Euro Champs

Unfortunately Team GBR moved down to bronze medal position after the show jumping today in Luhmuhlen.

Whilst that was naturally disappointing, looking back on the weeks experiences we were very lucky to be coming back with any medal at all. The Germans won gold with the French picking up the silver. The three British horses jumped great rounds but each had a fence down, in contrast to the French team who each jumped a clear round.  The odds of that senario happening was quite remote but it had been a competition very much like that.

It was a huge relief that Cool Mountain came out so well today after his efforts on the cross country yesterday.  I couldn't have been happier with how he jumped and he was unlucky to have the fence down which dropped him to 7th from a possible 4th.

It has been an extraordinary week for Team GBR.  For the first time since Yogi Briesner took over as Team Manager in 1999 one horse did not start the competition.  For Mary then to fall off and for Laura to have an unhappy round compounded things and we could easily have come back empty handed.  So in the circumstances team moral remains very positive and it was probably in no way a bad thing to have had a tough competition ahead of 2012. 

Poor Ingrid Klimke had a horrific round show jumping with six fences down leaving Michael Jung to add European Gold to his World title. 

Click here to see the full results from Luhmuhlen.

William & Cool Mountain during todays show jumping phase at the European Championships.