Ingrid Klimke & Butts Abraxxas, photo by Kit Houghton/FEI
Bad puns are great, right guys? Sigh….After Day 1 of Dressage, we find ourselves in a familiar position with the Australians leading the pack with all riders in the top 8, and Ze Germans following close behind with Ingrid Klimke and Dirk Schrade in position 1 & 2. Team GBR rounds out the top three, predictably solid after Mary King and Nicola Wilson this morning. The US had a bit of a disappointing day. I feel like each one of our riders is out there with a serious chance to blow away the competition, but today was a bit of a learning curve. I was ridiculous dedicated enough to get up this morning at 5am to watch the rides live, and we saw tense ride after tense ride. The atmosphere in that arena must have been off the charts, because almost every horse had at least one freak-out. I thought Boyd’s test was scored a little roughly (the curse of the first), Karen used all her experience to turn a bolt down the centerline into a halt at the end, and Tiana rode conservatively to a decent, but not brilliant test. All three of our riders have potential for much more, but unfortunately it wasn’t in the cards today. I expect that Will and Phillip tomorrow will add a touch more warmup to their schedule to take the edge off Twizzle and Mystery Whisper. Hopefully we can rock around the XC on Monday and finish on our dressage scores!
[Team Scores] [Individual Scores]
Link-0-mania:
Full Scores & Times for Tomorrow (begins at 5am EST)
Update: Dressage photos from Shannon Brinkman are posted on the USEF Network
Thoughts on the Opening Ceremony from Horse & Hound
Mary King’s thoughts on today, Greenwich so far
Nicola Wilson’s thoughts on dressage, her love of Dodi
Andreas Dibowski visits Butts Leon, his Team Gold partner from Beijing [via my fab vet, also Nina’s @eqDVM1]
Will Connell (Team GBR Performance Director) reports on Day Thirteen
Equestrian Eventing — The Olympics most dangerous sport??
An interview with Dr. Furlong about his 5th time at the Olympics as Team Vet
Horse & Hound gives a classy overview of the day
Samantha Albert & Danny celebrate with their Jamaican team
The USEF has a house webcam trained on the arena from their window in the USA house
More photos from Day 1 courtesy of Kit Houghton & the FEI
Tweet your team to the top!! Show support!!
Ingrid and Braxxi at Badminton 2011
