British finish seventh in Aachen

The British dressage team finished in seventh place in the Nations Cup (CDIO) in Aachen with a team that was missing our number one combination Emma Hindle and Wie Weltmeyer.

“I am quite happy with the performance of the team, but I felt that Richard [Davison] deserved a few more marks,” said chef d’equipe David Trott. Richard Davison and Ballaseyr Royale produced a score of 68.708%, to anchor the team.

Nicola McGivern and Active Walero made a few mistakes to score 68.167% — not a vintage performance for Walero who has scored more than 70% internationally.

Of the team’s seventh place Richard Davison said: “I wasn’t disappointed because we weren’t fielding our Olympic team. It was a good dress rehearsal for Athens — now we’ve just got to get our strategy right.

“Royale had plenty of energy and we got a lot of solid sevens and eights — I just need to look at the video and see where I can tickle it a bit.”

It was the first big show since March for Carl Hester’s partner Escapado, and Carl welcomed the big match practice, although theirs was the discard score — 66.083%.

“I’ve proved Escapado is 100%. He started off hot but settled in the second half — our marks went from a three for the first halt, to some eights for the piaffe and passage tours.”

Last minute team inclusion Peter Storr with Gambrinus made a couple of mistakes in his test but still clocked up a score of 67.167%.

“Gambrinus is go-ey and on really good form. As it was my third time at Aachen, the atmosphere held no fears for me,” he said.

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