After his workout, he had some time to relax in his box until it was time to get him ready for the class at 10.30. He had a slightly hurried warm up, but was jumping well. Into the ring and the course was big and tough and spooky. It was a whole new ball game today. The wall had been included as well as a massive water jump and a treble combination. The wall was pretty cool, designed as the double decker London bus. Vedor doesn't really spook at the jumps and is super at water, so they shouldn't hinder him. Julia and Vedor had 2 rails, one at the post office jump, a tall open vertical, and the other at...gosh I don't remember...was it at an oxer? (I'm writing this blog a day late) No it was a tall vertical coming out of a oxer-vertical double. Other than that, the rest of the round was superb and they finished on 8 faults.
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| Watching Julia's round, with Rod Brown, James Patterson-Robinson and Stephan Lamb |
Team member, Matt Williams, had a better round on his horse Watch Me. Watchi jumped all the jumps but had 3 rails down to incur 12 penalties. Edwina and Itot were up and did a super round to jump clear. Itot is an absolute superstar and he must have springs in his feet to jump those fences that are much bigger than he is. He has a great stride and it seems very adjustable between the jumps, even those short lines that some of the bigger horses struggle with. James Paterson-Robinson and Lanosso were out last for the Aussies. They had 2 rails to incur 8 penalties. The three best scores of the team were considered for team contention, and only the best 8 countries with the lowest amount of penalties went through to the second round of the Nations Cup. Unfortunately, Australia finished in =10 place with 16 penalties, equal to Germany. Teams such as Belgium and France were also out of contention for a teams medal.
Julia, Edwina and James qualified for the individual competition and were able to compete the next day in the second round of the Nations Cup on Sunday, as individuals.
Julia was kicking herself about her round, saying if only she didn't have one less rail, we could've qualified the team for the second round. I'm sure James was thinking the same thing about his round. They all jumped super, no matter the outcome. Just getting to the Olympics is its own achievement.
I spent the afternoon tending to Vedor and keeping him happy, with walks, grass and carrots, watched the rest of the jumping and before I knew it, the day was over.
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| A lovely setting of the main arena, taken on the warm up day |
I collected another pin to add to my lanyard, a pin from Columbia that I have been wanting. The whole pin swapping has slowed down a bit now. Most of the grooms have all the pins they need. Now I just have volunteers asking for Aussie pins and if you give out one pin, you get swamped by the rest of them wanting one too. There is this one volunteer that asks me everyday if I have a pin and others asking if I can swap one off my lanyard...No I collected these ones myself, you're not getting those.
That's about all from day 5
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