Australians Andrew Hoy and Phillip Dutton-teammates on the Olympic gold-medal teams in 1996 and 2000-gave their competitors and fans a riding lesson in the morning cross-country session at the Rolex Kentucky CCI****. Hoy rode Yeoman’s Point, a horse staring his first four-star to the morning’s only completely clear round. Hoy never seemed to hurry-and he even said afterward that the gelding had jumped a bit greenly in places-but he cantered home easily to complete the course 8 seconds fast.

That effort has put Hoy, seeking to continue his quest to win the Rolex Grand Slam, into third place, 1.6 penalties behind Dutton.

The only anxious moment for Hoy came on phase A, where he and the stewards apparently had a disagreement on what he’d done. We don’t yet have an official answer to what happened as Hoy has to ride Moonfleet this afternoon and the ground jury is busy, but the ground jury clearly agreed that the stewards had made a mistake. According to reports, Hoy had finished phase A before he was stopped, and he was allowed to start again as the morning’s final rider.

Dutton started the day’s proceedings off as the cloudy, foggy day’s first rider. Hannigan seemed a bit uncertain at first but got better with almost every jump, finishing full of run just 2 seconds over the optimum time of 11:02 to take over the lead.

Jan Thompson galloped Task Force home with 8.0 time faults to split the two Australians. She appeared to lose some time early and couldn’t make it up, despite brilliantly jumping all the straight routes.

Wendy Lewis and Rampant Lion charged to the morning’s third-fastest time (2.8 time faults) to vault into fourth place. They were 28th after dressage in their first four-star.

Adrienne Iorio-Borden rode the first of her two horses to a clean round, with considerable time faults. Riders are reporting the footing on steeplechase heavy, and she had 4.8 time faults, with 7.6 cross-country time faults. The ground seems to be drying out (there has been no more rain today), and the late-morning and first afternoon horses are finishing with no steeplechase time faults.

Emma Winter, Cathy Wieschhoff and Corrine Ashton all finished with no jumping faults but considerable time faults, rounds of which they have to be proud.

Observers won’t be surprised if Kristin Schmolze protests the 20 faults for a run-out she’s been charged at the triple brush out of the Hollow. She certainly galloped past the triple brush, but so did several others that haven’t been penalized.

Buck Davidson and Private Treaty had a run-out at the second of the two Craftsman’s Corners, so far the day’s most influential fence. Robyn Fisher and Le Samurai fell and were eliminated there, attempting the black-flag optional oxer. They’d had a rough go, though, having already incurred three refusals before the fall. Tiffani Loudoun-Meetze fell off Above ‘N Beyond at the first corner and retired when she saw a small cut on his leg.

Cricket Worthen retired after three refusals on course.

The Sunken Road has cased both Balladeer Ted (Peter Gray) and Tumble Dry (Jenna Schildmeier) to refuse. Balladeer Ted finished, but Schildmeier retired Tumble Dry at the Footbridge as he clearly wasn’t jumping right.

Maguire and Semper Fidelis didn’t start cross-country.

Some 9,179 people watched dressage on Thursday, while 14,334 watched on Friday.