Sebastien Cavaillon takes the lead in the second phase of Virtual Eventing. Look how smug his dog is.
Poor Laura Collett – after delivering an eye-wateringly excellent test yesterday to hold the overnight lead with London 52, a bad case of the giggles – and a truly impressive dunking in the water complex – relegated her right down the leaderboard into 29th place after the cross-country phase of the NAF Virtual Eventing 5*.
Of course, with all the competitors locked down at their respective home bases around the world, this wasn’t 5* cross-country as we’re used to seeing it – instead, it was something considerably more insane. Each rider had to tackle a multipart obstacle course, accompanied by a dog, a teddy bear, or, in the case of Megan Jones, an impressively well-trained Shetland pony. Their mission? Come home clear and inside the optimum time of 5:02. Their challenges? Well…
- #1: Unload the lorry. Competitors need to load a wheelbarrow with a bale of shavings, a haynes, and their tack, before weaving it through a line of feedbags to…
- #2: The Pony Club games challenge. Turns out an egg and spoon race is a bit tougher with a badly-behaved dog attached to you.
- #3: Walking the course. Sit down for a quick change out of riding boots and into wellies, before weaving through a set a jump wings at speed.
- #4: The dog agility challenge. Time for those dogs (or Shetlands) to shine! There’s a cross pole to pop over, an upright to go under – rather like Gurgle the Greek of Badminton history – and another cross pole to pop, and then you’re at…
- #5: The water complex. Crowds tend to gather here to see a dunking at the real deal, and they certainly got to see that today. Each competitor has to balance a bucket of water on top of a shavings bale in a wheelbarrow, navigate over a pole on the ground, and then decant the bucket into another full of apples. Then they need to bob for one of those apples with their arms behind their back, before sprinting over to the cocktail party to deposit it.
- #6: We’re all used to a quick change to get ready for a cocktail party, but this takes the biscuit – each competitor must strip off their body protector, change into a rather fancier number, and down a pint (of water) before stumbling over a line of poles to…
- #7: The lorry park challenge. They’ll need to get a duvet into its cover – or for those faint of heart souls, the black flag alternative of two pillows into their pillowcases. Then they need to lie down on top of them for three seconds before a final sprint to the finish line, where their last challenge is to take a selfie with their canine partner. Phew.
Tom Crisp took us for a walk through some of the challenges to come before he tackled his round with recalcitrant whippet Pretzel:
The day started with a smattering of good rounds from Warren Lamperd, Joe Meyer, and Arthur Chabert, each of whom recorded blazing fast clears to add nothing to their dressage scores. This lulled competitors and spectators alike into a false sense of security: would the time be too easily attained? Would Virtual Eventing turn out to be a dressage competition? Could slow and steady, in fact, win the race?
The sense of security wouldn’t last for long. Dogs were lost, refusals racked up, and an astonishing amount of cheating started stacking the penalties on the scoreboard, and as the trouble mounted, so did the time faults. For Joseph Murphy, 20th overnight after adding 10 penalties, the time was made tougher when his tiny accomplice, daughter Daisy and her pooch Tatts, had a rider fall en route to fence six, the cocktail party. But she was swiftly back up on her feet and downing her drink, and in the old style of things was allowed to continue on – and she and Dad would make it home without adding any time, thanks to some speedy bed-making. Truly a heart-in-mouth moment of sporting action:
By the end of the day, the leaderboard had started to look very different indeed, with mistakes and slow rounds from many of the dressage dominators opening the door for swift, accurate course navigation. France’s Sebastien Cavaillon, 13th after dressage with Sarah d’Argouges, took to the course with Offset and delivered a masterclass in interpretive cross-country negotiation, blazing home in a remarkable 3:26. We hope someone’s icing his legs tonight.
Impressively, his wouldn’t be the fastest round of the day – the Netherlands’ Andy Heffernan blitzed through in 2:47, though a smattering of mistakes earned him 20 penalties, and he’ll almost certainly be subjected to a verbal warning at the very least for his excessive speed on course.
Gemma Tattersall, third after dressage with Quicklook V, added just five penalties to move up into second place going into tomorrow’s third and final phase, though former runner-up Yasmin Ingham dropped down to 9th after adding ten penalties. Third place is now held by Matt Heath, who rode the former Dickie Waygood mount Askari in yesterday’s competition, while a clear round with just 1.4 time penalties sees Louisa Lockwood sit fourth, closely followed by Vittoria Panizzon, competing for Italy and not letting anyone forget it for a moment.
Honourary Yank (but actually a Kiwi) Joe Meyer heads up the fight for the contingent across the pond, moving into seventh place after an impressive performance in the scorching Ocala sunshine, while Katherine Coleman and Boyd Martin were both inside the time but unfortunately not penalty free, languishing behind in 21st and 22nd place, respectively. Poor Hallie Coon dropped to 26th place after picking up a total of 8.5 penalties, possibly as a result of her overambitious decision to tie two dogs with their own ideas to her belt loops. Bad luck, Hallie – we’re sure you’ll refine your tactics for the next one. Hannah Sue Burnett sits 35th after clocking up 20 penalties, while EN old faithful Tom Crisp – our diligent course-walker – is nowhere to be seen in 38th place, though surely earns a nod for his commitment to running cross-country in an inflatable unicorn suit.
Let’s have a look at how some of the competitors fared…
Tomorrow sees the third and final phase get underway from 2pm BST/9am Eastern time, and you can get your first peek at the course to come here. Fancy rewatching all of today’s action – or, indeed, the dressage and trot-up action from the previous days? It’s all available on demand here. And don’t forget – you can support your favourite rider’s certain descent into insanity by throwing some coins in their charity coffers here. Over £130,000 has been drummed up so far, and all money raised will go to each rider’s home nation’s medical charity to support in the fight against COVID-19. After that? Join us at the cocktail party – it’s on until 11pm BST/6pm Eastern time tonight and is heating up nicely. I’m in the kitchen flirting with the host if you need me.
The top ten after an action-packed day of interpretive cross-country.
