Friday lunchtime dressage update

British and American riders are tied at the top of the leader board after this morning’s session of dressage. Great Britain’s Piggy French, fresh off the back of team silver medal success at last week’s FEI European Championships, and riding 2019 Badminton winner Vanir Kamira and the USA’s Hannah-Sue Burnett and Harbour Pilot both scored 26.9.

“I’ll take that,” said a somewhat relieved Piggy after her test. “'Tilly' is not a dressage horse so the important thing for me is that the test was mistake free. We had a few wobbles but I’m just pleased that she kept her head. In all honesty, there’s not a lot more to keep working towards in this phase with her.”

Hannah-Sue was also relieved after Harbour Pilot’s test which was a definite improvement on their last 5* test at Lexington.

“He ‘blew up’ in the arena there so I rode him quite a lot this morning and was really pleased with his test here,” she commented.

Another American combination, Elisabeth Halliday-Sharp and Deniro Z, now sits third on 28.4, knocking overnight leaders Eliza Stoddard and Priorspark Opposition Free down to fourth.

“He was such a good boy, I’m absolutely thrilled,” said Elisabeth. “He finds the flying changes mechanically difficult and they are definitely still work in progress so I really concentrated on trying to get as many 8s as I could elsewhere. He always gives his all for me though.”

The final session of dressage starts at 1400 with New Zealand’s Dan Jocelyn and Blackthorn Cruise first into the arena. Last year’s runners up and winners, Oliver Townend with Ballaghmor Class and Tim Price with Ringwood Sky Boy go at 1613 and 1621 respectively.