The eventing overlords giveth, and the eventing overlords taketh away: such is the feeling on day one of the Longines Luhmühlen Horse Trials, anyway, where we were given so much – blazing sunshine, a sterling entry list, a free bar that stayed open late into the night yesterday, and Bruce Springsteen soundtracks every time an American rider so much as looked at the main arena. Delightful!
But then there was the day of sport itself. Across this morning’s CCI4*-S and this afternoon’s CCI5*, the ground juries were just… well, this:
We’ve seen 45 tests across the classes over the course of the day, and not a single one of them has broken the sub-30 barrier. The 40 barrier, though? Oh, we’re well acquainted at this point.
So is it excessively harsh judging, or is it a surprisingly poor standard of dressage? The truth, as it tends to, lies somewhere in the middle: no, we didn’t see any knock-your-socks-off, weep-over-the-extended-trot magic moments today, but we did see a lot of very pleasant, perfectly likeable efforts in the ring. Generally, I tend to think that if a score hits the 40s, one of two things has happened – there’s either been a disastrous mistake at some point, or the work throughout the test has been consistently marred by issues in the contact, the connection, the harmony. Today, though, I’d find myself watching a test that was, by any standards, fine – not a 25, but a low-to-mid-30s all day long, and then I’d glance at the scoreboard and see that it was trending on a 42. So whatever it is that the judges want, they’ve not yet seen it.
Of course, while tough marking can be demoralising in the moment, it’s at the end of the day – and even more so, at the end of the phase – that it can really be contextualised. A 31 on another day in another competition might mean that a horse and rider are miles off the pace early on; here, it would be the leading score. If the standard of scoring remains the same throughout tomorrow’s competition, then fine – it’s all relative, and while everyone might be wincing their way to a personal worst, they could still be just seconds away from taking the top spot. If it changes, and we see 20s being thrown at tomorrow’s competitors willy-nilly, that’s a very different kettle of fish.
Does this mean we need to sit on our hands and hope that Laura Collett and London 52 will somehow get a 32 tomorrow? Not at all, of course. This week’s draw has ensured that all our double-handed riders bring forward their top horses tomorrow, and many of our very competitive single-horse riders have also been put into the Friday mix, so it’s likely that we will see an uptick in the marking, and then it becomes a game of nuance, analysis, and arguing with each other in the judging breaks while we pull up Rechenstelle and make judging discrepancies into trump cards.
Laura Collett’s not-at-all impending 33 and all of our friendship-ruining arguments about dressage feel a bit like tomorrow’s problem, though. Today, we’ve finished the day with a leaderboard, even if nobody quite likes the numbers on it, and that means we’ve also finished the day with leaders.
Selina Milnes and Cooley Snapchat. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Sitting pretty in first place overnight is – can you believe it? – a British combination, who heads up a very near clean-sweep of the top ten for eventing’s most dominant nation. That’s Selina Milnes and the eleven-year-old Cooley Snapchat, who put a 31.5 on the board to move into prime position near the close of competition. That 31.5 isn’t actually wildly off the pace of the rangy gelding’s normal scores – at four-star, he’s often, though not always, a high-20s horse, and while we saw him put a 27.1 on the board in his five-star debut at Pau, he popped into the low-30s a couple of times at the level below last season.
But the work that the 2023 Bramham CCI4*-S winner produced today, Selina feels, perhaps warranted a slightly more generous number on the board. Her first indicator of her score was the final tally given by Katrin Eichinger-Kniely, the president of the ground jury, who awarded her a 35.2, significantly higher than the 29.1 given by the judge at M and 30.3 given by the judge at E.
Selina Milnes and Cooley Snapchat. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
“That’s what I was disappointed with – C is marked first, and I thought, ‘oh no’ – but obviously the other two liked it,” she continues. “I actually thought I’d get into the 20s. He didn’t really do too much wrong – [Team GB Performance Manager] Dickie [Waygood] said his quarters were slightly to the right on my first centre line, but other than that, I thought he was on the button and really good.”
Time and time again, we saw fresh, fit horses bubble over in the busy atmosphere of the ring – but that proved to be a help, rather than a hindrance, for Cooley Snapchat.
“He’s a super horse, and he always stays really relaxed so you can ride him in there,” says Selina. “He actually needs a little bit of buzz to spark him up a bit. He was really good; I don’t think he missed a beat today.”
Aaron Millar and KEC Deakon. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Compatriot Aaron Millar made a big effort to break that sub-30 barrier, and trended around 28 for the first half of his test – but an uptick in 6.5s and a couple of 5s in the canter work meant that he had to settle for a 31.6 with the 15-year-old Chacoa son KEC Deakon.
After his test, he rued the marks he felt he’d left on the table by slightly overshooting his horse’s preparation today.
“He was good, but I slightly overworked him – he doesn’t need much before he goes in, and that meant that he just dropped a bit in the poll,” laments Aaron. “Normally, his trot work would be better. I only gave him 25 minutes of work down here, but I’d worked him this morning. When he came down here [to the collecting ring], that was probably his best work.”
But, he explains, “he had a year off last year [with injury], so he hasn’t been in this atmosphere for a bit, and it’s probably better to have him a bit underpowered, perhaps, rather than squealing and bucking! He’s a performer, and he goes in there and he wants to do a good job, which is a massive help.”
Aaron hopes that a Badminton run could be in the horse’s not-too-distant future – but for now, Luhmühlen’s flatter, uniquely technical and twisty track is exactly what he needs en route to that goal.
“I think it’s a good test. There’s a lot of combinations where you’re going to have to think quick about where you’re going, where you’re turning – there’s a lot of acute angles and things. So it’s going to keep us working and keep us thinking.”
Ros Canter and MHS Seventeen. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Third place is held overnight by Ros Canter and the first of her two rides, the twelve-year-old five-star sophomore MHS Seventeen, who put a 33.5 on the board.
“I’m over the moon with him, actually. He’s a horse that really hates to be by himself, so going into the main arena has historically been quite a difficult experience with him,” she says. “He tends to get quite tense and whinnies.”
Ros and her team, she continues, “have worked quite hard to develop a system in the run-up to an event, and while we’re here, and I’m just so pleased that the system worked. He came out happy and relaxed, and he went in happy and relaxed.”
“He’s come out quite a few times since he’s been here, but never for too long – he’s come out, done a bit of work, and then gone back [to the stables],” she explains. “And the same today: he’s come out a few times, but never to where he gets tired or frustrated. What we’ve been doing is actually practicing the trot work of the test over and over again. Yesterday, he probably went through it twelve times, and today we went through it three times, and I haven’t done anything with him that he wouldn’t be experiencing in the test this week.”
The aim of that approach, she says, is “not to confuse him. He gets better and better when he knows what he’s doing, and he gains in confidence.”
Ros Canter and MHS Seventeen. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
One of her efforts en route to that confidence was doing the guinea pig test at Bramham last week – a test that, she says, “wasn’t productive on the day, but was extremely useful in that I learned about what I need to do coming here. It’s always just trying to work out his brain: he knows all this stuff now, and he’s well-trained, but he goes in there and sometimes he completely loses concentration and my aids are at the back of his mind, not the forefront. Today, he was definitely listening to me.”
But, like so many other riders, she admits: “I think it was a bit harshly-marked, to be honest – I was delighted with [the test], but that’s the way it goes when you’re at the beginning.”
Fourth place is held by Laura Collett and the first of her own two rides, Hester, on a score of 33.9, while fifth place goes the way of Austrian Olympians Lea Siegl and DSP Fighting Line, who posted a 34.4. Franky Reid-Warrilow and Guilty Pleasure (34.6) Tom Rowland and Quintilius (34.6) and Wills Oakden and Keep It Cooley (34.7) add to the British flags on the board in sixth, seventh, and eighth places, respectively, while young Swiss talent Nadja Minder sits ninth on a 34.7 with Toblerone. The top ten is rounded out by last year’s winner, Belgium’s Lara de Liedekerke-Meier, who piloted an initially explosive and subsequently very expressive Origi, her Paris Olympics partner, to a surprisingly harshly-marked 36.5.
Cosby Green and Jos UFO de Quidam. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
British-based Cosby Green leads the way for the small but exciting North American contingent at this stage, sitting fifteenth overnight on a 39 with the seventeen-year-old Jos UFO de Quidam, while Jenny Caras and Sommersby were rather terrorised in their test by a flock of birds, who zoomed into the arena en masse to investigate some droppings and then flew up into the horse’s face. Jenny did a tactful job of keeping the thirteen-year-old debutant as contained as she could, but had to settle for a 40.1 to take eighteenth overnight.
Mia Farley and Invictus. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Over in the CCI4*-S class, Germany’s Nina Schultes leads the way with the veteran Grand Prix iWest on a score of 30.6, followed by fellow countrymen Emma Brüssau and Dark Desire GS on 34.1 and Antonia Baumgart and Ris de Talm on 34.5. USEF European Development Tour participants Mia Farley and Invictus sit fifth overnight on 34.9.
“He felt very secure in his work, and mature in his frame and everything, so I was happy with his consistency in that test,” says Mia. “I think he will be a mid 20s horse eventually, but right now we’re up and down with the scores. With him as a nine year old doing this level, it’s just all about having him feel confident in the work and showing him what he’s capable of.”
Tomorrow takes us into day two of dressage, which once again begins with the CCI4*-S class from 9.15 a.m. local time/8.15 a.m. BST/3.15 a.m. EST with Nicolai Aldinger and Palm Beach first in the ring. The CCI5* will commence from 13.15 local time/12.15 BST/7.15 a.m. EST, starting with German team partnership Malin Hansen-Hotopp and Carlitos Quidditch K. We’ll be bringing you a full report of the day’s activities at the close of play. Until then: go reacquaint yourself with the numbers 8, 9, and 10. We’ve missed them.
The top ten in the CCI5* after day on at Luhmühlen.
The top ten in the CCI4*-S after day one of dressage.
Longines Luhmühlen CCI5* (Germany): [Website] [Entries] [Schedule] [Timing & Scoring] [H&C+ Live Stream] [EN’s Coverage]
