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Isabelle Cook makes Kentucky debut: ‘Dressage isn’t easy for him, but he tries hard’

Pippa Roome Pippa Roome

    • Isabelle Cook made her Kentucky Three-Day Event dressage debut this morning (24 April), as part of the Rising Lions programme.

    Riding her mother – former European champion and Olympic medallist Tina Cook – and Jim Chromiak’s Cymoon “F” Z, she scored 39.3 to share 36th place after the first phase.

    “Dressage is not his easiest phase and he does really struggle to keep a lid on everything,” said Isabelle Cook after her Kentucky Three-Day Event dressage.

    “He didn’t quite get the mark that maybe we had hoped for, but actually, I was really pleased with him. He stayed as relaxed as he could and he tried hard – he always tries. So I’m really pleased that we just got through the test and we can move on to the next bit now.”

    Asked what makes this phase tricky for the 12-year-old chestnut, Isabelle said: “I think mentally, he gets very anxious and excited and he just struggles to switch off. He’s always quite uptight.

    “We do a lot of lungeing with him, instead of riding him, because I don’t want to be on him for too long, so we are just trying to switch him off on the lunge. Then I get on 10 minutes before my test and just loosen him up a little bit and then go in.

    “Physically, I don’t know why he finds it so difficult, because he’s an amazing jumper, but I think it is that mentally he just bottles up and doesn’t really like it. But he’s an amazing cross-country horse.”

    It was particularly costly that Cymoon “F” Z threw in an extra flying change as the pair turned onto the final centre line, resulting in fours for that movement.

    Isabelle explained: “He finds going on a straight line really difficult and compressing at the end of a test. I felt him getting a bit tense around the corner and then I tried to straighten him, and he thought I meant change. So that was just a sort of slightly tense mistake, but he behaved in my eyes for the rest of it.”

    Isabelle is looking forward to tomorrow’s cross-country.

    “It’s a decent track, but all very inviting and there to be ridden. We’ve just got to be on our A game,” she said.

    “Kentucky is such a cool place. It’s just more than what I even expected it to be. It’s an amazing opportunity to be here and we’re just very grateful to the Rising Lions for it, and hopefully we can do the best we can.”

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    Pippa Roome
    Pippa Roome

    H&H magazine editor and eventing editor
    Pippa is a true eventing geek and has been H&H’s eventing editor since 2005. She has first-hand experience of competing up to British Eventing intermediate and international CCI2*-L level, and has worked in the industry on a top event yard. Pippa enjoys nothing more than immersing herself in the sport at the highest level, reporting from the five-stars and international championships, including the Olympics.
    Pippa Roome

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