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It’s a chilly and rainy Sunday at the Kentucky Horse Park. I still haven’t quite shaken my sadness at Comet’s withdraw from the jog. I can’t even begin to imagine having such a wonderful Friday and Saturday at the WEGs and then having to withdraw for something completely out of your control. Nonetheless, it’s time to put that aside and look forward to an incredible afternoon of show jumping.
(1) The team competition is a four nation race, but all four nations very much could win gold. Just 11 points separate Great Britain, USA, Canada, and New Zealand. The USA is less than a rail out of first place and this certainly looks like one of the most exciting WEG Sundays in recent memory.
(2) Watch the time. A few seconds of time penalties could make a huge change in the outcome of the team standings. Boyd and Neville can occasionally get one or two time penalties in the show jumping so Boyd will really have to be efficient.
(3) In the individual rankings, Germany’s Michael Jung had a huge 9 point lead over William Fox-Pitt. But, the rest of the medals are completely up in the air because 8 riders are within a rail of William and the silver medal. Cool Mountain jumped a clean round at rolex.
(4) As for predictions, my picks for the team competition were 1) USA, 2) Great Britain, and 3) Canada. With the US less than a rail out of first, I see no reason to change my original picks. Any of the top nations would be a worthy champion, but I hope my original predictions turn out to be correct.
(5) As a brief update on the Fernhill Clover Mist mystery, I did a little research this morning and found that there are buried cables out on the course at strategic points across the galloping lanes but the cables all appear to be audio and video cables which do not carry an electrical charge. For what it is worth, my personal opinion is that the horse bolted because he sustained an injury rather than a problem with the cables because I can’t imagine that there would be anything that could harm a horse laying on the course. Either way, I feel very bad for Fernhill Clover Mist who was obviously in a lot of pain.
Go eventing.
