Former World champion Zara Tindall has been selected for her first British team appearance with her Tokyo-hopeful Class Affair.
Zara joins World Equestrian Games team gold medal-winner Tom McEwen, young rider European team gold medal-winner Richard Coney andfive-star rider Laura Colletton the British squad selected for the first leg of the 2020 FEI eventing Nations Cup (12-16 August) at Le Pin au Haras, France.
The selected combinations are:
Zara Tindall on Gleadhill House Stud Ltd’s 11-year-old gelding Class Affair
Laura Collett with Mr and Mrs M. Smedley, C. Taylor, Gillian Morris-Adams and Diana Chappell’s 11-year-old gelding Dacapo
Richard Coney on his own and Wendy Coney’s 12-year-old gelding Kananaskis
Tom McEwen and Barbara Cooper’s 15-year-old gelding Figaro van het Broekxhof
Zara and Class Affair picked up top-10 finishes at Bramham and Boekelo last year, while Tom and Figaro van het Broekxhof were runners up at the 2019 five-star Luhmühlen.
Richard made his senior team debut at the Houghton Hall Nations Cup leg last year, before helping the British young rider squad to gold at the Europeans inMaarsbergen, The Netherlands.
Laura and Dacapo were runner up at last year’s Bramham and made a team Nations Cup appearance at the final leg in Boekelo. Following eventing’s restart last month,the pair enjoyed a win at Cholmondeley Castle.
This year’s Nations Cup series, which had been due to begin in April but was postponed owing to the pandemic, will run with a reduced calendar of four legs instead of six meaning it will not feature a UK event after Houghton Hall was among those to be cancelled.
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The scheduled dates and venues will now take place:
Dickie Waygood, British Equestrian’s performance director and eventing performance manager, said the organisation is excited to see the series get underway, albeit in a shortened format.
“The current Covid-19 situation does add additional challenges to sending a team to compete abroad, but we have factored these into our plans,” he said.
“We continue to closely monitor changes and updates to guidance and protocols in relation to travel – the safety of our riders, their support team and horses is our top priority and I’m confident everything has been done to minimise the risk during travel and the competition itself.”
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Since joining H&H in 2018, Becky has covered a broad range of equestrian news including welfare matters, veterinary studies, FEI Tribunal hearings and road safety campaigns. She has also interviewed top riders including Scott Brash, John Whitaker and Ian Stark, to name just a few. Becky’s reporting has taken her to Canada for Spruce Meadows and France for Pau five-star, as well as the Royal Highland and Blair Castle International Horse Trials closer to home. She was also a key part of the remote reporting team for the Tokyo Olympics and the Europeans.
