 Michael Jung (GER), Maxime Livio (FRA) and Zara Tindall (GBR) hold top three slots on leaderboard Even dual Olympic champion Michael Jung admitted cross country day at the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event, third leg of the FEI Classics™, was a tough one with Derek di Grazia’s track posing a serious challenge. However, the German maestro is yet again in pole position on FischerRocana FST, despite finishing four seconds (1.6 time penalties) over the optimum time of 11 minutes 17 seconds and surviving a precarious moment when the brave little mare made an enormous leap into the lake. Jung, currently third in the FEI Classics™ having led the series last year, has a fence in hand to win a record third successive Kentucky on the same horse. His nearest challenger is Frenchman Maxime Livio, current leader of the FEI Classics™ after his win in Pau, who rode a masterful round to finish exactly on the optimum time on Qalao Des Mers to rise from eighth place after dressage to second. “Today was not our best ride, but we have a true partnership and kept fighting,’ said Jung. ‘FischerRocana looks very well after the finish – she is a tough girl!” Michael Jung (GER) The leaderboard has changed dramatically and a brilliant, committed ride by the sole British representative, Zara Tindall on High Kingdom, has propelled her from 16th to third place. A determined Matthew Brown, previously 19th after dressage, has leapt to fourth place on Super Socks BCF and is the highest placed American rider. Demonstrating the openness of the competition, Erin Sylvester (USA), who was only 51stafter dressage, is now 13th on Mettraise after finishing bang on the optimum time. There were 26 clear rounds from the 42 finishers and six within the optimum time. Dressage leaders Clark Montgomery (USA) and Loughan Glen lost their chance of retaining their position with a disappointing refusal at a skinny brush at fence 18a. Three other riders in contention after dressage also disappeared off the leaderboard: both Kim Severson (USA), third on Cooley Cross Border, and Jessica Phoenix (CAN), fifth on Bentley’s Best, retired after run-outs at corners and Elizabeth Halliday-Sharp (USA), fourth, parted company from Fernhill By Night at the Normandy Bank. Tomorrow’s jumping finale, which starts at 1pm local time, is sure to be a tense affair as the magnificent Michael Jung bids to make history – again.  images: Rebecca Berry/FEI The leaderboard has changed dramatically and a brilliant, committed ride by the sole British representative, Zara Tindall on High Kingdom, has propelled her from 16th to third place. A determined Matthew Brown, previously 19th after dressage, has leapt to fourth place on Super Socks BCF and is the highest placed American rider. Demonstrating the openness of the competition, Erin Sylvester (USA), who was only 51stafter dressage, is now 13th on Mettraise after finishing bang on the optimum time. There were 26 clear rounds from the 42 finishers and six within the optimum time. Dressage leaders Clark Montgomery (USA) and Loughan Glen lost their chance of retaining their position with a disappointing refusal at a skinny brush at fence 18a. Three other riders in contention after dressage also disappeared off the leaderboard: both Kim Severson (USA), third on Cooley Cross Border, and Jessica Phoenix (CAN), fifth on Bentley’s Best, retired after run-outs at corners and Elizabeth Halliday-Sharp (USA), fourth, parted company from Fernhill By Night at the Normandy Bank. Tomorrow’s jumping finale, which starts at 1pm local time, is sure to be a tense affair as the magnificent Michael Jung bids to make history – again.  image;(FEI/Rebecca Berry) Montgomery leads on 33.6 ahead of Germany's Jung on 37.1 American rider Clark Montgomery rode a superbly smooth dressage test on Loughan Glen to take the lead in front of his new home crowd at the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event. It’s the third leg of the FEI Classics™, a series that links the world’s six major four-star events and provides valuable cash prizes to the top three in the points table.
Montgomery, who has returned to the USA from a spell based in Britain and now lives in Kentucky State, heads the 59 starters at the USA’s premier event on the excellent score of 33.6, but there’s no relaxing when defending champion Michael Jung from Germany is only 3.5 penalties behind. Jung, the dual Olympic champion and 2015-2016 FEI Classics™ leader (he is currently third in the 2016-2017 table), is going for a record third successive Kentucky victory on the same horse, gallant little mare FischerRocana FST. He has a habit of piling on pressure with faultless jumping performances and Montgomery and Loughan Glen, no strangers to outstanding success in the dressage arena, have a few blots on their cross-country record. However, the dressage leader, who describes tomorrow’s test as “beefy”, was visibly elated: “My horse felt super. This morning he was pretty tight, but he was ‘up’ which is what we wanted. He felt good in his body, good in his mind.” Clark Montgomery (USA) US rider Kim Severson, who has achieved the rare distinction of winning Kentucky three times on the same horse, Winsome Adante (albeit not in succession), is in third place on her rising star Cooley Cross Border. Speedy Frenchman Maxime Livio scored the first victory in the current FEI Classics™ series, at Pau, France, and brings that winning horse, Qalao Des Mers, for a first attempt at Kentucky. They are eighth on 44.6. Zara Tindall, the 2006 world champion, is the sole Brit; she was near the bottom of the Badminton waitlist and decided to cross the Atlantic instead with her 2012 Olympic silver medallist High Kingdom. They are currently 16th on 46.6, just 0.3 ahead of fellow traveller Tim Price (NZL) on Ringwood Sky Boy, 17th. Kentucky’s last home winner was Phillip Dutton way back in 2008; he’s in joint ninth on 44.8 with two of his three rides, Fernhill Fugitive and the 17-year-old Mr Medicott. The vastly experienced rider, a bronze medallist in Rio last year, has this to say about tomorrow’s cross-country, which starts at 10am local time: “You’ve got to keep thinking, not let the blood rush to the head and see how your horse handles the distance. It’s another great course from Derek (di Grazia, designer) and will sort everyone out.”  BACK TO THE FUTURE Eric Winter’s debut course for the 2017 Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials has a distinct look to it. It greatly resembles the swashbuckling tracks of the 1970’s, but with the advantage of 21st century safety technology. Unlike many modern courses there is a deliberate lack of superfluous decoration with most fences using massive rustic timber. Starting as ever in the main arena over the ASX STARTER, this year riders head in a clockwise direction over an inviting roll top brush the ROLEX ROLLTOP. There is a new look to the Keepers ditch with a large but inviting table KEEPERS QUESTION and another single fence MIKE WEAVERS HAYWAIN. The first real question comes with the four part SAVILLS STAIRCASE, rails, two steps down and an angled brush away. A gallop towards the House then introduces a very substantial table COUNTRYSIDE BIRCH, where the brave can angle it and save several seconds cutting inside a tree on landing. Eric has put THE LAKE complex earlier than recently as he felt he could then make it a bit more of a challenge. First come the L200 PICKUP TRUCKS, then a massive drop into the water, a right turn to a wooden cottage out and a brushed up log. (There are time consuming alternatives here). Instead of pockets of relentless action there is a flow to the course which next takes in an uncompromising white parallel in front of the House, the OFFSET OXER then ahead to the SHOGUN HOLLOW, two wide corners with a dip between. A longish gallop follows down to the Vicarage Ditch where Eric has reintroduced an eighties classic, the KBIS BRIDGE. It is then left to the OUTLANDER BANK with an even choice of cottages on the top and right to another seventies tribute act, a spectacular revamp of a thick rail over the ditch the ROLEX GRAND SLAM TRAKEHNER. It is up one of the few inclines in Badminton Park to the HILDON WATER POND with a single tree trunk in, another in the water and a sharply angled log away. Here again there is a very long ‘scenic route’. Down the hill again to the let up SHEEP FEEDER and another place to make up a bit of time in the approach to the familiar MIRAGE POND, two angled hedges with the pond between on quite a tight distance. Another relatively simple, but maximum size rustic spread, the DEVOUCOUX OXER follows before coming back into the Deer Park through the PHEV CORRAL, up the mound to a very upright set of post and rails then down into the ranch’s ‘yard’ where riders can choose either the left or right side of the post and rail funnel on a tight angle. Back to the front of the House to the EVENT MOBILITY DINING TABLE (named for the event’s Charity of the Year) followed closely by the JOULES CORNERS, a hedge to set riders up for a double of angled boxed brush corners. Horses then get their feet wet for the last time, splashing through to an old type vast, ‘Burghley’ bullfinch, the WADWORTH LAKESIDE. Most of the serious questions have been asked by now and the two log piles in the IRISH HORSE GATEWAY HUNTSMANS CLOSE are much kinder than in recent years but to ensure riders don’t just go flat out alongside the road Eric makes them go back and forward across the fence line over two upright WORLD HORSE WELFARE GATES. The HORSEQUEST QUARRY, starts with a big brush on the flat, down into the dip and over a choice of broom head ‘skinnies’ and up a steep slope to an upright wall. The last few relatively ‘kind’ obstacles start with the double of FEI CLASSICS HEDGES, then the ROLEX TRUNK whose approach is through a spinney and back into the arena and we finally come to the MITSUBISHI FINAL MOUNT, for which on Eric’s instigation the design was put out to public competition. Of 13,000 votes on line nearly 4,000 went for Tots Hanson’s carved saddles. If there was one word to describe the 2017 course it could be ‘chunky’. See Badminton Cross Country Course 2017. Further Information: Julian Seaman, Badminton Media Director + 44 (0) 7831 515736 | [email protected] Mitsubishi Motors Press Office + 44 (0) 1285 647200 | [email protected] Images available from: Kit Houghton Photography + 44 (0) 1278 671362 | [email protected] See www.badminton-horse.co.uk for latest news.
A super educational video. Learn how FLAIR® Strips can help your horse when competing at any level in any discipline.
FLAIR Equine Nasal Strips are drug-free, self-adhesive strips that are proven to help horses at every level of competition: Designed to help your horse; · Breathe easier · Reduce fatigue · Conserve energy · Recover faster · Reduce lung bleeding that occurs during exercise For further information from FLAIR® Strips click here. |
Archives
September 2022
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed