Despite mixed fortunes cross country for two of the British team riders, Great Britain still managed to finish in second place at the FEI Eventing Nations Cup™ in Boekelo (NED) – the final leg of this series. Great Britain also had no less than four riders in the top ten individually.
France were the leaders in the team competition, finishing on an overall score of 97.8 ahead of Great Britain on 111.2, while team Belgium finished third on 129.0, and were overall leaders of the Nations Cup Series.
French team rider Nicolas Touzaint also won the individual competition while Belgium’s Lara De Liedekerke-Meier and Ducati d’Arville were runners up on 28.6. In third was Ros Canter (pictured above) with Lady Milnes Coates and Deirdre Johnston’s MHS Seventeen who added nothing to their dressage to also finish on 28.6.
Fellow Brit competing as an individual Selina Milnes and Cooley Snapchat, owned by Mr and Mrs Rucker, also enjoyed a double clear to finish in fourth on their 29.9 dressage score, while British team rider Laura Collett (pictured above) and Dacapo (owned by Gillian Morris-Adams, Diana Chappell, Carolyn Taylor and Mr and Mrs Smedley) jumped clear cross country but added four faults show jumping to finish in sixth on 30.9. Ros Canter, who was also competing as an individual with her second ride Dassett Cooley Dun (owned by Kate Willis and Mel Pritchard), finished eighth on her dressage score of 32.3.
For the two other British team members Caroline Harris (D.Day, owned by Fiona Olivier, Lucy Matthews, Marie Anne Richardson and Heather Royle) and Yasmin Ingham (Rehy DJ, owned by Janette Chinn and The Sue Davies Fund), an unfortunate 20 penalties each across country saw them finish out of the individual pickings.
The cross-country phase proved no mean feat for the 12 teams who came forward for the CCIO4*-NC-L. Germany fielded a strong team, which included Olympic champion Julia Krajewski, who led after the dressage but then plummeted down the order to 11th.
Adrian Ditcham was the man responsible for designing the course which was challenging but highly praised by the riders. He told the FEI: “It’s really difficult here because you have so many different strands. The golden ticket for the Olympics, lots of young horses competing here as well as the Dutch championships held over a long format which is unusual as most national championships are over a short format. So, you have to piece it all together to deal with all those and it needs to be of a good standard. I think there are some nations who we may see in Paris. The Brits use the Nations Cup as a testing ground for getting the young horses out and many come for the experience. I think if you want horses to come to the Paris of the Europeans Championships, they need to experience that atmosphere that you get here at Boekelo. You don’t get many events like this and it’s a great experience for them. It’s like Glastonbury for horses with all the tents and people, that makes it a tough course to design here.”
For full results visit https://military-boekelo.nl/actueel/startsresults
Images courtesy of FEI/ Libby Law Photography
