Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo are the first combination to make the time on the World Eventing Championships cross-country, crossing the line with seven seconds to spare after a superb round.
The defending world champion and Michele Saul’s 10-year-old gelding made nothing of Giuseppe della Chiesa’s track to stay on their dressage score of 26.2.
“I couldn’t be prouder of him,” said Ros. “He is just a phenomenal cross-country horse; only 10 years old and it just feels like child’s play to him. He is green and he’s inexperienced, but he just treats it like a big kid; he just plays with it, and focuses when he needs to focus so he’s fantastic.”
Ros said she felt confident after Badminton, where they finished second, of Lordships Graffalo’s fitness for this World Eventing Championships cross-country course.
“I haven’t done as much galloping work at home because of the hard ground and we only go on grass, but he experienced hills like that all the time at home, whether he’s hacking or cantering,” she said. “So I knew he’d be able to keep his speed or accelerate up a hill. And I think that’s key because once you’ve done the hills, it gets very twisty. And if they feel a bit tired, that’s when they’re going to be hard to steer. So I was fortunate in that sense that he kept galloping right to the end.”
Ros said the course rode as she walked it – although “I think it helps having a horse like Lordships Graffalo to be sat on; there will be plenty of horses that aren’t as easy to ride as him that it will probably become harder work” – and that despite the pressure of riding for her country, she enjoyed her ride.
“I’m not sure I’d go as far as saying it’s wonderful fun when you’re riding for Team GB, there’s quite a lot of pressure,” she said. “It was a relief to jump the last fence to be honest, but looking back, yes, it was great fun. And he was very rideable throughout, but it would be a twistier track [than some] so it will be all to play for, I think.”
New Zealand’s Monica Spencer and Artist added 4.4 time-penalties to their dressage score, which had put them in seventh overnight, to finish on 30.
“I think you’ve got to fight your whole way round, make sure you don’t leave anything to chance,” she said.
The 11-year-old thoroughbred was still accelerating as they crossed the finish, and Monica said: “I was well down on my minutes,” she said. “Along those flats, I just let him go and he still had plenty of running, so that was good; the beauty of riding a thoroughbred!”
Monica added that the messages she will take the rest of her team include that they should make up as much time as possible early on, “and then just any chance that you have, probably between the second and third minute”.
“I think I left too much work to do on the way home,” she said.
Will Coleman and Off The Record for the United States, which was sitting third in the team competition this morning, came closer to the time, adding 1.2 time-penalties to their dressage score to finish on 27.2, good enough for third place at this stage.
“He was really good; I thought he answered all the questions very confidently,” Will said. “He was kind of a bulldog out there. He really wants to go, but I was really pleased with how almost arrogant he was. He was really strong and almost like he was telling me ‘Let me at it’! He’s not the fastest horse, but he’s very efficient, and he’s quick. He doesn’t necessarily have a tremendous gallop, he loses a bit of step as he tires. But I think he was really fit and I’m super happy with how he ran. I couldn’t fault him for anything. He did his absolute best.”
Australia’s Shane Rose and the 17-year-old Virgil added 2.8 time-penalties to finish on 34.3.
“Pretty much every fence was exactly how we we planned it,” he said, adding that his horse was “super” but that he was “a little annoyed” about the time.
“I was over time, and I thought I’d be able to make that up in the last few minutes because I had lots of horse, but unfortunately, with too many slow combinations, I didn’t quite get it,” he said, adding that he gave his horse a breather about halfway round, which in hindsight, may have been where he lost some time.
“I was very cautious,” he said. “I’d heard a couple of people had a MIM [clip] going into the coffin. So I was being a little more cautious than potentially I needed to be, but first out, a clear round’s important and seven seconds is annoying, but hopefully the rest of the boys and girls can do better.”
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