Controversial jumping final will decide medals

Today’s penultimate showjumping competition has left Patrice Delaveau (Orient Express HDC), Beezie Madden (Cortes ‘C’), Rolf Göran-Bengtsson (Casall Ask) and Jeroen Dubbeldam (Zenith SFN) holding the top four positions – and this quartet will now contest the individual showjumping medals at the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.

Round one

Out of the 29 starters in the first round of individual showjumping,there were only eight clears and Beezie Madden put herself in danger, by picking up her first four faults of the competition on the usually reliable Cortes ‘C’. A clear round from 19-year-old Bertram Allen kept the Irish hopes alive, but like most he had to just sit, wait and hope the top few would falter. After the first round the top of the table remained unchanged with less than a pole between the top six.

No room to breath

There was no room for mistakes, as all but Rolf-Göran Bengtssen in the leading group had to jump a foot perfect clear to stay in contention and make the final day. There were nine clear rounds in total but those who produced an early clear were unable to celebrate, as only mistakes by the final four would decide their fate.

German rider Daniel Deusser on Cornet D’Amour was the first of the top riders to have a rail, dropping him down to sixth and taking Germany’s hopes of a medal with him. This moved Jereon Dubbeldam (NED) into fourth.

Beezie Madden (USA) put in a superb clear to secure her place on the final day along with Patrice Delaveu (FRA), who put in an heroic round in front of his home crowd.

Last to go, Rolf Göran-Bengtssen (SWE), was the only rider to have a rail in hand and had fans on the edge of their seats after Casall Ask tipped an early pole. True to form, the Swedish rider held his nerve and cleared the rest to take him through to the final four.

Controversy

The final of the world championships is unlike any other showjumping competition in the world. The top four progress to one final round, where each jumps a round on their own horse.

The riders then swap and jump a further round on each of the other three horses, which means each horse jumps four rounds in total. Bizarrely, the riders also swap saddles so the horses must jump with strange (and possibly ill-fitting) tack. Considering the horses have already jumped four times to get to the final, it’s a big ask to jump another four rounds on the final day.

While our sport normally favours horse-and-rider combinations, tomorrow it will come down to whichever rider can get the best out of a strange ride – or perhaps which of the four horses will be the least forgiving to a new rider. After all, the horse who jumps the most clears for the other riders will likely be denying his own rider a chance of winning.

The competitors don’t have long to get used to each of their new mounts. They are given just three minutes to warm-up each horse and may jump one vertical and one spread fence each.

Rule book

At the world championships, all the rounds count towards the individual result, then in the final four the score is reset to zero. This is unlike the Olympics, where the scores are reset to zero after the team competition – which did not work in favour of Nick Skelton and Big Star. They jumped clear round after clear round at London 2012, only to be denied an individual medal after knocking just one fence on the final day.

Dropping out

Only the top 30 riders from the team competition qualified for today’s round, but a number of riders felt there was too much ground to make up and did not come forward for this afternoon’s class, meaning that Carlos Lopez (COL), who finished 35th on Thursday, will jump again.

Britain’s Scott Brash had already dropped out ahead of Thursday’s second team round, while Eric Lamaze (Zigali PS), Ludger Beerbaum (Chiara 222), Kent Farrington (Voyeur), Yann Candele (Showgirl), Christian Ahlmann (Codex One) and Pedro Veniss (Quabri De L’isle) all withdrew before today’s competition, despite having qualified.

A further seven dropped out before the second round of today’s competition, including Gerco Schroder and Glock’s London, who picked up 12 faults in the first round that knocked them right out of contention.