H&H’s Tokyo rider of the day: Nanna Skoborg Merrald on gelling with new Olympic ride in under a year

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Nanna Skodborg Merrald pats Zack after finishing the grand prix special at the Tokyo Olympic dressage competition
(Image credit: Peter Nixon)

Olympic debutante Nanna Skoborg Merrald is making an impressive debut in the Tokyo Olympic dressage competition. She scored 73.168% in Saturday’s grand prix (24 July) and 74.21% in the grand prix special that decided the team medals. Denmark finished just outside the team medals in fourth, and Nanna will ride in the individual final tomorrow (Wednesday, 28 July).

Nanna’s achievements are all the more significant as the 17-year-old Zack (Rousseau x Jazz) is a relatively new ride for her. The stallion, who is also used for breeding, was previously ridden by her compatriot Daniel Bachmann Andersen. He stopped riding him last summer when he left his job as number work rider at Blu Hors Stud where Zack is based. Daniel and Zack were on the Danish team at the 2019 Europeans, the World Cup Finals and competed at several Nations Cups together.

Martha Terry
Martha Terry
Features editor

Martha is an experienced journalist who is mad-keen on horses and dogs. Her reporting CV includes the Paris Olympics, European championships, Aachen World Equestrian Festival and World Cup finals. After growing up with assorted liver and white springer spaniels, she enjoyed 14 years with two rescue dogs. Now, her constant companion is Fidget, an extremely energetic and habitually muddy black and white springer. Martha has written on topics as diverse as a top horse’s clone to the best GPS trackers for dogs, as well as equestrian and rural matters for Country Life, The Field, The Times, The Spectator and The Telegraph alongside Horse & Hound.