Dressage medals for Brits at Pony Europeans

Britain has won three medals in the dressage at the FEI European Pony Championships at Millstreet, Ireland – returning home with individual silver and bronze, and a team silver.

Near miss

In the team event, Britain narrowly missed out on gold by just 3.076 percent. Phoebe Peters and SL Lucci – who dominated last year’s Championships – put in another great performance and their score of 76.950% placed them second individually.

Alexandra Hellings, who was competing at her first Europeans, scored 73.564% with Der Kleine Lord, while Bethany-Rose Horobin and Gigolo posted 72.103. Rebecca Bell and Valido’s Sunshine provided the drop score of 71.692%.

Their final tally of 222.257 put them in silver medal position behind Germany, who took gold with 225.333. The Dutch won bronze with a score of 216.667.

Clean sweep

Germany’s Semmieke Rothenberger, who was competing at her fourth consecutive Championships, ledGermany to a clean sweep of the medals.As well as posting the highest score in the team event with Deinhard B she won gold in the Individual with 78.341%.

The Netherlands’ Lisanne Zoutendijk took silver riding Champ of Class (74.976%) and just 0.22 percent behind her was British newcomer Alexandra who won bronze (74.756%).

Defending 2013 champion Phoebe had to settle for tenth place after a number of mistakes.

Bad weather

She was back on sparkling from in the Freestyle, however, despite riding in torrential rain. The talented teenager couldn’t match her 2013 world record-breaking performance, but scored 78.7which put her in silver medal position.

“It was probably the best Freestyle I have ridden in my pony career, even with mad conditions of pouring rain and a faulty sound system!” Phoebe said on her Facebook page. “After a challenging week I couldn’t be more pleased with how it finished.

“I’m really proud to take home two silver medals bringing my European medal count up to five in two years.”

Bethany-Rose also had problems due to the sound equipment andto start her test three times.

Grown together

Nothing could put a dampener on Semmieke, however, who was on top form once again to take her third gold with a score of 78.410. Dutch rider Lisanne won bronze (77.850%).

“There were so many good competitors here that I was very surprised to take three gold medals!” said Semmieke. “I took silver and bronze in 2013 but over the last year I think my pony and I have grown more together and it showed.”