Day 3

Day three at Aachen was the most exciting one yet! Today was the second half of the Grand Prix class, so the scores today combined with the scores from yesterday determined the team medals, and it was an extremely close race between the Netherlands, Great Britain, and Germany. The top three (out of four) scores for each country counted for the team ranking, and the Netherlands already had a very strong 77.586% from Hans Peter Minderhoud and a 75.814% from Diederik van Silfhout when Edward Gal came in and blew the competition away.

Edward Gal and Glock's Undercover

He rode incredible piaffe and passage, even scoring 10s from some judges, and scored 82.229%. This score gave the Netherlands a very high overall score (235.629%), but with the strongest riders from Great Britain (Charlotte Dujardin) and Germany (Kristina Broring-Sprehe) still to go, it was unclear if the overall score was high enough to secure the gold medal. Charlotte Dujardin followed Edward Gal, and all eyes were on her to see if she could score highly enough to earn Great Britain the gold (her score would be added to Fiona Bigwood’s 75.800% and Carl Hester’s 75.400%).

Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro

Her test began absolutely beautifully, with some 10s awarded for her extended trot and trot half passes. However, she had uncharacteristic mistakes in the canter half pass zig zag and one tempis, which brought her score down a bit. Her final score was 83.029%, which put the overall score for Great Britain 1.4% lower than that of the Netherlands. However, the Netherlands still had to wait for Germany’s Kristina Sprehe, the last rider of the day, to see what would happen. Germany already had a 75.971% from Matthias Alexander Rath and a 75.200% from Jessica von Bredow-Werndl, so with a high enough third score Germany could potentially move into the top spot. Kristina Sprehe is a beautiful rider, but she also made uncharacteristic mistakes in the canter half pass zig zag and had small errors in the piaffe and passage. Her final score of 79.743% left Germany in the bronze medal position. The final team medal results were: 1. The Netherlands (235.629%), 2. Great Britain (234.229%), 3. Germany (230.914%). Spain, Sweden, and France followed in 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th places respectively.

Charlotte and Annie gave us several helpful tips during the Grand Prix class. Some horses swung their hindquarters in the flying changes, and they suggested schooling changes along the rail (with the side that the horse swings the haunches to more on the rail). Some horses showed lateral collected walks, and they told us that if you have a horse with a lateral walk, you should experiment with the tempo to find which tempo gives the walk the clearest rhythm and you should also ride lateral movements (shoulder-fore, leg yield, half pass, etc.) in the walk to break up the rhythm more. Like yesterday, we all paid special attention to the accuracy of the riders (for example, several did not do a clear transition back to collection after the extended trot, which is really just throwing away points) and their positions (many were really impressive!).

We also spoke with Swedish chef d’equipe and long line master Bo Jena and German FEI 4* judge and master trainer Christoph Hess. They were wonderful – so passionate and honest – and gave us several useful tidbits. We are planning on talking to them more tomorrow, so I will post their words of wisdom later.

Tomorrow is a day off from competition, so we are planning to meet with more riders, trainers, and judges as well as watch plenty of schooling in the warmup rings. Saturday is the Grand Prix Special and Sunday is the Grand Prix Freestyle, so stay tuned for more exciting updates!