The final Saturday at the multi-discipline FEI World Championships at Aachen in Germany was all about para dressage and four-in-hand driving. Teams from 20 nations arrived with the goal of securing qualification for the LA28 Paralympic Games, as well as claiming a World Championship medal. Meanwhile, out in Soers park, it was marathon day for the four-in-hand driving world championship.
Mission accomplished for para dressage
The standards and levels of professionalism in para dressage have risen year after year and, in parallel, the competition for podium places is fiercer than ever. Where Britian dominated the top for two decades, more flags now feature on podiums and, as we headed into the final day for team medals at Aachen, there was around seven nations, including Britain, all within a shout of taking a medal. Also up for grabs was coveted qualification for the LA28 Paralympic Games, which would go to the top seven placed teams, excluding host nation USA who receive their place by default.
Grade 5 – Team: Sophie Wells and MSJ Gold Standard
Having taken the Grade 5 individual test by storm to become World Champions, Sophie Wells and MSJ Gold Standard, bred and owned by Yorkshire’s Emma Blundell, brimmed with confidence as they headed into today’s team test. Two +74% scores the previous day from teammates Mari Durward-Akhurst and Jemima Green meant that Britain was in the medal hunt, but the team would need something touching the duo’s personal best to stay there.
Drawn towards the end of the class, Sophie and ‘Gracie’ looked in tune throughout the seven minutes they were in the arena, with the bubbly chestnut mare on the aids and willing. The rhythm and frame were good, the work was correct and there weren’t any major mistakes. The final score, however, fell a little shy of what they were hoping for at 73.763%.
“I’m really proud of her – the feeling she gave me today was better, I feel, than a couple of days ago in the individual,” declared Sophie. “She warmed up super outside, she felt nice and energetic, and a little bit lighter and more up for it today. It’s frustrating to go in there and come out with a score that was lower than two days ago, but that’s dressage, that’s sport. My biggest goal coming out here was for her to be a happy horse in the arena, and I feel like she was happy in there today.
“In every test, up until today, we’ve got a slightly better score each time and we just keep getting a little more out of her. It’s a long week in that it’s very drawn out – yesterday was a rest day and I decided not to sit on her, to just leave her and let her be a horse. I feel like she came out better for that, in the feeling she gave me. Tomorrow is another day.
“I love her music – we’ve got some really fun music, which is a bit different for me – and we’ll go out and have fun dancing,” she exclaimed.
Grade 4 – Team: Nicola Naylor and Humberto L
Visually impaired Nicola Naylor was delighted to take a bronze medal bronze with Humberto L in the individual test two days previously. However, to give the team a fighting chance, she’s need to conjure a new personal best with the chirpy bay gelding she co-owns with Ros Emery Kay.
With Julie Riches doing the calling, Nicola started brightly, with the marks flowing – at one stage they were trending at around 76%, so things were looking good. However, horses like to remind us every now and again that they aren’t machines. Just as it was going well, Humbo decided that there was something at the top of the school that he didn’t like and leapt sideways. Nicola did her very best to stay on – without her sight, she can’t preempt a sudden spook like riders who see what the horse sees. As quickly as the incident occurred, though, they were back in stride. However, it had cost them dearly and the scores nosedived down to the 70% level, with a final score of 70.261%. It was about 5% short of their target, though, so medal hopes faded and the focus was now ensuring the team got one of the seven golden tickets to LA28.
“It felt as if I rode it very well and I should get marks for staying on!” laughed Nicola. “We went for a little bit more expression, a little bit more power today, then he went a bit more noise-sensitive – he was reacting to everything. To be honest, there were a few mistakes here and there where he was just being a bit reactive and I had to nurse him through it. Some tests are just like that.
“When you’re pushing for a bit more, you run the risk that they boil over slightly too much. That was the risk we ran and I knew that was the risk. There were some really lovely moments where I think he really come up, both in the trot and the canter, because we had that extra power, but there were just a few extra movements that we didn’t really want!
“I think the medium canters were lovely, even though we were down in his ‘dangerous’ corner. I thought ‘let’s just go for it’ because he was clearly ready to jump out of his skin – I thought we’d go for it anyway and if he jumps out of his skin, I’ve sat it once, so I’ll sit it again. We had nothing to lose, so I thought we had to keep going for it, which is what we did,” she said.
Despite things not going her way today, Nicola has enjoyed her time in Aachen so far.
“Being on the team has been wonderful,” she said. “All four of us got medals in the first test, which was a really lovely, uplifting moment for everybody here and we’ve all worked so hard to get here. That was just fantastic. For all of us, it’s been an amazing occasion and I’d like to come again!
“It’s an honour to represent your country. We’ve got some strong riders in our country and there’s a lot of competition. I’ve been the reserve many, many times and I know what that feels like, so when you’re finally the one that they select, it’s a dream come true. What makes it even better is that we’re such a strong group of riders at home, so the competition is fierce,” she explained.
It took until nearly the end of the day to iron out the medals but, as the formbook had predicted, gold went to the reigning Paralympic champions from the USA on 236.135. Hosts Germany were in silver, some six percent adrift on 229.875, with the Netherlands completing the podium on 227.639%. Qualification for LA goes to Denmark (fourth), Great Britain (fifth), Italy (sixth), France (seventh) and Sweden (eighth).
Tomorrow is the para freestyle finale, with the top eight combinations in each grade qualifying for the opportunity to win the final sets of medals on offer. British combinations will be in action across the day; Grade 2 from 09:30 (08:30 BST), Grade 1 at 10:50 (09:50 BS), Grade 4 at 13:30 (12:30 BST) and Grade 5 at 14:55 (13:55 BST). Exact times for athletes will be confirmed after the second horse inspections have taken place.
Marathon day at Soers
The marathon course at Aachen is world-famous and somewhere everyone wants to drive. Today, 53 of the world’s best had that opportunity. A course of 8,906 metres was set with a speed of 14km/h, giving a time allowed of 38 minutes and 10 seconds to complete the distance and eight obstacles.
Karen Bassett
Despite already being a veteran of nine World Championships prior to her selection for Aachen, Karen Bartlett’s sporting ambitions are purely recreational – in her professional life, she and her horses operate a commercial carriage and funeral hearse business.
She didn’t have an easy final 24 hours preparing for her 10th World Championship, when one of her experienced horses suffered a last-minute injury in the field. She and her remaining four horses arrived safely, but the change meant she’d need to reconfigure her horses’ positions without any time to practice. The severely impacted her dressage score, with unsettled movements and tense horses, but she put that behind her today for the marathon phase.
Driving as an individual she set off with grooms Mick Etherington and Eva Williams, and had a great spin round the route and eight obstacles with her team of Flora, Galvani Hedegaard, Skyfall and Thit Hedegaard. Their total marathon penalty points were 146.72, giving her a two-phase total of 216.94.
“It was amazing, to be honest. We had no idea how it was going to go because we had a bit of a disaster just before we left and we can came here with only four horses. Today, the horse were in positions they’d never been in before – I had my brilliant little leader [Thit Hedegaard] in the wheel, Flora had to move across to the right and the boys in the front had to swap over. We didn’t know how it was going to go and didn’t have time to practice because Gratia was injured on Saturday night and we left on Sunday. We came with absolutely no expectations of what could happen, but they were phenomenal – they just settled into that position and they tried so hard,” said a delighted Karen.
“They’ve been a bit high since we’ve been here, but they’ve just started to settle today and really work with me. The problem is that they’re so used to their funeral life, which is quiet, and the competitions they do at home are quiet, but then they come here and take days to settle. Maybe if I’d have had a dressage on Friday, I might have been slightly better, but we were drawn Thursday, so it is what it is and we just had to make the best of what we had.
“I’m very pleased that I made the decision to come because I very nearly withdrew. Then I decided ‘let’s go – it could be my last championship’. It was a team decision, where we all just sat and said ‘what are we doing to do?’. We decided that we’d come and we’re very glad that we have,” she remarked.
Daniel Naprous
Daniel Naprous brought a relatively new team of horses to Aachen because he’s building for the future – experience at this level is vital to assess where he and his team is in that process. In his words, ‘it takes four cycles and we’re in the first’.
A 61.37 dressage left him in 32nd place ahead of today’s marathon phase. Driving Ippon, Jack, Lord P.C. and Lyzander V, he was the trailblazer for the British team with grooms Felix Naprous and Mason Bertram alongside him doing the navigating and backstepping.
His total marathon penalties were 127.01 – when added to his dressage, that gives him a total of 188.38 over the two phases so far.
After his drive, he said; “It didn’t one hundred percent go to plan, but the horses gave me everything, so I’m super-pleased with them – it’s all my bad decision-making. We got round clean and safe, and that’s the most important thing.
“The course didn’t look overly complicated when we walked it, but as soon as you think it’s not complicated, you add more speed to it – which suddenly makes it more complicated! There were a few little mistakes from me, not turning early enough to give my leaders the confidence to know exactly where to go – we missed a gate in two obstacles, which is really not good news. However, we’re still in it and there are still two more Brits to go, so let’s hope they really go for it.
“We’re all a team here, including Karen as the individual, so we feed information to everyone. We’re one big, happy family and we just want to do our best for the British team.”
Robert Wilkinson
A self-described ‘hobby’ driver from Leicestershire, Robert Wilkinson may have originally taken up the sport when none other than Aussie driving legend Boyd Excell was based at his yard but, today, he found himself mixing it with the best of the best at the World Championship – and was about to make his British team debut in the marathon phase.
In yesterday’s dressage he posted a score of 52.97 with his team of Fernando, Kamore, Marquezz and Norwold. Today, he opted to swap out Norwold for Marquezz. He gave the team a safe drive, ensuring his team had a happy trip around Soers, aided by grooms Lisa Mitchell and Ned Andrew.
Peter Bennett
This Cheshire driver has made the change back to four-in-hand driving after nearly two decades away, just to have the moment of driving a team at the iconic venue of Aachen. He had been competing in horse pairs, winning medals to boot, but today was something he’d been aiming for from the moment he heard that the venue would host this year’s multi-discipline championships.
A dressage score of 52.24 left him best of the Brits in 19th and today he elected to drive Elmo Almire, Kroonprins, Lodewijk and Lutiano in the marathon phase. He had a relatively late draw, which meant that by the time he started the course, last night’s heavy rain and further heavy showers through the day had begun to take their toll on the going, particularly within the obstacles. He had a safe drive, taking care to give his horses an enjoyable trip. They scored 144.84 for the marathon which, when added to his dressage, gave a total of 197.08 to take forward to the final cones phase.
“It was neat with no mistakes or knockdowns. We didn’t go fast – the horses were tired because it was very heavy going. My leaders got tired – I put them in draught, which to helps to pull the carriage between the obstacles, so that the wheelers didn’t get too tired. When you’ve got deep mud and tight turns, the wheelers need some power. It was just a bit much for them today – warm, heavy going, late in the day and with some rain – but they were brilliant. They gave it their all, didn’t make any mistakes and everywhere I wanted them to go, they went. I can’t fault them, really,” explained Peter.
“I had a plan I wanted to stick to, but I went and watched a few in the morning. I saw where things were looking a bit difficult and made one or two slight changes, but nothing really. It’s very different in the morning when it’s hard going to in the afternoon when it’s wet,” he said.
Two-phase standings
In the marathon phase, Karen finished in 39th place, Dan was 23rd, Robert was 25th and Peter was 38th. Overall, going into the final cones phase, the British placings are:
25. Robert Wilkinson – 186.13
26. Daniel Naprous – 188.38
33. Peter Bennett – 197.08
42. Karen Basset – 216.94
In the team competition, Australia leads the way on 308.06. The Netherlands are second on 310.37, while Belgium completes the podium just behind on 310.82. Germany is fifth, the USA in sixth and Great Britain is ninth.
On Sunday, the drivers return to Stadium 2 for the final cones phase. Karen Bassett is first in at 09:25 (8:25 BST), Peter Bennett next at 10:30 (09:30 BST), then Dan at 11:05 (10:05 BST) and finally Robert Wilkinson directly after at 11:10 (10:10 BST).
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