Britain’s Scott Brash and Hello Jefferson have picked up four faults in the first round of the Agria FEI World Showjumping Championships individual final (14 August).
The 13-year-old gelding, owned by Lady Pauline Harris and Lady Pauline Kirkham, looked eager to get the job done and appeared a little hot, notably pulling Scott into fence five, a big oxer.
The pair continued to put in a brilliant jumping round, but once again Hello Jefferson got a bit strong after the water at fence eight and knocked down the 1.65m vertical at fence nine. Scott and Hello Jefferson finished comfortably inside the 87 second time allowed, adding just the four faults to their score of 8.23.
Reflecting on his round, Scott said Jefferson was “a bit tense” today.
“In the last line he was getting strong and keen with me, and there was a bit of atmosphere – it’s the way it goes,” he said.
“One down is not bad, I think we were unlucky to have the fence but I just felt he was a bit more tense than I’d like him, to have the best result.”
Louis Konickx’s up to height track in the World Showjumping Championships individual final has not proved to cause as many problems as the team final on Friday, with lots of clears inside the time. Twenty-one riders came forward today, and the top 12 will jump again in the final medal-deciding round. Scott finished in 17th place, so will not be jumping again.
Scott and Hello Jefferson have had a mixed week; the pair posted superb clears on Wednesday and Thursday to put them into provisional individual silver. However, a difficult round in the team final where they had an uncharacteristic eight faults, meant they dropped down to 11th place coming into the final today. Scott was understandably disappointed and said Hello Jefferson had become tense in the warm-up ahead of his round. Despite this, the Brits scooped team bronze with Harry Charles posting a sterling clear on Romeo 88, Ben Maher and Faltic HB adding four faults to the score, and Joe Stockdale having four faults with Equine America Cacharel.
“You learn from your mistakes,” said Scott. “I still believe he’s [Hello Jefferson] a championship horse and he still has more championships in him, that’s for sure. We’ve learnt a lot this week. I think he can still go well in future championships.”
In the World Showjumping Championships results going into the final round, Henrik von Eckermann leads on score of 0.58 with King Edward, Sweden’s Jens Fredricson is in silver on 2.71 with Markan Cosmopolit and Belgium’s Jerome Guery is in bronze on a score of 3.35 with Quel Homme De Hus.
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