The Slower Road

World Singles Championship (Italy), report from Karen Garrett:

Bill Peacock and Beau scored a 57.60, bringing the U.S. team  total to 119.68. There were a few left to drive after Bill, and individual and team scores had not been posted by 6:30 this evening. Bill was eighteenth after his drive and finished in the top 25; I’ll let you know all the details tomorrow. The final driver for The Netherlands scored a 53.76, so The Netherlands finished on 94.98 and were second behind Germany, who finished with a team total of 79.10. Other team scores were Switzerland with 114.17, Finland with 112.13, Poland with 109.06, France with 111.74, Austria with 106.24, Hungary with 123.10, England with 130.82, and Norway with 131.07.

I was able to have a brief chat with Robin Groves and Donna Crookston in the Wine Bar, a tent located at the end of the dressage arena near A. We talked about the marathon tomorrow, and they agreed with a comment Bob Koopman made yesterday that most of the hazards are very open BUT they have tricks in them. There are forty-two knockdowns total, so the drivers cannot just go barreling through the obstacles. Obstacle 3 has a lot of changes in elevation and looks the trickiest to drive. There are two water obstacles; one has a bridge and A is gated so that a competitor has a choice of going either over a long bridge or down a slope and through the water to B. Will report on thrills and spills tomorrow!

In case you haven’t had a chance yet today to check hoefnet.com (or if you can’t read German), here’s what happened today at the Riesenbeck CAI:

In the pairs division, Misdee Miller earned a dressage score of 58.75, which puts her right about in the middle of the pack.

In the four-in-hand division … wow! Jimmy Fairclough finished the (four-in-hand) dressage phase in third place with a score of 48.00. Right behind him, in fourth place, is Tucker Johnson, who earned a 49.41. In the lead (in the CAI competition) after dressage is Christoph Sandmann of Germany, with a score of 40.45.

I don’t know what the standings are at this point in the Derby, but Tucker must still be right up there at or near the top. After the pairs portions of the Derby, I hear he was in second place, and today’s fourth-place finish in the four-in-hand dressage can’t have hurt!

World Singles Championship (Italy), report from Karen Garrett:

The excitement is building on the second day of dressage. The morning started with a lovely test by Finnish driver Arja Mikkonen, who won the first World Singles Championship in 1998 and has competed in every championship since that time.

Both Kim Stover and Donna Crookston drove this morning. Kim had a score of 67.07, and Donna’s score was 67.46. Kim drove immediately after the Swiss competitor, Eric Renaud, who won the bronze medal at the last Worlds. His horse, Melissa, had both a terrific collection and extension with a really noticeable difference in her frame. Kim didn’t make any mistakes in her test, but Lucky, Kim’s horse, needed more impulsion; the judges seem to be rewarding forward, light, and relaxed. Donna had to touch her rein on one of the one-handed circles and that appears to have cost her.

Kim Stover and Lucky at the halt during their dressage test (photo by Karen Garrett)

Donna Crookston during her dressage test (photo by Karen Garrett)

A member of the Dutch team, Saskia van Heesch, got a 53.25 this morning, putting The Netherlands, with a cumulative score of 94.98, just 1.50 points ahead of the Germans (96.48), with both teams having one more team member to compete today. The Dutch driver had a horse with a lot of “wow” factor and spectacular extensions but also had a few problems. The horse broke into a canter in the first extension, tried to move off early on the ten-second halt, and jigged through most of the walk. The third member of the German team, Thorsten Zarembowicz, drove just before the lunch break and scored a stunning 35.20, which put him in the lead but brought gasps from the spectators when the score was announced, as the horse appeared a bit tense and went behind the vertical on several movements and only had about two steps on his back before he jack-knifed. The third member of the Dutch team drove at 5:25 this afternoon.

The youngest driver at this competition is sixteen-year-old Antonio Simoes from Portugal. He is destined for great things, having earned a 61.00 in dressage.

World Singles Championship (Italy), report from Karen Garrett:

Robin Groves drove at 3:10 on Thursday afternoon and had a score of 62.08. She had a break into canter during an extended trot, but otherwise drove a smooth test.  Interestingly, Robin was the only competitor today to drive a two-wheel vehicle; there have been a number of two-wheel vehicles at prior competitions. Lying in first place after the first day of dressage is Jan Van Den Broek of The Netherlands, with a 41.73. His test was lovely to watch and nearly flawless. Coming in close behind Van den Broek is Mareike Harm of Germany, with a 43.90. Rounding out the top five were Christoph Dieker, also of Germany, with a 46.77, Detlef Bohlmann of Germany with a 51.58, and Bartlomiej Kwiatek of Poland with a 51.97. Harm and Bohlmann are both members of the German team; Dieker was driving as an individual. The third member of the German team drove today (Friday) at 12:05.

Robin Groves, during her dressage test on Thursday (photo by Karen Garrett)

On the U.S. front, Kim Stover drove today at 10:00, Donna Crookston at 11:45, and Bill Peacock at 4:10. I was able to confirm, talking to Diane Koopman, that the steward at the warm-up arena was holding competitors and not allowing them to proceed to the main arena, which caused the problem of getting to the dressage arena on time. I also heard that the Nations’ Party on Wednesday night was a wild affair (sorry I missed that!) and made the party in Poland at the last Worlds pale by comparison. I’m not going to tell tales on anyone, but I heard there was a lot of dancing and one member of the U.S. team ended up with a shirt from a member of the French team! 

News on other competitors: Anne Violaine Brisou of France, twice French champion and World silver medalist, had a dressage score of 54.14. Ian Bertram, who was a member of the 2006 gold-medal team at this same venue, had a score of 64.77.

If you’re trying (notice I said, trying) to follow the four-in-hand scores from the Riesenbeck CAI (Germany), you may be a bit confused at the moment. I was, until someone explained it to me.

There are forty pair drivers and twenty-nine four-in-hand drivers competing at Riesenbeck this weekend. For the pair drivers, the weekend is a straight-forward, just-like-normal event, and they started their dressage tests today (U.S. driver Misdee Miller goes in the second group, just before noon on Friday).

For the four-in-hand drivers, this weekend is a “regular” event PLUS a couple of extra classes added to make a separate event know as the German Driving Derby (Deutsches Fahrderby). So the four-in-hand drivers are basically competing in two different events: the CAI and the Derby.

The CAI is the usual three phases of dressage, marathon, and cones. The winners of the Derby are determined by using the drivers’ CAI scores and adding two other scores to them (there’s actually a complicated formula involved, but we won’t go into all that here). For the other two scores, each driver divides his or her team into two pairs. One pair is then taken in a standing presentation class, and the other pair is driven in a dressage test. These two “pair” classes in the Derby were driven today.

In the Derby, then, our two U.S. four-in-hand drivers, Jimmy Fairclough and Tucker Johnson, finished well in the pairs dressage, with Tucker in third place and Jimmy tied for fourth. Tucker placed third in the presentation as well (Jimmy was twelfth), so he’s in an awfully good spot at the moment in the Derby standings.

The four-in-hand drivers have their CAI (four-in-hand) dressage tests tomorrow. Tucker is first to go, bright and early, at 8:00 a.m. Jimmy will drive his test later in the afternoon.

If all this makes sense, you can follow the scores at www.hoefnet.com.