The scene is set for a thrilling day’s sport tomorrow at the Agria FEI Eventing European Championship at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire (GB) as just 1.4 of a penalty separates the German team from defending champions Great Britain, at the end of the dressage phase.
The much anticipated climax of the afternoon was the head-to-head between German maestro Michael Jung (FischerChipmunk FRH), who scored the only sub-20 mark of the day with 18.3 penalties, and British supremo Laura Collett (London 52) who came close on 20.6.
Michael’s typically outstanding performance on FischerChipmunk FRH, who he describes as an “amazing horse, so collected and in front of me”, put his nation just ahead, on a team total of 74.4; Great Britain is on a score of 75.8.
France is third, on 90.7, and Switzerland fourth on 95.2, just 0.1 ahead of Belgium, fifth. Austria, Ireland, Sweden and Italy fill the next four team slots, but everyone is agreed that tomorrow’s cross-country could change everything.
“I am really excited to be here,” said Michael, who already has three European titles to his name (in 2011, 2013 and 2015), but who has never been to Blenheim before, although FischerChipmunk FRH was third here in 2017 with his previous rider, Julia Krajewski.
“There is such a lot of history with eventing in England, they are horse people who love the sport.”
Laura admitted that her excellent mark was “a relief, to be honest – there are such expectations this week – but London 52 [‘Dan’] just loves showing off in front of a crowd. I can’t believe a horse can give so much. He owes me nothing.”
Laura’s Olympic team mate Tom McEwen is now third on JL Dublin and Austria’s Lea Siegl performed the test of her life to be in fourth place on the 15-year-old Van Helsing P to score 26.9, just ahead of the highest placed Belgian rider, Lara de Liederkerke-Maier, fifth on the home-bred mare Hooney d’Arville.
Lea, 27, who was the youngest rider at the Tokyo Olympic Games and finished 15th there, has had the benefit of inside information from her father, Harald, who rode at the 2005 European Championships when they were held at Blenheim.
“It’s amazing to be here and to have delivered such a good dressage test,” said a delighted Lea. “I wasn’t here in 2005 – I was only seven – but my father has told me that the course is quite tough and up and down, so we have been doing a lot of fitness training.”
Riders consider that Capt Mark Phillips’s cross-country course will be influential. “The ground is perfect and the striding is positive but there are some serious questions and unusual angles out there,” says Tom McEwen. “It’s a proper championship test.”
There isn’t long to wait: the first horse, Switzerland’s Nadja Minder riding Toblerone, will be first out on the track at 11am.
Meanwhile, New Zealand’s Samantha Lissington now heads the GFS Saddles CCI4*-S, for which show jumping will take place tomorrow, on Quantas R, with a dressage mark of 22.4. Scores are tight, with Britain’s Gemma Stevens now second on Cooley Park Muze and Sarah Bullimore and her home-bred Corimiro third.
