Britain’s Becky Moody and Jagerbomb dropped a sensational new personal best of 84.36% in the Olympic dressage grand prix freestyle to cap their superb senior championship debut at Paris 2024 in style.
Becky bred this 10-year-old gelding and has been there for every step of his journey from day one, to international stardom. In the past two years, he has stepped across the seismic gap from being a very good small tour horse to becoming one of the sport’s most exciting top-level campaigners – and he has done it all with a smile on his face.
Becky too was beaming even before she started her test and that shared joy radiated from both throughout their jam-packed routine to Tom Jones. Their opening of a double canter pirouette on the centre line, straight into a line of tempi changes set the tone. It was a technically complex floorplan, but never at the expense of losing its artistry for which they scored 91.57%. The trot extensions to Sex bomb were a huge crowd pleaser – and moving from two-time to one-time flying changes was a real highlight.
“It’s good fun music and there’s a good story behind it,” said Becky, who owns Jagerbomb with Jo Cooper. “About three years ago, my really good friend and show groom, Kim Mason told me that I should use Tom Jones for my music and I thought absolutely not far too cheesy, I’m not going to do it.
“She persisted and persisted, and about 18 months later, I caved and had it done for my small tour music for the inter I. As soon as I got it back from Tony Hobden from Equidance, who does my music, I thought, ‘Oh, this is actually pretty cool’.
“It’s so much fun to ride to and because it’s fun to ride to, the horse likes it, the crowd like it, so it’s stuck.”
Yesterday, Snoop Dog and Martha Stewart were in the stands to watch their team test. Today, they were watched by Hollywood A-listers Eva Mendes and husband Barbie star Ryan Gosling – this Ken really does like horses.
“Well, I mean, what can I say?” said Becky. “Way to go for dressage! I mean, Snoop Dogg. That’s quite cool, isn’t it? I think it’s just great for the sport. We need all the positive publicity that we can get, so let’s embrace it.”
* End of individual dressage update *
Becky finished in eighth place, with Carl Hester in sixth. Jessica von Bredow-Werndl won gold, ahead of Isabell Werth in silver, with Lottie Fry winning bronze.
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