Individual Olympic bronze medallist and Burghley and Badminton winner Andrew Nicholson, who is currently cross-country coach to the Swiss eventing team, reflects on an exciting European Championships at Blenheim
European Championships course-designer Mark Phillips should be very pleased with what he did. I thought it was a good track when I walked it, and it was very enjoyable to watch the riders tackle it.
It must be an unbelievable feeling for Laura Collett to have beaten Michael Jung – especially as she won it on speed across country. The right three riders got the individual medals. The form was there to be studied beforehand; hardened championship partnerships and five-star winners were going to come out on top.
My role as cross-country coach for the Swiss meant that I didn’t watch everything that happened to each competitor on cross-country day, but from what I did see, it was a very good day for the sport. Yes, there were fallers, but they weren’t struggling round the track and then falling – the majority were going beautifully, making for pleasant viewing and then something happened to make them fall off. The riding was good and horses continued to look fitter than they have done in the past, finishing well, which makes me think that things are going in the right direction.
It was unfortunate for the Brits that four of them ended up on the floor, but these things happen. I was part of the team at the World Championships in 1994 that were favourites to win and yet at least two of us – Mark Todd and I – fell off at the same fence. Vaughn Jefferis saved us by taking individual gold, and we still qualified for the Olympics, but we fell off left, right and centre.
Piggy March was going too well, making it look so easy, which goes to show that sometimes it’s better when you have a couple of little hairy moments to keep you and your horse sharp.
I was impressed with the part of the course from the three-minute mark to four minutes, from the main arena to the end of the section on the South Lawn of Blenheim Palace. There were seven jumping efforts within that time – and, despite the big solid corners in front of the palace causing the majority of the worried chatter beforehand, they jumped really well.
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Having so many jumps within a short space of time was clever; it made riders slow down, so do they then speed up and potentially make other places on the track more difficult than they had appeared on walking?
It’s a normal occurrence – when riders are worried about fences, they ride them well. They ride where they walk in those circumstances, whereas it can be easy to get a little casual about bits of the track which don’t seem so difficult.
The door is open
Three months ago, there was a lot of chat about the British being able to field three teams and still win at Blenheim. Now you’d think they perhaps might not have the power and depth they thought they did. It’s healthy – the door is open to be on the British team for the World Championships next year, and for other teams to win medals.
A young German team, with Michael Jung as the 43-year-old “grandfather”, won; good for their chef d’equipe Peter Thomsen, who would have got grief for returning from Paris 2024 with no team medal.
The Irish were impressive to win silver with a largely new-look team, although after Austin O’Connor’s second place at Defender Burghley, they are bound to want him back in the fold for the worlds in Aachen.
Cédric Lyard and Jean-Luc Force are a new partnership managing the French team and, in a new post-Thierry Touzaint era, they would have been under a lot of pressure to win a medal, which they did with some new faces on the squad.
Our Swiss team were so close – they could taste, see and feel that medal, but they didn’t get it. However, at least they are putting themselves in a position to be able to win – and lose – it, which is better than being nowhere near it. Their time will come.
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New Zealand five-star event rider Andrew Nicholson has won Burghley five times and took top honours at Badminton in 2017. He has won two Olympic team bronze medals and a team silver and is currently cross-country coach to the Swiss eventing team.
