Day 8: Isabell Werth Leading Individual Dressage
August 16, 2008
Isabell Werth of Germany is currently on top of the individual standings after the top 25 riders performed the Grand Prix Special test. Favorite and defending champion (times 2) Anky Van Grunsven of Netherlands is in second followed by Heike Kemmer of Germany and Steffen Peters of the USA.
Isabell’s transitions were flawless, Satchmo’s rhythm perfect, his flexion and movement supple and elastic — until he lost his head for a minute. Literally tossing his head up, he had a spooky moment where he dropped out of his collected trot and started backing up with his head up, fighting his rider. Isabell got him back on track after a few seconds and the rest of the test was clean. But I’m not entirely sure how she scored so high with such a behavior breach. I would think such an obvious error would need to be reflected more in the score. It didn’t bother Isabel much, she came out of the ring grinning from ear to ear and waving. Obviously the rest of the test was so excellent that it didn’t matter — she scored a 75.2%.
Anky had a few issues with Salinero trying to break into a canter during half pass, but otherwise had a nice test. She is here defending her title, going for her third consecutive individual dressage gold. She rides a little too stiff and behind the vertical for my taste, but what do I know, she’s got two Olympic wins to show for it. She and Salinero scored a 74.6%.
Heike Kemmer helped win one Olympic dressage medal for Germany already this year, now he sits in third place vying for another with a 72.2%. Steffen Peters is in 4th with a 72.4 after a beautiful ride. Courtney King-Dye and Mythilus (currently in 8th) are a joy to watch. She’s a beautiful, quite rider, and he’s a striking horse with incredible gaits. These two US team members will be looking for impressive freestyle scores to land in the medals.
Here are the placings after the individual Grand Prix Special. The top 15 will perform in the Grand Prix Freestyle round, and then the Special and Freestyle scores will be averaged to determine the winners.
1 Isabell Werth, Germany
2 Anky Van Grunsven, Netherlands
3 Heike Kemmer, Germany
4 Steffen Peters, USA
5 Alexandra Korelova, Russia
6 Bernadette Pujals, Mexico
7 Hans Peter Minderhould, Netherlands
8 Courtney King-Dye, USA
9 Emma Hindle, Great Britain
10 Kyra Kyrklund, Finland
11 Tinne Sylfven
12 Nathalie Zu-Sayn-Wittgenstein, Denmark
13 Jan Brink, Sweden
14 Andreas Helgstrand, Denmark
15 Ashley Holzer, Canada
16 Juan Manuel Manoz, Spain
17 Nadine Capellmann, Germany
18 Laura Bechtolsheimer, Great Britain
19 Hayley Beresford, Australia
20 Kristy Oatley, Australia
21 Marc Boblet, France
22 Anne Van Olst, Denmark
23 Michal Rapcewicz, Poland
24 Patrik Kittel, Sweden
25 Hubert Perring, France
The individual dressage competition will conclude on Tuesday evening in Hong Kong. Watch it live online on NBC Tuesday morning at 7:15 am and will be aired on TV on Oxygen from 6:00-8:00 pm Tuesday.
Be sure to catch the show jumping competition on the days in between.
- Complete Olympic rider orders of go, Hong Kong time schedules, and results with scores
- Complete Olympic Equestrian TV schedule for the US
- Complete Olympic Equestrian live online schedule for the US
- More coverage including rider profiles, news, Olympic equestrian overviews and more
- Daily results for Olympic equestrian competition
- Watch videos of all Olympic equestrian competition on NBCOlympics.com
- How Olympic Dressage Works - format and rules
Posted in 2008 Olympics, Dressage
August 16th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
[...] Original post by Jackie [...]
August 16th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
I am so bummed at Courtney Kings score! I was also surprised about Isabell’s score. I knew it would be high but one would think that she would have lost a lot of score for the movement and then also loose points again in the collectives. Who knows…I am not a judge! I will be thrilled if team USA can finish 2 riders in the top 10 in the world! How is your mare doing? I know these Olympic posts are keeping you busy but I hope she is well.
August 17th, 2008 at 8:43 am
I’m sorry but with the spook for Isabell I don’t think she deserves the top spot. Anky is not one of my favorite riders either, she is a stiff untalented rider who is very rough on her horses.Everything she does looks like a fight with the horse and the horse looks miserable. There is nothing remotely graceful or flowing to her rides, in my opinion she even looked out of control in the half pass and she couldn’t get him to halt. The judging is pretty one sided and unfair. Out of the riders I’ve seen
Steffen Peters had one of the best rides, performing the movements correctly and gracefully. That’s my thoughts so far on this competition and the inept judging that is being practiced.
August 17th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
GreyHorseMatters - I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one who thought those things. I have a hunter/jumper background, so I figured maybe I just didn’t know dressage well enough to know better. Hopefully they’ll shape up for the Freestyle round.
August 17th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Jackie, My daughter and I both have hunter jumper backgrounds, but I switched to dressage because of my knees, she still jumps and also does dressage and is a very talented trainer and student of the horse like you are. Anybody can tell a bad ride when you see one. Don’t sell yourself short.