Laura Collett leads in Aachen

Britain’s Laura Collett is in the lead after the first two phases of the CIC*** in Aachen, Germany. Riding Rayef, she performed a superb dressage test to hold a comfortable advantage over Germany’s Sandra Auffarth (Opgun Louvo).

Her score of 30.2 was enough to hold her the lead despite one showjump down and two time-faults in Aachen’s impressive main arena. Sandra jumped clear but collected three time-faults, leaving her on 37.6. This means Laura has slightly more than one penalty in hand going into tomorrow morning’s cross-country.

“That was the best mark he’s got – I felt like I could do anything in there,” said Laura. “I had nothing to lose, so I went for it. He was quite spooky in the jumping arena and I just got one fence totally wrong, but he’s really starting to jump well.”

Christopher Burton and Underdiscussion hold third for Australia, adding a time-fault to their fifth-placed dressage mark of 37.8. His team-mate Clayton Fredericks jumped a rare clear on Bendigo for fourth, although current World and European champions Michael Jung and La Biosthetique-Sam FBW are on the same score of 39 for Germany. Michael and Sandra have already been selected for the German Olympic team.

William Fox-Pitt is in 10th with one fence down on Neuf Des Coeurs, and the other two British team members, Emily Baldwin and Drivetime and Francis Whittington and Sir Percival III, are 17th and 26th.

Germany lead Britain by 12 marks in the Nations Cup competition, with Australia third and New Zealand fourth.

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