Riders have been giving their reactions to the Pau Horse Trials cross-country course, designed by Pierre Michelet.
Cross-country day kicks off at 1pm (12pm British time) today (29 October).
Tom McEwen says: “There’s a lot of decisions to be made. I think you need to be quite quick to decide what to do based on how things going during your round.
“There’s a lot of similar-ish combinations going in different directions so if you don’t get one right, you might have to change your plan.”
Tom is in third and ninth place on Bob Chaplin and Braveheart B respectively after the first phase at Pau.
“I think the first water is quite nice to get us going because obviously we’re quite used to the waters being pretty hefty. I actually think fence four A and B [the Kiosque & pointe de la Ville de Pau] is a tough enough ask – Pierre Michelet always asks a very early decent question in the courses that he builds.”
Fellow Brit, Izzy Taylor, who is in second place after the dressage on Monkeying Around, says that there is “lots to do”.
“I imagine the time will be tight and it will be very easy for us to have an irritating 20 penalties for doing very little wrong,” explains Izzy. “You’ve got to be on it all the way. And, as we know, the fourth last combination always causes trouble, so you’re not home – as I demonstrated last year when I had a fall there – until you’re home.”
Harry Meade, who is in 11th with Tenareze after an impressive first phase performance says that he thinks the course is “really interesting”.
“Pierre Michelet is an extremely interesting course designer,“ he explains. “There’s a lot of questions. There’s a lot of places where you can have tricky little errors, but Pierre has given us choices between going on three or four strides on a repetitive basis throughout the course.
“There’s lots of places you can have a glance off and riders are going to have to concentrate the whole way. It’s obviously not the big, imposing, bold type of course like Burghley, but it’s technically difficult, and you can’t relax until you’ve landed over the last fence.”
Emily King, who is riding Valmy Biats, who scored a competitive 25.5 in the dressage to sit in fifth going into Pau Horse Trials cross-country day, also shared her thoughts on this year’s track.
“I haven’t walked it and felt sick like I have done in the past at Burghley or Badminton, which is nice, but there are so many places for really annoying things to happen – this is a rider accuracy course,” she explains. “If you ride your lines perfectly and your horse is genuine, you should be fine, and then it’ll just be about achieving the optimum time.”
British talent Mollie Summerland is in fourth after the first phase with Charly Van Her Heiden, and will be one of the last riders to take on Pierre Michelet’s course this afternoon.
“There’s plenty of places you can have a run out so riders definitely need to be concentrating the whole way around, but it’s a good track,” she says. “It should suit horses that riders have a really good partnership with.”
Overnight leader, Swiss rider Felix Vogg, says that the cross-country course is “tough enough”.
“There’s some challenging stuff and plenty of combinations, so riders will need to be on it. It’s going to be hard for our brains and the horses’ brains too.”
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