Bringing the Dutch team to an outstanding victory was Edward Gal and the phenomenal Moorlands Totilas. This is an amazing horse who is only 9 years old, still young in dressage years and will no doubt continue to improve. He has taken the sport of dressage in to a whole new era.
In what was a spectacular, floating test full of effortless elegance, the pair were scoring tens right from the start. In the walk tour, Totilas was looking around at the crowd to make sure that everyone was looking at him! There were only a couple of small glitches in the changes, but the rest of the test was full of amazing quality from what is a superstar in world of dressage. Scoring twenty three 10’s through their test, Edward & Totilas scored 84.085% securing a
gold medal for team Netherlands.
After the first half of the Grand Prix competition on Tuesday, The Netherlands were already in first place of the team event. With the exceptional performances of Adeline Cornelissen & Imke Schellekens-Bartels, the Dutch team were 11.872% ahead of the Germans. The second half of the Grand Prix saw Imke overtaken on the score board . Anky and Salinero were unable to produce a spectacular test, but secured 4th place with a score of 73.872%
The Netherlands team success at Windsor backs up their win in Aachen, Dressage in 2009 is being dominated by the Dutch.
The remaining 2 riders trying to secure a medal for Team Great Britain today were Laura
Bechtolsheimer on Mistral Hojris and Emma Hindle on Lancet. After Carl Hester and Maria Eilberg secured 3rd place for their team in the first half of the competition, the 2 big ladies of English Dressage had to pull out the big guns today to ensure that Team Great Britain stayed in Medal Contention. They came out fighting in front of the home crowd and these two women of English dressage secured the first ever Silver medal in a championship series for England. Above right: Emma Hindle and Lancet.
Laura & Mistral were the first to go, and definitely delivered the goods in what was a super test for this pair. They scored 76.638% and slotted into second place.
Emma & Lancet were the last of the Brits to start and everyone was on edge as Lancet did not fully halt before the reinback, however the test was of a very high quality with lovely rhythmical changes and beautiful big extensions. They scored 72.936%
The German Team were sitting in second place ahead of the Brits after Ellen Schulten-Baumer and Susanne Lebek secured good scores in part 1 of the competition on Tuesday however the German team slipped back into third place after Laura & Emma produced such high scoring tests.
Matthias Alexander Rath & Sterntaler Unicef were the first German combination to enter the arena in the second half of the Grand Prix today. They produced a solid 75.617% test and the pair slotted into 3rd place, the best score for the Germans. Right: Alexander Matthias-Rath and Sterntaler Unicef.
The last of the German team were Monica Theodorescu and Whisper. Their test definitely showed the quality of this well campaigned combination however little mistakes lowered their score to 72.340%
While the battle was being fought for the top three places, there was also another battle taking place between Denmark and Sweeden. The Danes were just 0.554% ahead of the Swedes after day one of the competition and team Sweden were doing everything possible to edge in front.
Day two for Sweden saw a very happy Patrik Kittel & the beautiful stallion Scandic score 72.255%. Tinne Vilhelmson-Silfven and Favourit were the last of the Swedes to start and they produced a score
of 72.34% a tremendous effort for this 10 year old horse and the pair slotted in front of Patrik and Scandic.
Nathalie zu Sayn-Wittgenstein and Digby were the last of team Denmark to start and produced 72.894% just slotting into the scoreboard in front of Patrik.
One of the most impressive horses in the competition were Victoria Max-Theurer and the lovely stallion Augustin. This impressive 9 year old horse worked extremely well and together they produced a 74% putting the pair ahead of Anky & Salinero in 4th position.
The weather played a major role in some of the tests in the afternoon, with massive gusts of wind and rain playing with the nerves of some of the horses.
The riders will now fight it out for the individual medals in the Grand Prix Special and Grand Prix Kur