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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Christopher Hector reports<\/p>\n
I can promise you that this report will bear no resemblance to the FEI blah that will litter the digi world in the next few hours, gushing about another \u2018magic\u2019 performance from Everdale, but unlike the person who writes for the FEI, I actually sat, saw and suffered, all the way through the performance.<\/p>\n
In the first half of the World Cup Grand Prix at Amsterdam there were some mediocre performances but none that were offensive, and indeed there was one very fine test from Don Olymbrio and Nanna Skodberg Merrald. The Danish pair were engaged, forward and the horse looks like an athlete. Okay he could be a bit longer in the neck but he is not jammed, the contact is sweet, and his hind legs are doing as much as his front legs in the big trot.\u00a0 The passage was a little like advancing piaffe, and the piaffe was a little unsettled, but the rest was fine, lovely expressive changes, and Nanna has that quality of really good riders, she is invisible. The score of 73.782 was way mean. I wonder how many little rich girls will be eagerly awaiting the Blue Hors clearance sale, buy that one for me, Daddy\u2026<\/p>\n
Don Olymbio would finish in fifth, while the other Danish pair, Carina Cass\u00f8e Kruth and Heiline\u2019s Danciera demonstrated the widely held view that the F\u00fcrstenball progeny are like their sire, pretty, sweet to ride, but without the talent for real collection, and we saw that every time the mare attempted the piaffe \/ passage tour. They finished fourth on 73.782.<\/p>\n
Third went to Patrick Kittel and Touchdown. The gelding is a beautiful horse and he looked happy and comfortable with the work, but again, with problems in the piaffe and passage. 75.848.<\/p>\n
Isabell Werth took the lead in the first half on Quantaz, with a test that was tidy, forward and correct. The changes were big and straight, huge extended canter and super pirouettes, and they finished with a line that was so complete and assured. 76.869 for second.<\/p>\n
Everdale explodes on to the arena, backs out of the halt, and he is off with that hideous hollow back, the hind legs trailing out behind, complemented by Lottie Fry\u2019s death grip and the stallion\u2019s protesting mouth, and his jaw can\u2019t get any further back because the neck is in its way. Advancing piaffe, if that\u2019s what you call it as the horse swung from side to side. Okay, he\u2019s got a magnificent canter but does that cancel out all the trash? But no, the FEI has decreed that this is magic, first with three of the judges, second with one and third with another, nice try Mariette Sanders-van Ganswinkel but 3rd<\/sup> was still way too generous.<\/p>\n So Lottie Fry takes the lead on the road to the World Cup final in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where was that? Aside from the danger the climate presents to the horses, we have sent our finals (dressage and showjumping) to a country with the most appalling human rights record of them all, a country where the gay population is subject to vicious repression. Think for a second about the crucial role gay riders and trainers have played in the development of equestrian sport in all three disciplines. I guess we are the only sport that has sent an Olympic team that contained an openly gay couple.<\/p>\n The Saudis have engaged in a massive sportswashing exercise, and after buying golf for billions, out of the petty cash bought the FEI, cheap, that\u2019s what it is, cheap and very nasty.<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Christopher Hector is not impressed with the dressage at Amsterdam. Read his exclusive report if you dare!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":67521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-dressage"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67519"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67525,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67519\/revisions\/67525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}