Alex Hua Tian and Don Geniro have gone into joint first place at the halfway stage on day one of the Bramham Horse Trials dressage action in the Land Rover-sponsored CCI4*-S.
They scored 28.6 to tie at this stage with New Zealand’s Jesse Campbell and Gambesie, despite making an error of course.
“Don was wonderful – he’s getting better and better all the time. He warmed up really well and went beautifully. The trot was lovely and the walk was fine, but then Nick [Burton, judge at C and president of the CCI4*-S ground jury] beeped me,” explained Alex after his Bramham Horse Trials dressage test. “I thought ‘oh, I think I’m going right but anyway, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt’ and then he said, ‘well, you’re supposed to do this’ and I replied, ‘Well, I definitely have not learned that test’. I think I learnt an old version of the test, and so it’s a different walk.
“Luckily Nick was happy to talk me through the rest of it and I managed to not go wrong for the rest of the test.”
Don Geniro, a 15-year-old owned by Pippa Higgins, has competed at two Olympic Games with Alex and has solid four-star form.
“We have high expectations of Don on the flat,” said Alex. “He’s always been a good horse on the flat and I’m very frustrated to go wrong. I think it was some of the nicest work he’s done – sort of along the similar lines as how he was in Tokyo and I was really pleased with him.”
Keep up-to-date with all the action from Bramham via horseandhound.co.uk and read the full magazine report in the 16 June issue of Horse & Hound
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