Courtney King-Dye and Harmony’s Mythilus are the top ranked United States pair after the team Grand Prix competition.
Germany continues to impress. After taking Team and Individual gold medals in three-day eventing, they’ve now claimed the No. 1 spot in Team dressage.
As usual, German riders Isabell Werth, Heike Kemmer and Nadine Capellmann battled with The Netherlands’ riders Anky Van Grunsven, Imke Schellekens-Bartels and Hans Peter Minderhoud. But Germany pulled out all the stops leaving the Dutch riders with Team Silver.
The legendary rivalry for No. 1 between Van Grunsven and Werth continued to play out during the dressage competition. Early in day two’s competition, Van Grunsven and Salinero claimed the top spot with an impressive 77.292%, but Isabell Werth and Satchmo came to perform, and that they did. With a score of 77.708%, they took the lead and pushed Germany to Team victory.
Denmark’s Nathalie Zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, Andreas Helgstrand and Anne Van Olst took the No. 3 spot to claim bronze, just edging out the Americans.
The Americans looked like they might be in medal contention in the Team dressage competition, but the riders needed a mathematical miracle from the scoring gods. In the end, the numbers came up short.
Leading the American contingency on day one of the dressage competition was Courtney King-Dye aboard Harmony’s Mythilus. The pair landed in fourth place in the day-one standings, but on day two American Debbie McDonald and the fabulous mare Brentina came up empty handed, turning in a score of 63%, uncharacteristically low for the famed duo. This meant it was up to American Steffen Peters and Ravel to save the day. The pair managed a score of 71.667%, which just wasn’t quite good enough to boost the team into the No. 3 spot.
The Grand Prix Special and the Grand Prix Freestyle are still to come in these Games to determine which rider will claim gold in Individual competition.
Oh well.
Too bad. Pretty horse though!
It was a great competition and the horses were beautiful and performed so well.
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