“He’s very, very pleased with himself,” she jokes as Dacapo roots around for treats and praise from the support team surrounding him. “He just seems to like it – he likes to relax and have a beer and enjoy the party! He was very naughty two days ago – he planted and was fairly disgusting to ride, and that’s when I knew he’d be alright today.”

Laura Collett and Dacapo. Photo by Alex Jeffery.

He’s perhaps the most predictable unpredictable horse in the field – but when he’s on side, Laura says, he’s a joy to be partnered with.

“He can do all the moves as long as he’s rideable and in front of the leg, and I think the key thing today was that he was in front of me, so I could actually ride him and we could go in and have a nice time,” she explains.

While much of the talk around the competition grounds is about how the tough conditions will affect the state of play tomorrow, Laura’s not at all worried about the mud: “It’s a great track, and to be honest, he’s either going to go or he’s not going to go, and that’ll come down to him, not the ground!”

Julia Krajewski and Nickel 21. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Julia Krajewski and the ten-year-old Nickel 21, who was pulled in from the travelling reserve position to represent Germany at this summer’s Paris Olympics, came very close to repeating last year’s feat of leading the first phase here – but since that ended up with them going for a swim in the main water, we reckon that if there’s any superstitious side to the Tokyo gold medallist, she’s probably quite happy to settle for second this time around.

And there’s more than just a good placing, a great score of 24.4, and a rewriting of fortunes to be happy about – just weeks ago, she wasn’t sure if she might lose the ride on the talented young gelding until a longtime supporter, Prof. Dr. Bernd Heicke, stepped up to purchase the horse, who had long prior been owned by his stud, Gestüt Fohlenhof. When Nickel was initially sold on from the stud, Julia purchased him for her then-student, Sophia Rössel – and when Sophia decided to step away from riding  and go travelling, Julia took the reins back in 2022.

For a while, he was the yard ‘fun horse’ – he’d go to competitions here and there, always performing well and usually placing, but without any expectations that he’d become a top-level horse. But then he just kept showing, and kept exceeding those expectations, and suddenly, he was a four-star horse, and a very good one at that: he was third on his debut at the level at Strzegom just last year, finished on the podium on his next two outings, and then won the CCIO4*-S at Arville last August. He was ninth in last year’s Blenheim CCI4*-S for eight- and nine-year-olds, had his whoopsy at Boekelo in the water where trips and stumbles were common – we’ve been told a full resurfacing has happened ahead of this year’s competition, which is welcome news – and then rerouted to Montelibretti for a second crack at CCI4*-L in November, finishing second.

And this year? He won Aachen, finished in the top ten in the bumper selection trial at Luhmühlen, was named the travelling reserve for Paris, and then stepped up to the plate when Sandra Auffarth’s Viamant du Matz couldn’t present, ultimately finishing eleventh individually.

All that to say, in short, that he’s a serious horse, and one that Julia is deeply fond of – but after Paris, the Rössels decided the time had come to bid farewell to their stint at ownership, and suddenly, Julia found herself right back in 2018, when she returned home from the World Equestrian Games with fischerChipmunk FRH, then just Chipmunk, to be told that he was being put on the market. She would lose the ride, shortly thereafter, to Michael Jung, for whom the horse was bought with help from the German Federation.

Julia Krajewski and Nickel 21. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Luckily, though, Julia was granted a reprieve this time.

“They kept it between us, and there was no pressure that the sale had to be made immediately, but I knew I wanted it solved quickly and not to wait around for someone to have the chance to offer really crazy money,” says Julia. “And the Professor, who’s really the best person, said to me, ‘look, I’ve said it before, if they ever wanted to step away from the sport, I’d do it.’ So it didn’t happen in half a day, but it happened – and that’s something that makes you so, so grateful as a rider. You don’t ever know how to repay these people for what they do for you. To be able to keep Nickel and not have to give away another horse you’ve brought to the top level… I mean, winning Aachen and going to the Olympics, that really does something with the bond between you and a horse if you do it together. And so when he said he’d do it, I really cried for a long while.”

Now, having enjoyed a close partnership with her friends the Rössels, and with a concrete security on side, she’s able to look ahead to a bright, and hopefully long, future career with the young talent.

“I know I could maybe bring up another horse to the top level, but I would just love at some point to sit on a horse where I’ve done, you know, five championships, lots of five-stars, and I know how it’ll be,” she says. “And I don’t always have to think, ‘will he do this? Will he do that?’”

And en route to those moments, there are these performances, which make Julia “so proud of Nickel. He’s just such a dude! I think he can become more fluent in the trot, because he’s still a bit of a showjumper in that way, and he’s still growing and getting more strong. But in the end, he’s only ten and in his third season of eventing, and he’s still getting experience. And he’ll only get experience if he goes out and does things, and so that’s why we’re here.”

Malin Hansen-Hotopp and Carlitos Quidditch K. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

German team anchor Malin Hansen-Hotopp and Carlitos Quidditch K came into the ring as the penultimate combination of the day – and the 96^th pair we watch produce a test over the last two days, not that we’re counting or anything – and made the trip count, posting a 25.2 to take provisional third place. It’s a score the 12-year-old gelding has only ever bettered once, at any level: that was in 2022 at Blenheim, when the pair posted a 24.6 and ultimately went on to win.

“I’m really happy with him – he stayed patient the whole time, and I was able to do everything I wanted to do,” says Malin, who largely trains on her own and would be a consistent high-20s to very low-30s scorer with this gelding. “I live really far away from everybody, so I work a lot by myself. Then I asked Bettina [Hoy] if she could just help me a little bit at the competitions, and maybe through the winter, so we can get the marks. And then yesterday, one of the girls was watching the test while I trained – so I think it’s just great teamwork, and everybody just puts the effort in.”

Malin, who was part of last year’s European Championships team and finished fourth at Kentucky this year, was a close contender for selection for the Paris Olympics – and while a strong start at Boekelo doesn’t quite make up for not going, Malin’s still excited to be in a better-than-hoped-for position.

“There’s no Michi Jung here, just Julia [of the big guns] – so it was great that Emma [Brüssau] did such a good test, and now I have the 25, which I’d never actually thought about. And I’d never thought about the fact that we might be able to be in front of Great Britain! So that feels good – but I do think tomorrow is the important day here.”

Emma Brüssau and Dark Desire GS. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Did 25-year-old Emma Brüssau ever imagine, before entering the arena at Boekelo as the German team’s second competitor, that she’d take over the lead long held by yesterday’s stars, Sarah Bullimore and Corimiro?

“Not at all,” she laughs. But, she says of her longtime partner Dark Desire GS, “she’s felt really good in the warm-up and over the last few days – so motivated and fresh.”

Emma, who rides as part of the Warendorf training system for young German up-and-comers, has plenty of history with the now fifteen-year-old mare: they came together in 2016, and won individual silver at the 2018 Young Rider European Championships in Fontainebleau, before returning to become the champions in 2019. Since then, they’ev stepped up to four-star, ridden for Germany on Nations Cup teams, and moved on up again to five-star, at Luhmühlen last year, where they finished 21^st.

And so now, with Emma thinking ahead to next season, which she expects will be the mare’s last before a well-earned retirement, it’s all about showing off everything they’ve learned along the way and enjoying every step of it. In doing so today, they delivered a 26.6, their best-ever CCI4*-L score, to take the lead for much of the afternoon and ultimately earn themselves first-phase fourth place ahead of Bullimore.

“She felt so good in the arena, and I was able to really enjoy riding her in there. She’s quite experienced now, and so I can rely on her to stay with me even in an arena like that, and we could just enjoy ourselves.”

The changes, says Emma, were a particular highlight of the test, “and the walk, which was quite motivated but still with me. She was really feeling so nice through the whole test.”

Kitty King and Cristal Fontaine. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Great Britain’s Kitty King and her 2018 Six-Year-Old World Champion Cristal Fontaine go into cross-country in seventh place on a score of 28. They just missed out on a more competitive mark in the extended trot at the very end of the test, when the striking grey gelding lost a touch of panache – an issue Kitty is well aware of, and which she’s found a rather exciting way to overcome. Her entry to the main arena was reminiscent of a cannonball going off – the pair exploded into the ring, quite tactically, before regaining their composure to prepare for their test.

“He’s quite lazy, and so we do a lot of working him forward so he’s in front of the leg,” says Kitty. “This was actually a slower entry than when we went into the ring at Burghley [for the guinea pig test] – I think [commentator] Nick Luck thought the racing was starting there! He’s a very laid-back horse, and he can lack a little bit of go sometimes, so it’s all very much to keep him in front of me. It worked out for us today until we finished our canter work, and then, unfortunately, we lost it in the extended trot, which is usually his party piece.”

Astier Nicolas and Alertamalib’or. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

France’s Astier Nicolas slots in to eighth place just four-tenths of a penalty – or one second tomorrow – behind her with Alertamabil’Or, himself a winner at the Young Horse World Championships at Le Lion in 2017 as a seven-year-old.

Now fourteen, Alertamalib’or is about as consistent as they come: he seldom strays out of the 27 to 30 bracket in this phase, and he’ll never surprise anyone with a 40 on the flat – “but nor will he come out and do a 20,” laughs Astier. “But I had a wonderful feeling in there, and there’s not much I’d have liked to go differently. He’s an experienced boy, and we know where he is in the dressage standards. Today’s been a day where he was really on my side, as he often and usually is – I don’t have any regrets coming out of the ring.”

Phillip Dutton and Possante. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Phillip Dutton is the best of the US contingent at the end of the first phase, and part of a four-way tie for ninth place that sees him share a score of 28.7 with Austria’s Lea Siegl and Van Helsing P, Britain’s Izzy Taylor and SBH Big Wall, and Max Warburton and Monbeg Exclusive.

His excellent test came in partnership with Possante, who he took on just over a year ago from British competitor Emily King.

“He’s a cool horse – he wants to please, and he wants to do a good job, so it’s fun to ride him every day,” says Phillip. “You’ve got to get to know each other a bit, and just this year I feel like he’s ‘my’ horse. It takes a while for them to know what you’re looking for, and he’s quite a sensitive horse, so you can’t rush that kind of thing with him. You’ve got to be patient in how you get your point across with him.”

That sensitivity, Phillip continues, makes Possante “a very spooky horse – you can almost hear his brain going, ‘I know I shouldn’t spook!’”

For his first experience of a significant atmosphere, though, the charismatic eleven-year-old excelled himself – and while he’s not yet been ridden for the time at four-star while under Phillip’s auspices, this sophomore CCI4*-L could well see the team anchor put the gelding to the test under pressure.

Hallie Coon and Cute Girl. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Last year, team US thirds Hallie Coon and Cute Girl went into cross-country in second place, and while they didn’t quite pull off the same feat this year thanks to some anticipation ahead of the walk-to-canter transition, and then a late flying change as a result of that anticipation, they once again showed how much the little Holsteiner has developed in her body. She fairly floated into the ring, not with the flicky-toed front end that used to be a sure sign of tension through her body, but with genuine lift, impulsion, and a connection between horse and rider, and leg and hand, that’s been two years of hard work in the making.

“We’ve been focusing on order versus chaos,” laughs Hallie. “It’s been a little bit chaotic in the past, and sometimes, chaos looks fancy – but we’re working more on order.”

That focus certainly kept the wheels on the bus more than they feasibly could have been: this week, Cute Girl is joined in the stables at Boekelo by two of Hallie’s younger mares, who go on to Le Lion d’Angers next week, and that’s given her the new experience of dealing with separation anxiety in the workplace.

“I think I probably got the best out of her that I could have,” concedes Hallie. “She’s been really, really happy this week, and it’s often about keeping her comfortable and in her zone. She got a little spicy at the end of the walk, and that affected the first change, so it obviously wasn’t a perfect test, but onwards and upwards.”

Their test earned them a 30.4, which puts them in 23^rd place going into cross country – a phase in which the pair have progressed in leaps and bounds since starting to train with British team performance manager Dickie Waygood last year.

“We’re going to give it everything we’ve got tomorrow,” says Hallie, who has two four-star victories under her belt with the mare so far this year. “She’s a mudder, and she doesn’t mind the wet in most circumstances, so we’re going to fly through it.”

Mary Bess Davis and Imperio Magic. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

We didn’t get a chance to catch up with Georgia’s Mary Bess Davis, who’s making her long-awaited European competitive debut this week as the pathfinder for the US team, but she and the ten-year-old Belgian-bred Imperio Magic made a sweet start to their week, putting one of the horse’s best four-star scores of 35.8 on the board to sit 65^th overnight.

For a young horse, he’s actually got quite a lot of mileage at this level now: he and Mary Bess, who owns as well as rides him, finished seventh in Tryon’s CCI4*-L earlier this year and fourth in the CCI4*-L at TerraNova last November. We’re looking forward to catching them tackling tomorrow’s track in their trademark efficient fashion, and we’ll bring you a full debrief with them over the weekend to find out how the European dream is in reality.

Cassie Sanger and Redfield Fyre. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Cassie Sanger and Redfield Fyre put a 36.4 on the board as team USA’s second pair, which puts them in 68^th place overnight and reflects, there or thereabouts, where the Dutch-bred eleven-year-old is at in this phase.

“It was one of his better tests he’s put in all year,” says Cassie, who made her debut here last year at the age of just nineteen with Fernhill Zoro.

“The dressage phase is not his favorite, and it’s definitely hard work — but I’m really happy with how he handled the atmosphere,” she says of this year’s mount. “He’s just so level going into the ring, all the time. He doesn’t get wound up or anything. So it’s just keeping him loose and supple, and he’s getting stronger and stronger with that.”

While the buzzy, distracting environs of Boekelo’s main arena can be off-putting for some horses, Redfield Fyre doesn’t mind a bit of atmosphere, as Cassie discovered this spring.

“I think he actually he likes it quite a bit,” she says. “Kentucky was his first real atmosphere this spring, where he did his first four-star and he just went in there like he was how he was in the warm-up. And same thing today – he just got a tiny bit spooked by a couple of the bushes, which is not unusual for him. He’s a little bit spooky at random things, but because he’s a horse who likes to work a bit lower, that can actually help to lift him up.”

Cassie’s amassed plenty of frequent flyer miles for a rider so young, and this year – her second season to see her competing on European soil – she’s feeling a happy familiarity with the whole process.

“I’m finding it much easier, and I’m much more comfortable in the atmospheres and the whole thing, especially with the cross country. I think that’s what sets European events apart. This is my second year at Boekelo; and so it’s nice to come back to an event that I’ve been to. It’s feeling much more familiar.”

The gritty, mud-loving Redfield Fyre will be an exciting horse to watch across tomorrow’s track: he and Cassie finished fourth in Bramham’s CCI4*-L for under-25s this summer, which runs over the same track as the main Bramham CCI4*-L class, commonly heralded as the toughest course of the level anywhere in the world. So a bit of mud over the generally very flat Dutch countryside? That’s something he can butter up and eat for breakfast.

And as for the teams, who came forward today to begin their fight for the Nations Cup finale title? It’ll surprise you not one bit, looking at the flags at the business end of this leaderboard, to learn that the Germans have clinched the first-phase lead, sitting on an aggregate score of 76.2, 4.4 penalties ahead of Great Britain. France, the de facto winners of the 2024 FEI Nations Cup series, sit third in the leg standings on an 87.8, 3.4 penalties behind the Brits. The Belgians are fourth of the eleven teams, while the USA currently sits in fifth on a score of 94.9.

The team standings after dressage.

The team riders will be the first to head out onto cross-country tomorrow, in a reversal of the schedule as we saw it over the two dressage days. They’ll kick off proceedings for us from 9.30 a.m. local time (that’s 8.30 a.m. BST/3.30 a.m. EST), with Belgium’s hugely experienced partnership of Karin Donckers and Fletcha Van’t Verahof, 20^th overnight on a score of 30, acting as pathfinders. You can find the times in full here, and for US rider times, keep reading.

• 9.46 a.m. (8.46 a.m. BST/3.46 a.m. EST) – Mary Bess Davis and Imperio Magic
• 10.30 a.m. (9.30 a.m. BST/4.30 a.m. EST) – Cassie Sanger and Redfield Fyre
• 11.26 a.m. (10.26 a.m. BST/5.26 a.m. EST) – Hallie Coon and Cute Girl
• 12.10 p.m. (11.10 a.m. BST/6.10 a.m. EST) – Phillip Dutton and Possante
• 13.09 p.m. (12.09 p.m. BST/7.09 a.m. EST) – Lauren Nicholson and I’ll Have Another
• 13.24 p.m. (12.24 p.m. BST/7.24 a.m. EST) – Olivia Dutton and Sea of Clouds
• 14.12 p.m. (13.12 p.m. BST/8.12 a.m. EST) – Alexa Gartenberg and Cooley Kildaire
• 14.21 p.m. (13.21 p.m. BST/8.32 a.m. EST) – Sophia Middlebrook and Prontissimo
• 15.27 p.m. (14.27 p.m. BST/9.27 a.m. EST) – Cosby Green and Cooley Seeing Magic
• 15.36 p.m. (14.36 p.m. BST/9.36 a.m. EST) – Lauren Nicholson and Larcot Z

We’ll join you here tomorrow for a full debrief on how Adrian Ditcham’s course ultimately exerts its influence on the competition, which sees 20 penalties cover the top 95 at the moment. We’re expecting some big surprises, probably a few overnight withdrawals, and a time that could prove influential, because with the amount of rain that’s fallen over the Twente venue in the lead-up to the event, it’s a real battlefield out there, and changes were being made to the course throughout the last two days. If you want to watch the day’s sport play out, you can follow along with the livestream here. Until next time: Go Eventing!

The top ten at the culmination of dressage in the Military Boekelo CCIO4*-L.

Military Boekelo Links: Website | Times & Live Scores | Live Stream | EN’s Coverage