Michael Jung and fischerChipmunk establish their dominance atop a heavily British-leaning leaderboard. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
It’s never a surprise, really, when we see Michael Jung and fischerChipmunk FRH atop a leaderboard, particularly in this phase — and so, perhaps, what makes their decisive lead on 19.4 remarkable today is that it puts a firm stop to an almost entirely British top ten. Despite the major change in conditions today, which swapped yesterday’s balmy sunshine for a steady, ground-saturating rein, they looked every inch their consistent best — and, says Michi, felt it, too.
“My feeling is very good,” he smiles. “I’m very, very happy about fisherChipmunk. He was amazing to ride. He was super in the warm up, and in the preparation time last week; he’s given me a very good feeling.”
That ‘good feeling’ wasn’t necessarily guaranteed, though, and Michi had to revert to damage limitation tactics to ensure he was back on side before he entered the arena.
“He was very calm, but in the beginning he was a little bit tense,” he says. “But that’s the reason why I went in [the ring] so early, so that I have a bit more time. I think that was very good for him. And then when I went into the test, he felt perfect. The canter was for sure a highlight for him.”
Michael Jung and fischerChipmunk FRH. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
But if a 19.4 sounds pretty close to perfection, Michi is quick to point out that there are always improvements to be made.
“I think the walk could be better. It was a bit long and low in the neck and the connection was not perfect. But it’s difficult to have it all 100% the way you want it in a test, and I think the very powerful canter, which is so uphill, is very nice, and in the trot work he was very soft, so I had great feelings. Maybe the walk could be better, but I think there’s always something.”
And, he points out, even if you’re part of one of the most competitive partnerships in the world, “Every test is a bit different, and the preparation sometimes is different. The competition is sometimes different. So it’s always a new game, and a new start.”
Watch Michael’s test below:
Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
There’s a reason you should always stay ’til the bitter end of dressage day, even when the weather makes quite literally any other option more appealing – and today, that reason was penultimate competitor and queen of nominative determinism Ros Canter and her Badminton champion, Lordships Graffalo. They danced their way to a 21.3 – the eleven-year-old gelding’s best-ever FEI score, even despite a minor bobble in the right shoulder-in — and will go into tomorrow’s cross-country in second place.
“I’m absolutely over the moon with Walter,” says Ros, who acts as British team anchor this week — arguably the most highly pressurised role, but also the one that requires the most waiting around. “It’s been a very long wait for me these last two days — I don’t think I’ve been very easy with Ian Woodhead, my trainer, yesterday and this morning! But when I got on today I felt much better that I actually had a job to do at last.”
And she got right to work as she came into the main arena, producing a test that showcased how the gelding has matured in his short but sparkling upper-level career.
“When I had so much time on my hands I was looking back at old videos from the spring when we were building up to Badminton, and I can’t believe how much he’s come on, even from then. He’s a truly amazing horse, and I’m very, very lucky to have him,” she says. With so many accolades to his name already at such a young age, including fourth in the World Championships last year, second at Badminton last year before returning to win, and six four-star top tens, it could be easy to forget that he still has so much ahead of him – but Ros explains that keeping that at the forefront of her mind is important, even while trying to ride for a competitive result.
“When you think back to last year and even the start of this year, he was a ten year old, so physically, he’s a lot weaker than the horses that are hitting their teens. And I did have to give myself a bit of a reminder yesterday not to have to higher expectations and stick to the process and remind myself actually, he’s still a horse that physically isn’t fully matured yet. I wanted to stick within the boundaries of what he was capable of. But actually, he gets stronger all the time. It’s little things, like his changes are getting better and better. His halts and his reinback were a real weakness last year, and when I started this year, and this summer, they’re just really starting to feel like they’re getting very consistent. It’s really exciting.”
Watch Ros’ test below:
Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Still, she says, she’s taken away learning opportunities from the test, too.
“I definitely think his right to left change could be better. They’re not always regular yet, but it’s getting much, much better,” she says. “Everyone thought [the judges] were a bit harsh on my first centerline today, but I think I took it a little bit early, because he was ready to stop early and I got to the point where I couldn’t keep going much longer. So there’s little things I would tweak for next time but on the whole, I think our training is just just gradually going in the right direction.”
The big conversation of the day around the venue has been that of the ground – and what it might look like come tomorrow, after today’s consistent rainfall on what was already notably soft going. But for Ros, this is less of a concern: she and ‘Walter’ won Badminton this year in arguably the toughest conditions possible, and he both dealt with and recovered from the intensity of the ground there in fine style. After a particularly wet season so far, the British contingent is feeling calm and capable – because they’ve had plenty of chances to get used to conditions like these across the breadth of 2023 so far.
“I think that’s very important not just for the horse, but also for the rider and the rider’s mentality,” muses Ros. “It’s something that the Brits have had to cope with a lot this year, and so we’ve almost been able to override the talk on the ground and things like that. We’ve ridden in this going so many times that hopefully, we can stay in our own bubble and concentrate on our job. We’ve been very positive as a team so far about the course — our course walks have been extremely positive. There hasn’t been too much talk about the things we don’t like, or the ground that we don’t like, and I think that’s really good for team spirit.”
Tom McEwen and JL Dublin. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
All six members of this week’s British squad sit in the top ten at the culmination of dressage, including both individuals — and the best placed of those is Tom McEwen and the reigning European Champion, former Nicola Wilson ride JL Dublin. Their resultant score of 22 might not be JL Dublin’s own personal best — that’s the 20.9 he got at the 2021 European Championships with Nic — but it is the new partnership’s best-ever international score together.
“He’s just simply stunning on the flat,” says Tom, who goes into cross-country in third. “He shows a real story in there. He captures the eye; he fills the eye. He swings through, and bar the tiniest few things he was absolutely excellent.”
Those things, he says, include “probably the halt before the rein back — I could hear the judges marking it, and then he moved,” says Tom. “But I’m delighted; I thought the changes were a serious highlight. And as per usual, that extended trot – if we could do five more of those, I think we’d be in the lead by tomorrow!”
While there may be some surprise to see British team stalwart Tom riding as an individual, it’s a savvy move: this will be just their sixth international cross-country start together, and while their results so far have included second at both Boekelo and Kentucky, they also had a shock 20 at Aachen while fighting for the win. There’s every chance they can — and should, arguably — end up on the individual podium, and without the additional responsibility of having to ensure a clear for the team, they’re able to follow their own plan of action – but, Tom says, it’s still not a job he takes lightly, nor one he considers unpressurised.
“It’s still it’s very much a team. It’s still part of the wider structure. Our feedback will be just as critical to for the last two riders in the team and obviously Tom [Jackson] as well,” he points out.
Laura Collett and London 52. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Generally, when we see an entry list that includes both fischerChipmunk and London 52, we all just sit around asking one another the same question as we work away in the media centre: which one will lead the first phase? And so it was some surprise to see the ordinarily ultra competitive ‘Dan’ and Laura Collett this far down the leaderboard, in a still very respectable fourth place with 22.4 – but, as Laura explains, they were cursed with a bit of bad luck in the form of the weather and the admirable enthusiasm of the audience, who had come prepared to fend off the rain.
“He was a little bit fragile and he absolutely hates umbrellas, and obviously it started raining and then as I went in he noticed where the umbrellas were,” says Laura, who made a great effort of trying to regain his focus while working around the outside of the arena. “So he felt like he was very aware of of that, where normally he’s 100% with me in the arena, so I had to try and coax him into remembering to listen to me and not think about where the umbrellas were. Obviously it wasn’t his best test he’s ever done, but I’m just glad it was good enough to be close enough. He’s been a really good form; it’s just about trying to keep his his mind happy, and I feel like we’ve done that. He’s never going to love umbrellas, so I don’t think I can really do anything other than just try and do the best we can in those situations. But he’s come a long way; last time there were really bad umbrellas he totally lost the plot. So we’re getting there.”
Even with that minor lack of focus, which took some of the usual sparkle out of his work, he still performed exceptionally to deliver a mistake-free test — and he certainly brought some of the errant sparkle back in the canter extension, with a big, bold, risk-taking transition into a step that ate up the long side.
“Most things are [a highlight of his]; he doesn’t really have too much of a weakness other than when I lose his mind. It was fragile, and maybe felt more fragile than it looks, but I think his extended canters and his extended trot are always his his kind of party piece, and he felt like he really showed himself off with those.”
Tom Jackson and Capels Hollow Drift. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
The second British individual combination, Senior Championship debutant Tom Jackson and Capels Hollow Drift, performed well beyond expectations, earning their best-ever international score of 25.7 and overnight sixth place behind day one leaders Yasmin Ingham and Banzai du Loir with a smart, animated test in some of the worst of the afternoon’s weather. For Tom, who finished second at Burghley and fifth at a very wet Badminton with the Irish-bred gelding, the feeling of bringing it home when it counts was no small relief — particularly as his best phases are yet to come.
“I’m really happy to get that that done and dusted and out of the way,” he laughs. “And for him to be as good as he was is a testament to all the training and everything that we’ve had building up to this from the World Class Programme.”
Like Laura, though, Tom found his horse took some offence to the sea of umbrellas that went up throughout the closely-bunched crowds of spectators around the ring: “I think I found out today he’s not a massive fan of umbrellas. When we came out, he was bit uptight, which is really unlike him, because normally he’s super laidback.”
Regardless, the plucky gelding kept his attention on the task at hand, thanks, in part, to longstanding help from Tom’s trainer and mentor, Pippa Funnell.
“I think hopefully Pippa will be happy – she’s always on about the little details, and I hope I nailed most of the hopes and everything. His good change was very good, and his bad one is still a work in progress. But there was much better damage limitation on that, and I thought all his half-passes and the expression in his trot just really went up a gear in the last sort of six months or a year.”
While this is Tom’s first Senior Europeans appearance, it’s not his first time riding for Great Britain — he’s done so previously on two Young Rider and one Junior Europeans. And in the nine years since his last squad appearance, the 30-year-old has been hard at work on making sure it happens again.
“I feel like we’ve always been on a trajectory to get there, and it’s maybe taken us a bit longer than I necessarily wanted when I was an 18-year-old lad coming out of Juniors, but that makes it even more special, now that we’re here,” he says.
Having the experience of a great run in that exceptionally wet Badminton is giving Tom a particular boost as we look ahead to tomorrow’s inevitably saturated field of play, which encompasses plenty of terrain and no shortage of big, bold, technical questions.
“I’m excited; I think it’s a really good course,” he says. “I think it really suits him, and his way of going in the ground is going to be a big factor, but it’s given me a bit of confidence knowing that he dealt with that quite well at Badminton earlier in the year.”
Karin Donckers and Fletcha Van’t Verahof. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
With all those Brits crowding the top ten, there wasn’t much room for any other nations to put on a show — and that really shows when you look at the team leaderboard, which sees them head into cross-country on a score of 67.1, 9.2 penalties ahead of second-placed Germany. That one-two will come as a surprise to absolutely none of you form guide reading, stats following eventing-aholics – but what is interesting is seeing how everything below those two superpower nations is playing out, particularly as concerns the four nations – Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and Austria – who are battling for the two available Olympic qualifications here.
Yesterday, we saw the Netherlands heading up that fight thanks to the efforts of Andy Heffernan and Gideon, now 15th on a score of 29. Today, though, it’s all about Belgium, who stepped up into bronze medal position on their score of 90.9. That was thanks in large part to stalwart team member Karin Donckers, who piloted the most experienced horse in the field, eighteen-year-old Fletcha van’t Verahof, to a score of 26.5 and overnight eighth, just half a penalty behind Germany’s Jérôme Robiné and Black Ice, and ahead of Kitty King and Vendredi Biats in ninth and Germany’s Christoph Wahler and Carjatan S.
“Fletcha knows his job — it’s not the first time we ride a championship, but he was really good. He was concentrating, focused, and the rain didn’t really bother him, I think, so we had a great time in the dressage,” says Karin, who is making her eighth championship start with the gelding, and her own 28th Senior championship start.
“It’s always nice to ride for your country and your team — that’s why I’m still doing this, I guess,” she laughs. “It’s great to be here with the team, to ride together, to support each other, and to help the younger ones. I’m very happy to still be a part of it.”
Helping her team qualify for the Olympics for the first time since 2012 would certainly be a happy moment for the rider – and for now, they’re looking good, with the Netherlands two places, though just 2.3 penalties, behind them, and Italy and Austria sitting eighth and ninth, respectively, on 99.1 and 103.5. If that sounds tightly bunched, wait ’til you crunch the numbers on the individual leaderboard: just 20 penalties separates the top 54 competitors, and tomorrow’s course would be tough by any standards even in dry conditions. Expect to meet some new faces at the business end of proceedings, and prepare yourself for some seriously exciting sport, beginning at 12.00 p.m. local time (11.00 a.m. BST/6.00 a.m. EST), and available to stream in full on ClipMyHorse. We’ll be bringing you all you need to know about the challenge to come — so keep it locked onto EN, and Go Eventing!
The top ten at the culmination of the first phase at the 2023 FEI European Eventing Championships.
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