Great Britain through to the Team Final at the Tokyo Games
Friday 06 August 2021
After the excitement of Ben Maher and Explosion W claiming the individual gold medal for Team GB on Wednesday, it was back to business at Equestrian Park in the Bajikoen area of Tokyo today with the start of the team competition. A total of 19 teams came forward, with the Brits coming fourteenth in the drawn order.
Prior to yesterday’s second horse inspection, the team had made a pre-competition change to bring in Harry Charles and Romeo 88, following a minor injury to Scott Brash’s ride Hello Jefferson.
Holly Smith and Denver
Pathfinders for Team GB were Holly Smith and the 13-year-old Denver. Having sat out of the individual competition, this was their first turn around the Equestrian Park stadium outside of training – not that you’d have thought it, watching Denver attack the course. Ian Dowie’s gelding showed all the bravery that saw him reach Advanced level in eventing before a career change to showjumping, but one pole hit the arena surface just before the final line.
“I was absolutely delighted with the horse,” said Holly. “Believe it or not, he’s not got a lot of experience jumping at this level and, with us not having competed in the individual competition, it was quite something to go in there. I feel as thought neither of us have jumped a course in months – it’s not that long, but it feels like it [laugh]. Just really, really pleased with him – he answered every question and I’m delighted for the owner and hopefully it’s enough to get us through to tomorrow.
“The last line was always going to be difficult and, to be honest, my mistake before that line maybe helped us a little bit because it gave us a wake-up call. I chose add a stride to the double of planks at the end, but everywhere else I went on the forward stride. I knew it was going to be difficult for me to get that extra stride and I had to work super, super-hard. It’s a super-careful set of planks and in previous competitions I’ve chosen the open distance to doubles like that and had mistakes. I’ve been practicing at home, obviously, and it was between one or the other and I thought that if I didn’t try something different I wouldn’t forgive myself.”
Harry Charles and Romeo 88
The withdrawal of Scott Brash and Hello Jefferson as a precautionary measure after the horse picked up a minor sprain in the individual competition brought Harry Charles and Romeo 88 into the team line-up. Having unfortunately retired in the individual final, the call-up offered Harry a chance to rebuild the confidence of Ann Thompson’s 12-year-old gelding and, while three down might not have been what they were hoping for, Romeo 88 finished his round full of go.
“The score maybe wasn’t great, but I’m actually very happy,” said a philosophical Harry. “After the round the other night and only finding out yesterday that I was going to be in the team, I had little preparation and the horse has already done two massive rounds. Today was always going to be about giving the horse confidence, I knew I wasn’t going to go clear – the team knew that, too – so the result was pretty good.
“It wasn’t easy, but we just had to get on with it – there was no other way, I couldn’t not jump, so I’m happy that it went as well as it could have done. He ended very good, very confident, and his jump is super, so no harm done today.”
Ben Maher and Explosion W
Solid performances of Holly and Harry, and the impact of a tricky course on the rest of the field, meant that qualification for Team GB appeared secure in the hands of individual gold medallists Ben Maher and Explosion W. The only hairy moment in an otherwise smooth round came when Explosion W chipped in an extra stride coming into the middle element of the treble and rubbed a pole, sending it falling. Despite that, they completed within the time allowed – despite Ben not pushing – and adding just four penalties to the team total of 16.
“I was happy with Explosion,” said Ben afterwards. “It’s always tough after a very fast round of jumping like the other day and he’s a horse that gets more careful the faster he goes. It’s about giving him the confidence – it’s important that he’s jumping across the oxers. Maybe on the fault I just left him a bit on his own and I could have helped him a little bit more.
“I had a talk with Scott Brash just before I went in and he said we had a good margin to make the team final tomorrow, so I could take it a little easier. It may sound crazy in this level of competition that I could take it easy, but it just meant I could give him an easier time and if I made a mistake, we’d still make the finals. It was enough, tomorrow’s another day.
“There weren’t too many decisions to make on the course today. For the double of the planks towards the end, many horses were doing six strides, but he was one of maybe eight who went on five. I can trust him to jump those planks – it’s like he has laser vision! He can see them and measure them, so the five was always the right option for me.”
Coming up
After three rotations, Team GB finished the competition on a combined score of 20 and sitting seventh on the leaderboard – with qualification going to the top ten teams, Holly, Harry and Ben will be back to compete in tomorrow’s final, going fourth in the team rotation. With the scores wiped to zero, there will be all to play for and the competition for a place on the Olympic podium will be fierce.
Full results available here.
The team final gets underway tomorrow, Saturday 7 August. Coverage will be available on Discovery+ and Eurosport from 10:45 BST tomorrow. Some coverage will also be shown as part of BBC One’s Olympic programming from 11:00 BST.
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