Rosalind Canter and Izilot DHI. Image: @lauradupuyphotos/Les 5 Étoiles de Pau.
Ros Canter takes the lead at Pau CCI5*L following the cross country
The British riders confirmed their supremacy following the cross country at Les 5 Étoiles de Pau, taking the first seven places in the provisional ranking, but Friday’s top three are no longer in the same position. Rosalind Canter (GBR) took the lead in front of her compatriot Tom McEwen, riding a brilliant round save the 3.2 penalty points for overshooting the allocated time. After taking a fall with her first horse – thankfully no harm done – British rider Kirsty Chabert also rode a near-perfect round in 11’08 (allocated time 11’06) and takes third place on the provisional podium.
Let’s be honest though, the cross-country track designed by Pierre Michelet made life difficult for many of the riders. Only 20 out of the 55 horse-rider pairs on the starting list managed to complete the course without a hitch. French rider Maxime Livio, riding Carouzo Bois Marotin made a brilliant comeback after the cross-country, clearing all the fences and finishing 31 seconds over the allocated time. Saturday’s efforts won him tenth place in the provisional ranking this evening. Florian Ganneval, participating for the third time in the 5 Etoiles de Pau with his horse Blue Bird de Beaufour – and Camille Lejeune with Dame Decoeur Tardonne, competing for the very first time in a CCI5*-L, also completed the course, clearing all the fences without any problems. Gaspard Maksud, the best ranked French rider after the dressage test, unfortunately fell at the last water jump with his leading mare, Zaragoza, but showed that he’s in great shape right now, with his second horse Kan-Do 2, just 9 years old.
Rosalind Canter’s impressions after the cross-country:
“Of course, it’s hard to say when you ride the course with different horses, but I thought that this year, it walked a little more technical maybe than last year in terms of the twisting and turning. I thought that the water on the racecourse when I first walked it was going to be the trickiest fence I’d ridden all year, so it definitely needed a lot of respect. My two horses were both fantastic [Saturday], I think sometimes they help me out and sometimes I had to help them out too. My mare wouldn’t find this sort of course quite so easy, and I didn’t quite get my line right with her at the water and her steering isn’t quite so good as the other horse, but the other horse was absolutely fantastic, he’s really matured and grown up this year, so I was really delighted with him.”
Tom McEwen’s impressions after cross-country:
“To be honest, very good: Haras, very different – I felt very sorry for the organisers, a lot of rain, like Thursday, ground completely different, sort of here, hard work. Here, rain – ground perfect, so very good, and also, dead flat. So, we prepared to come here after, I was sad with the Europeans, but that was one of those things, you have to run, feel like you should run as a team rider, so very different. So yeah, very different it was very nice coming here, very positive [Saturday]. To be honest, I thought it showed, exactly what I thought it was very intense, it caused problems all the way around. And obviously it showed the two girls either side of me obviously held on course – the three fastest rounds of the day all held on course… it shows the intensity of the track, so obviously being one of the quicker ones between me and Piggs (Piggy March). Didn’t get held up, so I felt we were doing good for time, I think that shows the pure intensity of the track.”
Kirsty Chabert’s impressions after cross-country:
“I tend to agree with Ros, I walked it, and the first 10 fences felt like a short-format 4* to be honest. You were constantly twisting and turning and with lots of combinations, after that there was a bit more flow, maybe through the garden, we didn’t turn back quite as tight, and then out on the gallop you could open them up. My mare doesn’t have a particularly big stride, so I’m never going to gain time out on the gallop, but I can go as fast around a corner as I can on the strait, so for me the twists and the turns are very much in my favour. It benefits me that the big, rangy horses have to slow down going round the corners – I don’t have to slow down quite as much, but it wasn’t the best place to be held, right in front of the fence I’d just fallen off at! It was quite a good thing to let my adrenaline come down and then pick it back up, and the crowd were behind me, so it was great fun actually!”
Maxime Livio’s impressions after cross-country:
“It was a real 5* course! As always with Pierre Michelet, you have to be very precise, because if you’re a metre out of line or if you don’t have the right pace, whether it’s too fast or too slow, you quickly run into problems with the combinations… so it was a good synthesis of what he knows how to do.”
Pierre Michelet’s analysis (cross country designer):
“The course was pretty much the same as last year. I thought it was a little more difficult. But I didn’t think we’d have so many twists and surprises. A few things were a bit different, namely that the beginning of the course turned quite a bit. I think the horses didn’t get into the course as well as they had on other occasions, when the first part was more fluid. The ground was a bit sticky and this combination of factors led to more incidents. On this very flat terrain with a galloping track, if you’re not a little strict on the route, you’ll have twenty horses coming in within the allowed time.”
Competition continues with the show jumping today (Sunday).
Source: Les 5 Étoiles de Pau press release
Published 29 October 2023.
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