Paris—July 27
Heading into the Paris Olympics, Great Britain was the team to beat in eventing, and they proved their prowess on Day 1 by taking the lead in the team competition with a combined score of 66.7 penalties. Their nearly 8-point lead over Germany is largely thanks to an impressive score put in by their second rider, Laura Collett and London 52, whose record-breaking test scored 17.5, which converts to 82.5%.
Their test smashed the previous Olympic record of 19.3, posted by U.S. rider David O’Connor and Custom Made at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. (O’Connor’s score was converted to match current scoring.)
“I loved every second of it,” Collett said. “That horse is unbelievable. What he’s done throughout my whole career is amazing, and he just keeps on delivering. So I’m just very grateful to him.”
The 15-year-old Holsteiner gelding (Landos—Vernante, Quinar Z), who the rider co-owns with Keith Scott and Karen Bartlett, has three CCI5* wins to his credit—Pau (2020), Badminton (2022) and Luhmühlen (2023)—as well as his team gold and ninth-place individual finishes in Tokyo. In all their five-star victories, the pair won dressage and never relinquished their lead.
Collett has said she’s been learning from her experience in Tokyo three years ago, and it’s paid off well today.
“I’ve changed an awful lot since Tokyo,” she said. “Everyone knows that it didn’t work there, so it’s been quite testing, really, because two days ago, he was absolutely wild in that arena, and he was pretty naughty and feral. But I had to just trust that. I didn’t want him perfect two days ago; it was all building up. He was very good yesterday, but again, it would have been easy to kind of just push him to that extra bit. And I thought, we’ll wait and do it just in the last 10 minutes and save it for the arena, and [the] plan paid off.”
Collett is joined on the British team by her teammate from Tokyo, Tom McEwen (JL Dublin), and the 2018 world champion Ros Canter (Lordships Graffalo). McEwen was the lead rider for the team, and Collett said his morning-leading score of 25.8 inspired her.
“He really went for it and smashed it out of the park,” she said. “So he gave me that motivation to not leave anything behind and just be brave and try and give it our best shot. And luckily, I’ve got a very brilliant partner.”
Canter closed out the team’s performance with a 23.4 on Lordships Graffalo.
Jung In The Hunt
Two-time Olympic champion Michael Jung of Germany also broke the previous Olympic record by scoring a 17.8 with Chipmunk FRH, but he had to settle for second.
“It was an amazing feeling to gallop into the stadium, it was really like a goose-bump feeling, but in the same time a really great feeling because Chipmunk was so well concentrated and so good with me,” he said. “It was, every second, so nice to ride. And directly before the before I start with the dressage, I know I can take all the risks, and I can try everything.”
Jung feels confident about the cross-country tomorrow. It began raining in Paris on Friday night during the opening ceremony and continued throughout most of the day during dressage, which riders felt might impact the footing Sunday.
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“Every fence is very nicely built, and the gallop track is so nice,” he said. “I’m very looking forward for tomorrow. I think the rain is good for the ground. Before I thought, maybe it’s a bit hard [in some places], but we will see tomorrow. We have not much experience here. We’re not many horses galloping through the cross-country. We will know tomorrow after maybe 20, 30 horses, but my feeling is that cross-country will be amazing tomorrow.”
The German team is currently in second on a score of 74.1, with reigning Olympic champion Julia Krajewski in 15th with Nickel 21 (26.9) and Christoph Wahler in 21st with Carjatan S (29.4). Krajewski had been the team alternate, but was called to action earlier in the week after Sandra Auffarth withdrew Viamant Du Matz.
The day’s best rides came during the afternoon session, and two riders are tied for third with a score of 22.0: China’s Alex Hua Tian on Jilsonne Van Bareelhof and Australia’s Chris Burton on Shadow Man.
Hua Tian described his horse as a little bit extra.
“I think because of that, he through his career, he has picked up little [problems] on his way to big events, and so he’s quite often not made it,” he said. “Last year he was our first choice for the Asian Games and picked up a little injury in the month beforehand. And that would be his story. But for me, you know, this has always been his goal and his target. We’ve saved him for seven years to come here. Tomorrow we unleash the beast and see what happens.”
He was very pleased with “Chocs”—so named because he’s big, brown and Belgian—since he wasn’t sure how the horse would respond to the atmosphere.
“I think for him, he was always going to trot in there and think, ‘Oh, I found a venue of similar majesty to myself.’ That was either going to go this way, which thankfully it did, or it was going to go the other way, and he was going to get over the top about it.”
Burton is a veteran eventer, but he took three years away from the sport to compete in pure show jumping. When Shadow Man’s regular rider, Ben Hobday of Great Britain, was looking for someone to compete the gelding, Burton decided to return to eventing.
The pair went in the ring right after Jung, and Burton said the enthusiastic applause got the gelding on his toes, but he was pleased with how he came back.
“I was just delighted with him,” he said. “He went back to work, showing what a lovely gentleman he is and showing how well-schooled he is. So that was a real treat for me. And it’s always a buzz to be at the Olympics.”
U.S. In Sixth Following Dressage
It was a mixed day for the U.S. riders, who ended the day sitting sixth (88.9) as a team. Liz Halliday, who is competing at her first Olympics aboard Nutcracker, was the best performance of the day, scoring a 28.0 in her test for 19th place in the field of 64.
“He’s a sharp horse, to other horses, to people, to movements,” she said. “He’s very sensitive to sit on. So you’ve got to be constantly thinking, ‘What’s my hand doing? Am I relaxed in my seat?’ Just thinking about yourself when you’re on him a lot because he’s very quick to react. That’s what makes him such a brilliant horse, doesn’t it? The best ones are always a little bit edgy.”
Halliday got a late call-up to the team when Will Coleman had to withdraw before the horse inspection. Halliday can relate to the experience, having had to withdraw from the 2021 Tokyo Games when Deniro Z sustained an injury.
“You’re overwhelmed with the fact that you move into the spot and also overwhelmed with sadness for your teammate, who equally earned his spot here,” she said. “And then it’s time to sort of get to business, and it goes from shock to, oh my gosh, to OK, now I’m going to just be a competitor again.”
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Caroline Pamukcu was the first rider in the ring for the U.S. this morning, scoring a 30.4 for 25th place with HSH Blake. While she’s no stranger to team competition, this is her first Olympic Games. She’s been competing on teams since her junior years, though. She spent the beginning of the summer competing “Blake” on the developmental tour and felt she could take what she learned during that to improve her performance today.
“At Millstreet [Ireland] I went in to get 10s, and I a little bit blew it for the team,” she said. “And then I was a drop score up until after cross-country. So it’s important for me to keep going over for these tours, because I’ve learned from my mistake there. So to me going in today was, no blow-ups, no mistakes, because it’d be so easy to go from a 30 to like a 36. And that test, if you get one step behind, you’re absolutely screwed. So, again, it’s important for us to get a team medal this weekend, so it’s team first, not me first.”
The Olympic test is a five-star test condensed to 3 minutes, 50 seconds, making it a big ask for any horse, but especially a 9-year-old like Blake.
“I’m lucky with him,” she said. “The more you practice something, the better he is. So I would be in the unique position where it didn’t matter how many times I practiced with him. He’s happy to go through it, and he doesn’t get frustrated; he doesn’t get angry with me. He’s such a partner. We’re always on the same page, which I think I’m really fortunate to be in that situation.”
The team’s anchor rider, Boyd Martin was putting in a solid test with Fedarman B, but struggled in both left-to-right changes—losing his stirrup in one—which dropped their score to 30.5 for 26th.
“Awesome test, except for two moments, which were disastrous,” he said. “I really felt like ‘Bruno’ went in there and just was such a champion in there and was with me every step of the way. But we just got our left-to-right flying change, it has been a bit of a bit of a muddle in the lead-up to this event. We’ve been getting it really good at home and in training, but just when the atmosphere is a bit electric out there, he’s got a little bit of anxiety, and I think I mistimed my aids a little bit. But I don’t know, I sort of felt like I gave it my all, and it would have been awesome to have four great changes, but wasn’t to be today, and felt like we still came out of it with a respectable score.”
It’s not the first time Bruno has been affected by the atmosphere, as he did the same thing at Pau CCI5* (France).
“We’ve probably done 20,000 flying changes in the last two months and working and working and working and getting it in training,” he said. “But today wasn’t our day in the flying change department.”
As the 54th rider in the order, Martin said today’s rain may affect the going on the cross-country tomorrow.
“It’s a hell of a course out there, but I feel like my horse is tailor-made for this sort of track,” he said. “I get the nervous wait for going at the end, and see the girls come out and do a cracking round, which I’m sure they will. And I just got to stay switched on for every jump, every stride. And I’ve got complete belief in Bruno, in the cross-country, and he’s ready to go.”
“Overall our horses did some very fine work, but it was very competitive, and I think it showed that we just weren’t going to be in the top tier today, but I’m still very proud of our athletes and horses,” said Chef d’Equipe Bobby Costello. “The amount of work that they’ve put in this year has been immense, and all of these horses will just keep getting better and they will have to be because the world is getting better as well.
“I believe that the first two slots in the running order could be very much interchangeable between Caroline and Liz,” he said with regards to which order the team would ride. “I think Caroline actually quite likes not to have too much information in her head going out there, so I think that would be a great slot for her, and Liz you could honestly put anywhere and she’s going to perform. I don’t think it was ever a question that Boyd would be our anchor rider with all of his experience of being in that position.”
Cross-country begins Saturday at 10:30 a.m. local time (4:30 a.m. Eastern). First up for the U.S., Pamukcu will start at 10:55 a.m. (4:55 a.m. Eastern), Halliday goes at 12:26 p.m. (6:26 a.m. ET) and Martin at 2:02 p.m. (8:02 a.m. ET). Collett, the overnight leader, goes out at 12:38 p.m. (6:38 a.m. ET).
The Chronicle has a reporter on site at the Paris Olympics. See all of our coverage here.
