Just one team from this event will qualify for London 2012 but Australia is in the enviable position of having several riders who would be able to qualify through their FEI World rankings should they not manage to secure a spot here. For a full explanation of the very complex qualification process, Equestrian Life chatted with Prue Barrett, National Eventing Performance Director who is with the team here at Blenheim; the audio of the interview can found at the bottom of this article.

Riding for Australia are Brook Staples on Ever So Clever II, Catherine Burrell on Urzan, Lucinda Fredericks on Nysa de Petra and Bill Levett on One Two Many NJ.  Brook was the first rider out for Australia on the beautifully presented Ever So Clever II, a nine year old bay gelding owned by Zoe Warren and Brook. The test was accurate with some lovely canter work and the pair got Australia off to a good start with a score of 53.7, the leading score at that point having had a member from each team compete.

Catherine Burrell has been based in the UK since 1995 and is riding the very impressive ten year old gelding Urzan by Metall. Catherine and Urzan recently jumped clear at Barbury Castle CIC***,  were 8^th in the Advanced at Aston le Walls and in 2010 they completed Boekelo and Blenheim. Urzan has beautiful paces and is uphill, forward and rhythmical. He had a little spook just before entry but he then settled for a straight entry and halt, lovely medium and extended trot, flowing lateral work and showed a great walk with good overtrack. Overall, the test was polished and it was a bit of a surprise when they announced that there had been an error of course; it transpired that the judges had thought that Catherine had omitted the salute but in fact, on checking of the video, it was proved that she had saluted and her score was altered from 53.7 to 51.5 to put her in the lead at the end of the team dressage.

Lucinda Fredericks also performed a good test and seemed to be rather harshly marked with 57.1 on the elegant grey horse, Nysa de Petra, which was the team discard score. This horse is Lucinda’s second horse as she also had The Navigator entered but opted to ride Nysa de Petra. There was a small drama as the horse bit its lip in the warm-up but the judge was advised and, although a tiny amount of blood was visible during the test, the judge checked the horse’s mouth afterwards and cleared him as okay.

Bill Levett and One Two Many NJ have had a good run up to this event, having placed 2^nd in the CCI*** at Saumur and was the winner of the CIC*** at Hartpury. One Two Many NJ has good elevation and cadence in all of his paces and did an excellent rein back and halts and showed a very good walk. Unfortunately there was a slight hiccup in the first counter canter which also impacted the flying change but they still scored 52.7 so it would have probably been the only sub 50 score in the team event without these small errors.

 

This consistent performance from all riders means that the Australians lead the event after the dressage on a score of 157.9, with New Zealand on 165.4 and Japan on 176.0. The three scores to count for New Zealand came from recent FEI Eventing World Cup winner, Clarke Johnstone who did a lovely test on the very polished Orient Express to score 51.9, Lucy Jackson and Willy Do (great name!) on 55.6 and Jonathan Paget riding Clifton Razz on 57.9. Andrew Nicholson had a rather tense test on the 8 year old mare Qwanza who seemed full of beans and had a few problems in the counter canter to result in an uncharacteristic score of 62.5.

The Japanese team scores came from Kenki Sato on Chippieh (55.8), Jackabee ridden by Takeaki Tsuchiya (58.3) and the first rider of the competition, Yoshiaki Oiwa on Gorgeous George (61.9).

The next phase of the team competition is the cross country phase on Saturday when the team competitors will be the first riders on course. Photos from the Team Dressage are on the Photo Gallery www.equestrianlife.com.au/gallery