‘He likes to keep us on the edge of our seats’: Jagerbomb loses a shoe – but he and Becky Moody still take the lead
A shoe pulled clean off with a minute to spare didn’t stop Becky Moody and Jagerbomb – they went into the lead in the grand prix special anyway, on just three shoes
After a difficult grand prix on Tuesday (11 August) Becky Moody and Jagerbomb needed a boost in the special – and they delivered, scoring 77.66% to take the provisional lead heading into a heatwave-lengthened lunch break at the Dressage World Championships in Aachen.
But it was, once again, far from smooth sailing. Their start time had already been brought forward by over two hours owing to the heat, but Jagerbomb kept his cool in the vast main arena. There was still one more scare to come, though – as he lost a shoe in the 10-minute box, and as there was no time to replace it, completed his test on just three.
“That was much better today,” Becky said. “I mean, I’m kind of a little frustrated I didn’t manage to do that on Tuesday, but super pleased with how he went in.
“He was just a little bit more relaxed, a little bit more at ease, more confident when he went in there. I was careful at the beginning, but as soon as I stopped for that first halt I didn’t have any of that nervous anticipation I had on Tuesday.
“So I was a little cautious to begin with, but then was able to really build on that as we went through, and both of us got a little bit more confident."
The shoe came off in perhaps the lowest-key way possible. “We had a little drama – we probably came into the 10-minute box four or five minutes before we were due in. It’s not a full-length arena, so I don’t like to be in there for too long, just doing some basic transition work,” Becky explained.
“With about a minute to go, I did a centre-line halt, and then I use quite often a turn on the forehand to help with my halts – I sort of halt, do a turn on the forehand, halt, and as he did the turn on the forehand, he pulled a front shoe off.
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“Luckily, he really does have very strong, substantial feet – his feet are a bit like the rest of him. It was a very clean pull. We gave him a trot round in both directions; he was totally comfortable and fine, but it certainly wasn’t the ideal prep just before going into that arena.”
Becky Moody: the grand prix special is different
If Tuesday’s mistakes were still on her mind, they didn’t show. “I think Tuesday was just one of those things – I wasn’t sure how he was going to react going in there, maybe I wasn’t quite ready to deal with it in some ways, or took a little too much of a risk in that scenario,” she said.
“But [the special] is different – it’s not the team test; it’s just an individual competition, so immediately the pressure is less. I also prefer this test, and I think he prefers it too – it suits us a little better. So we went in there, maybe just a little more confident.”
Talking through the test in detail, she added: “We actually halted, so that was an excellent start, and the first extended trot, after what happened on Tuesday, I did keep quite conservative – I sort of thought, okay, let’s just have a seven for this.
“It suits him that it starts with the left half-pass, which is his slightly stronger half-pass, and the way the test goes, with the passage, extension, half-pass, passage, it helps to build the momentum and the energy a little as you go.
“I think the thing I was able to show in that test was just an easier relaxation – I could show the harmony a little more. For me, from on board, the piaffes weren’t as good today as they were on Tuesday, because they didn’t have quite the engine I want to feel.
“But actually, I think probably to the people watching, you don’t see it as much as I feel it. He was cool with his pirouettes and changes and things like that – so I was really pleased with him.”
With all that had come before, it was a fantastic round – the changes were a particular highlight, and on the judges’ average marks, Jagerbomb only dropped below seven for one movement, averaging 6.9 for the extended walk. In truth, the piaffe-passage could have scored even higher.
The frame was the best we’ve seen so far – averaging an 8.6 for harmony from the judges. Given how electric Bomb was in the grand prix, it’s a real compliment to Becky that she resisted the urge to take a tighter hold of the reins to enforce that control, trusting him throughout instead.
Asked whether Bomb himself had felt calmer, she added: “Definitely – literally from the moment I went in through the gates. I have to go away and look at this – maybe it was a little bit me on Tuesday as well, but I think he was definitely different in here today.
“He did the arena familiarisation under the lights last night, so he’s been through this arena again, been in there another time. So maybe both of us were just feeling a little bit more confident.”
The searing heat added another layer of difficulty. “We’ve had some quite serious heatwaves, even in Yorkshire!” Becky said. “Jesting apart, we have had a lot of days hitting 30 degrees, which has probably helped us prep for this a lot more than if we'd had a normal Yorkshire summer.
“But when the chips are down, you just deal with it – we’ve got a great team around us. There’s electrolytes and water, there’s ice, and the horses have been being washed off, they’ve got lovely ice water and things like that.
“The team here at Aachen, and our team around us, are brilliant in terms of supporting us in this situation with the weather.”
“27 pairs of overreach boots will be staying on until we go in the arena!”
As for the farrier who had no time to help, Becky could only laugh about it afterwards. “Mark Watson went to pick up his tools, and we were saying ‘There’s no time; we can't do anything here’,” she said. “I think Mark comes to these events largely for Bomb, because Bomb has this uncanny ability to do something – I think maybe it’s because his feet are a bit big, he just likes to keep us all on the edge of our seats.”
She hadn't seen the score before being told it in the mixed zone. “I don’t actually know what I finished on,” she admitted. Told it was 77.66%, she nodded: “I’ll take that. I think, for the mistake – and knowing that, again, it’s that balance – our personal best in the special was here, and it was a 78.3% or something like that, and I’d have said he was a little more electric, a little hotter then, but then that comes with a little more risk as well. So yeah, I’ll take that – that’s pretty good for where we were at.”
With the freestyle to come tomorrow night, in front of a packed 40,000-strong crowd, Becky was already looking ahead. "I’m just wanting to not lose my mind when I go into that arena tomorrow night – I think it's just going to be an absolutely incredible night of dressage,” she said. Asked if she had anything special planned, she laughed: “27 pairs of overreach boots will be staying on until we go in the arena!”
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Oscar joined Horse & Hound in October 2023 and is the magazine’s dressage editor and sports manager, overseeing coverage of equestrian sport. After studying equine science at Myerscough College, he spent four years working for leading dressage rider Emile Faurie, competing at the 2015 National Dressage Championships and travelling with the yard to CDIs including Aachen and Saumur. He holds a master’s degree in Literature from York St John University (2021).