Britain lies fourth in the team standings towards the end of the first day’s eventing dressage at the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games..
Second rider William Fox-Pitt (pictured) put in an excellent test with Cool Mountain to score 42, good enough for third position individually at the end of the second rotation of team riders.
William began as he meant to go on, scoring 7,8,9 for his first centreline, and the marks only dropped down below consistent sevens and eights with a mistake in the penultimate flying changes.
“He’s a lovely calm horse, which is a real asset,” said William, who won the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event here in the spring on Cool Mountain.
“That’s not necessarily an advantage, although you do know the horse can travel and cope with that side of it,” he said. “But he definitely knows where he is and is happy to be back — he’s been on tremendous form all week. He’s quite a laid-back character but he’s been a bit more on his toes than normal. Sometimes when they have done a lap of honour and charged about they go home with a bit of a buzz in their stomachs. But he has calmed down now.”
William’s score, combined with Nicola Wilson’s from this morning, leaves Britain in fourth place, just outside the medal standings at this early stage.
Germany is leading, with the Australians in second, which was expected of these strong nations. Second German team member Ingrid Klimke slipped into second just 0.7pen ahead of William with FRH Butts Abraxxas. The Germans are on 83.8pen, just under eight ahead of Australia (91pen), who added a 47.2 from Stuart Tinney (Vettori) to Paul Tapner’s good mark from this morning.
The Swedish, who were not front runners coming into this championship, currently hold the bronze position on 92.7pen, with Britain just half a penalty behind.
Swedish lead-off rider Linda Algotsson scored 45.5 this morning with the oldest horse in the competition, 20-year-old Stand By Me, and then Niklas Jonsson managed a 46.2 on First Lady. Malmo-based Niklas, 31, is at his first championship and is an amateur rider, working full-time as an advisor in a bank.
There are still a few individual riders to compete this afternoon, including Britain’s Pippa Funnell on Redesigned, who is the last rider in at 4.26pm (9.26pm British time).
Log back on later to find out how Pippa Funnell fared, full report on the eventing from WEG in H&H out 7 October.
