Britain lies seventh halfway through the second leg of the team showjumping competition at the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games. The top 10 teams go through to tomorrow night’s final, so the pressure is on to retain that position this afternoon.
After his strong performance yesterday, Robert Smith (pictured) racked up another clear this morning with Talan, adding just one time-fault to his score.
“I’d like to have not had the time-fault, but at the beginning he was quite careful so I had to give him a little bit of time, and then he got quite strong,” said Robert. “One minute I was kicking, the next I was pulling.”
Britain’s second rider David McPherson had four faults when Chamberlain Z landed in the water jump at fence seven, and was left kicking himself for a “dummy jockey error”.
“I’m as sick as a pig — my horse was jumping amazingly,” he said. “When I go to the water, he gets a bit quicker than I anticipate, so the last stride gets a bit compressed [leading to him landing short]. It’s his greenness showing, he’s not consistent in the length of his stride.”
America led overnight, but has slipped to fourth now, with Germany taking the lead. Mario Deslauriers, yesterday’s individual leader for the home nation, had eight faults today with four at the water and the last down. He jumped out of order due to Urico losing a shoe in the warm-up, but said this did not affect his performance.
“At the water he drifted left which made the stride a little off and made a real effort but must have just touched the tape,” he said. “The last fence was unlucky — he overjumped the front rail and got it behind.”
Britain’s Scott Brash is the second rider in after the lunch break, with Michael Whitaker later this afternoon.
Log on again for more updates on the showjumping at WEG, full report in H&H out 14 October.
