Two golds for young British showjumpers

Britain has won two gold medals and a bronze at the FEI European Jumping Championships for Children, Juniors and Young Riders in Arezzo, Italy.

Testing conditions

Despite torrential rain, which caused major flooding and changes to the schedule, the riders showed true grit to produce their very best in testing conditions.

The British team won gold in the Junior Team Championship, battling out till the very end in a jump-off against the Dutch.

After two rounds, both nations were neck and neck, with a total of four faults each. Jake Saywell (Grand Cru van Paemel) and Jessica Mendoza (Spirit T) both produced double clears, while Millia Allen (Cantino) had just one down. Christie Pritchard (Waldemar) provided the drop score.

Real battle

Team Fairfax Juniors held their nerveand again added nothing to their score, while the Netherlands retired from the jump off. This gave Britain a much-deserved gold medal, the Dutch team took silver and Germany won bronze.

“Today was a real battle” said British chef d’equipe Tony Newbury. “A wonderful victory against a Dutch team who are in really good form, and where the battle continued right to the very end. A team competition like this, with 20 nations competing, creates a lot of pressure which makes it very difficult indeed.”

Individual bronze

In the Junior Individual Jessica Mendoza and Spirit T jumped another double clear to secure bronze. They finished on a final score of 5.01, which was calculatedfrom the first individual qualifier.

Gold went to Norwegian rider Amalie Hegre (Remedy) with a score of 1.13 while silver was awarded to Thomas Gilles (Conaro) from Belgium who finished on 4.66.

Foot perfect

Another medal was awarded to Team GB, thanks to an incredible performance from Robert Murphy in the Children’s Individual.

The 13-year-old led from day one, with a foot-perfect performance onboard Del Fuego. In the final, fourth round against the clock, they were the only combination to produce yet another clear, to win gold.

Italy’s Lorenzo Sciacca (Webster) won silver, while bronze went to Elisa Mellec (Renarde Rumel) from France.

Minor injury

The Children’s Team title went to Austria, Belgium took silver and>Germany headed home with bronze. The British team came fifth,despite fielding a three-strong team after Scarlett Charles retired at the end of day one when Murka’s Cherona Z incurred a minor injury.

Germany also won gold in the Young Riders Team competition, beating the Norwegian silver medallists by a single fault. The host nation of Italy claimed bronze.

In the Young Riders Individual it was Sweden’s Irma Karlsson(Cornet) who won gold. Germany’s Kaya Luthi (Pret A Tout) took silver, while Laura Klaphake (Nifrane de Kreisker) won bronze.