Piggy French recapping her ride for the crowd with announcer John Kyle
In a story that couldn’t have been better written in fiction, Team Great Britain dominated the team competition here at the Olympic test event by adding just two rails for all three riders. Remember that the show jumping for the test event is in the same format as the Olympics with two show jumping rounds. The first show jumping round counts for both the team and individual competition, and the second round only counts for the individual competition, meaning that the team competition is already decided. The second show jumping course will be shorter and bigger*, and the second round is just a few minutes away from starting.
In the first round, Piggy French and Topper jumped a lovely clean round to secure the win for Britain and slightly extend her already copious lead in the individual competition. Second placed Sara Algotsson Ostholt pulled one rail to drop to 4th. Pippa Funnell and Michael Jung moved into third and second respectively with clear rounds.
Team Final Results:
1. Great Britain: 139.9
2. Belgium: 166.0
3. New Zealand: 183.8
4. USA: 243.2
5. Germany: 1102.7
Only the top 25 will move on to the second round of jumping, so we won’t get to see the North American riders Logan Rawlings or Nina Ligon. Nina had a beautiful clear ride and Jaybee Star Celebrity showed a lot of promise. Belgium opened a lot of eyes here, finishing three riders in the top 11 and finishing second in the team competition.
In my opinion, the nicest horse of the first round of jumping was Mark Todd’s NZB Campino. They moved up from 21st to 16th with a clear ride. Campino was silky smooth and made the CIC2* jumps look absolutely effortless. The course was not too challenging and a lot of riders had one rail or none, but the quality of show jumping horses is incredibly high here today.
Individual scores with one round to go, not that when the sign says final it doesn’t mean final:
Stay tuned for the second round and individual results. Go eventing.
