AUS Jumping Team Chosen for WEG

The Jumping selectors have announced the team for the World Equestrian Games and congratulations must go to the following combinations:


Edwina Alexander Itot du Chateau
Chris Chugg Vivant
James Patterson-Robinson Niack De L'Abbaye
Matt Williams Urleven van de Helle

After considerable discussion and consideration, the Selectors have decided against nominating a reserve.

[h=5]Peter Cooke Chairman of Selectors reports from Paderborn CSI4*[/h]

Paderborn CSI**** was a wonderful show for the final Australian selection and preparation for the World Equestrian Games (WEG), now only 22 days until the first jumping event. Australian jumping riders delivered a competitive performance at the 4 star Riders Tour event in Paderborn, Germany at the weekend.
Five Australian combinations remained in contention for the team positions including Chris Chugg and Vivant, Paul Athanasoff and Wirragulla Nicholas, James Paterson-Robinson and Niack De L’Abbaye, Wendy Schaeffer with Koyuna Sun Set and Matt Williams and Urleven van de Helle.
Edwina Alexander is already selected in the team and finisher her Games preparation with a third place in Rio de Janeiro in the final Global Champions Tour event for 2010 last weekend.
The event facilities in Paderborn were excellent with a picturesque grass arena and excellent footing. Christian Weigand, the FEI Level III Course Designer who has been working for many years with WEG Technical Delegate Frank Rothenberger and a competition list which reads well from Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and many other countries.
Following the first Selection event in Hachenburg CSI***, the reason for the additional CSI ‘star’ became quite obvious on day 2 of competition with the Qualifying event. The Course Designer put together a very solid 1.50m course with a challenging early line of triple bar 4 or 5 strides to a tall vertical; and the treble line of oxer, vertical, oxer with both lines collecting their fair share of faults from the 55 starters. Matt Williams being second out was caught at the vertical following the triple bar for a good 4 fault round, Paul Athanasoff and Wendy Schaeffer both had solid rounds but came victims to the treble and finished with 8 faults each. Chris Chugg and James Paterson-Robinson both jumped classic clear rounds and then in the ‘shoot out’ jump off of 11, they finished 3^rd and 7^th respectively. A good finish from day one.
The Grand Prix on Sunday only allowed the best 40 horses from the Qualifier and unfortunately this did not allow for Paul or Wendy to start. Christian Weigand designed an even more imposing course and with a few finishing touches from Frank Rothenberger made sure that the winner would definitely earn their share of the 80,000 Euro purse. The line of triple bar, two stride vertical double followed by a 5 or 6 stride line to an oxer caused the first degree of difficulty and, the treble line with an oxer bending 5 to 7 strides to vertical, vertical, oxer was the other challenge – all fences at 1.55m and widths varying from 1.60-1.80m.
Matt Williams was out early again on Urleven van de Helle and posted Australia’s only clear round – this was very workmanlike and Matt has been steadily improving over the past months since he acquired the ride earlier this year. James Paterson-Robinson riding Ger Pols stallion Niack De L’Abbaye looked sound but with a slight drift during his approach to the triple bar collected the back rail and 4 faults. Chris Chugg and Vivant came into the ring and we were all disappointed to see the front rail roll off the number 2 oxer and surprisingly Vivant dropped a hind foot on a 1.60m vertical at #12 for 8 faults.
Matt Williams into the eleven horse jump off and he followed a blistering round from Ludger Beerbaum with a slower but clear round. The other spend the jump off trying to catch Ludger’s time and some had faults pushing Matt to an eventual 7^th place. The last combination out was Marcus Ehning and Sabrina and they delivered an outstanding round to take 1.5 secs off the leaders time.
It is interesting to note that at this level only one horse form the 13 clear rounds on Saturday backed up with a clear round on the Sunday and the first 4 horses in the Grand Prix did not start in the qualifier – their riders Marcus Ehning (Germany), Ludger Beerbaum (Germany), Marc Houtzager (Holland) and Rold-Goran Bengtsson (Sweden) all have multiple choice horses!
This was a good weekend preparation for Australia’s team for Kentucky and National Selectors Peter Cooke, Rod Brown and Graeme Watts had a relatively simple task to sort out the 3 riders to join Edwina Alexander.
The selection process is very clear cut – the best two performed combinations from both Hachenburg and Paderborn automatically join Edwina Alexander in the Australian team. Please see the attached table to see how the selection process worked. Chris Chugg and James Paterson-Robinson were automatic inclusions and with Matt Williams very close behind is the forth team member.
After considerable discussion and consideration, the Selectors have decided against nominating a reserve as neither Paul Athanasoff or Wendy Schaeffer delivered a standard which would compete at the World Games.
As before Amy Graham with her imported stallion Bella Baloubet was invited to compete in the Australian contingent at a four star event, however Bella Baloubet injured his leg earlier in the week and was unable to compete.
The program from here is the team will meet in Holland from 20 September and be joined by Chef d’Equipe Stephen Lamb and team vet Andrew Hunt before flying to Kentucky on 24 September and prepare for the first competition on 4 October.