OMG, what a finish! It is Monday afternoon in the USA and I guess there is a large contingent of riders making the long trek home from another Bromont. I had a ball watching the Bromont coverage from John and Samantha, and I would love to go to Bromont one day.
The Melbourne International Three Day Event finished on a holiday Monday here in Australia in the most spectacular style.
Let’s go back to yesterday first and the conclusion of XC.
Cross country certainly changed the scoreboard at the Melbourne Three Day Event. Overnight leader Heath Ryan failed to finish XC so has completely dropped out of the race, as did Craig Barrett on the only mare in the field Sandhills Brillaire. The day, however was been mixed for Craig after adding just 3.6 time penalties to his Dressage score to keep him in touch with the leaders in third place.
Cross country machine Shane Rose on Taurus finished on his dressage score coming in under time by 7 seconds, Emma Mason on F1 Pharinelli who shared equal 4th with Shane over night came in 10 seconds under time putting her in 2nd place at the time, both were on 47.3 penalties.
Note: The FEI Rules state a number of criteria to split tied combinations, in this case the second criteria was applied, when two riders are on equal score then the closest to optimal time is deemed the leader.
Back to today, the top 10 was tight with the top 5 less than a rail separating them. The course was tough and lots of rails fell and no-one seemed immune to taking the odd rail and there was carnage on the scoreboard.
I have to assume that there were a lot of very tired horses out there. From what I understand the track was challenging and the going heavy from all of the rain.
No rider finished on their dressage score. Unfortunately coverage of the event was highly limited so I was left to tweeting a running commentary with my good tweep friend @cazdrop. Between the two of us we built up the commentary.
So what happened? The top five riders had less than a rail between them and Shane Rose ahead on a technicality. It was exciting. The only rider of the top five to jump clear was Craig Barrett jumping in third position he put the pressure on the top two.
Emma Mason had a rail elevating Craig to second place as the leader Shane Rose entered the ring. Unfortunately, everything went south for Shane and he picked up five rails and dropped from first to fifteenth instantly.
Craig was the winner after a massive weekend and it will be a much happier drive home for the 14 hours in the truck. Craig is the husband of National Eventing Performance Director Prue Barratt and has made it clear to Prue and the rest of the selection team that he wants to be on the team for London 2012.
I will leave you with a highlights video from the dressage.
Yours in Eventing,
ESJ
