Felicity Coulthard put up the performance of her life to win silver in the grade II freestyle out in Hong Kong.
Riding Roffelaar, she was the first to go in the evening session and she scored an impressive 71.056% with her medley of Fiddler on the Roof. Only Canada’s Lauren Barwick managed to better the score with 72.776%, with individual gold medalist Britta Naepel (Cherubin 15) in bronze.
“They told me to go out and enjoy myself and have fun,” said Felicity, who had Roffelaar up a gear from Monday’s individual performance, “and we did just that.”
South African rider Philippa Johnson won gold in the grade IV freestyle to the delight of the huge crowd at the Sha Tin racecourse. This was Philippa’s second gold medal, having won Monday’s individual as well. Her score of 77.272% is the highest of the week so far and she and her lovely chestnut gelding Benedict certainly deserved the marks.
“When I started on this road 6 years ago, my dream was just to represent my country,” she said. “We won silver in Athens two years later but to come here and achieve this is incredible.”
Philippa beat her Athens conqueror and good friend Ann Cathrin Lubbe into silver position. Ann Cathrin’s score of 75.046% would have been enough to win most classes, with bronze going to Australia’s Georgia Bruce riding Victory Salute, Australia’s reserve horse for the Olympics.
The rest of the British team are in action in their respective freestyles on Thursday. This is the final day of the equestrian games and there is plenty of hope that the current medal tally will be raised.
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