Kitara Lodge

Dressage:

Corambo inthe 1* did a lovely accurate dressage test with international judges includingIndonesian’s dual gold medallist at the Asian Games Dressage and judge scoringhim the top score of the day with 70.43% and the other 2 judges giving closescores aswell and finished the dressage 3rd in the class with 52.8penalties just 4 penalties from the leader.

KitaraDiamond Edition in the 3*** also did a lovely test to impress the internationaljudges and scoring a 51.7 penalty for 4th place after the dressagewith Australian Gold Medallist Stuart Tinney leading the class on 44.4penalties.

CrossCountry:

Corambo inthe 1* did a fantastic clear Cross Country Round and 25 seconds under theoptimum time – unfortunately there were a second set of flags that I missed whilstwalking the course and although we were lying in 2nd place afterCross Country I was disqualified. This is a very disappointing result as wewere in prime position for a good end result.

KitaraDiamond Edition in the 3*** was travelling fantastically around the CrossCountry course clear and on time until the 2nd last fence which wasthe water fence. The A element in the water was not riding very well as thehorses were not reading it too well. I rode to the A element strong trustingthe horse would jump it well – once he got to the fence he jumped it, howeverpecked on landing and due to the landing side being downhill I got shot out thefront door over his head. Although with great effort I tried to hold on, theforce of the forward motion was too much and I fell onto the B element of thewater jump. The horse on his own accord continued to jump the B element withoutme. This was a MAJOR disappointment as we made it over the A element, and thehorse was honest enough to jump the B part into the water by himself – I justdidn’t have any chance of staying on him.

This ofcourse an even more disappointing feeling knowing he was on time and clear upuntil then. The water jump was the 2nd last fence from the finishline. With this clear round and good time on the course I would have beensitting in a very competitive 3rd place going into the showjumpingsection. The horse has been jumping amazingly and with a great showjumpingrecord over the last few months with 2 clear rounds and 1 4 fault round in thelast 3 starts I was positive I would have jumped a good showjumping round tofinish in the top 3 placings. This would have given me the neccissary points required to almost be guaranteed a spot in the top individual rankingin ridersfor London Olympic Games.