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Melanie Lamb, Las Vegas, Sunday, 22 April 2007 Edwina Alexander and Isovlas Pialotta were unfortunately eliminated after two refusals. Edwina out, Beat claims title
Australia’s highest ranked showjumper, Edwina Alexander, was unfortunately eliminated on the last day of the Rolex FEI World Cup finals in Las Vegas.
Edwina’s 16-year-old mare, Isovlas Pialotta, refused at 4a, the first of a double of gates, and then again at the middle oxer of the treble at 7 in the first round.
World No.1 ranked Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum, who was sitting equal first before Final III, was eliminated shortly after Edwina, falling off over Shutterfly’s right shoulder as the gelding landed to the left at the liverpool at 11.
Their surprise exits meant all three of the top female showjumpers at last year’s World Equestrian Games were out of the competition before the final round (America’s Beezie Madden was eliminated after a fall on day 1).
Sweden’s Sven Holmberg, the First Vice-President of the FEI jumping committee, said: “We always have a lot of surprises in the finals. Michael Whitaker being eliminated in the first round [on day 1] was pretty sensational, especially the way he ended up with two run-offs. With [the women], things like that can happen at any time.”
Edwina said she had a strange feeling coming into the ring. Pialotta was jumping “unbelievably” in the warm-up and when she walked the 1.50m to 1.60m course, Edwina had thought it didn’t look as difficult as Friday’s track.
“When I walked the course I underestimated it a little bit,” Edwina said. “I kept saying ‘I don’t know why I’m not nervous about it. I was just a bit relaxed – not nervous enough.”
Edwina said Pialotta was disunited before fence 1 and jumped very high over 2. “I came a bit deep to the oxer [at 3] and knew for the five [strides to 4a] I’d have to ride a bit [but] I rode a little bit too much.”
Coming around the turn from 6 to the first oxer at 7a, Pialotta became disunited again. “A combination is very difficult if you don’t get a good stride off the turn. I have to have her very, very much with me and when she changes like that behind, I lose the power.”
But Edwina was “a bit shocked” at the second stop, “especially after the way she jumped the other day … and she hasn’t jumped that well in the [warm-up] paddock [for a while]”.
“She was very tense today, I don’t know why, normally she loves the crowd,” she said.
There was only one double-clear round in today’s competition, by Germany’s Daniel Deusser, who rides for Stal Tops. His win in today’s class moved him up from 14th to take 2nd place overall, behind Switzerland’s Beat Mändli, the new World Cup title holder.
“I never had this feel before because I never win a championship,” said Beat, who has been a World Cup runner-up twice and finished third twice.
“It’s a great feel. I think I didn’t realise. I just feel super, I’m very happy for my horse, of course, and for me.”
Beat said his Selle Francais gelding, Ideo du Thot, had been nervous in the first round because the wind had picked up in the practice arena but he was great outside before the 2nd round. “I was very quiet in the last round and the horse felt super to ride and jumped unbelievably.”
Daniel said one year ago, he had ridden in a 5-year-old class in the morning before watching the 2006 World Cup final in Kuala Lumpur on TV that night.
“It’s unbelievable for me that I qualified for the World Cup finals and I was never thinking I would end up with place No. 2,” said the 25-year-old, who only started riding Air Jordan Z at the beginning of the year.
Brazil’s Guilherme Jorge said his goal as course designer was for the best horses to win but he also liked to think the horses could go home and jump in a week or two.
“Of course I don’t like surprises that we had here but … I think it’s part of championships,” he said.
All results (and live scoring during competitions) http://events.horses.nl/2007/lasvegas/results/results.htm
Final II - 20 April
Edwina, who started the second day of competition in 31st place, had just a rail down in 32.15 seconds in the thrilling jump-off against the likes of world No.1 Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum and Switzerland’s Beat Mändli.
Her 6th placing tonight moves her up to 18th heading into Sunday’s final, 14 penalty points (3.5 rails) behind the new leaders – Meredith, Germany’s WEG bronze medallist, and Switzerland’s Steve Guerdat.
Edwina, who last year recovered from 22nd position on day 2 of WEG to become the first Australian rider to make the prestigious final four, is now hoping for a top 10 finish.
“I don’t see myself being able to get into the first five or six but if I finished in the first 10 I’d be very happy,” she said.
“She’s jumping great, I’ve got more confidence and I’m feeling a lot better with the whole thing.”
Tonight’s 1.55m to 1.60m track claimed two casualties – Poland’s Lukasz Jonczyk and American Rich Fellers – although their eliminations (for a fall and error of course respectively) were nowhere near as unexpected as the exit’s last night of Beezie Madden and Michael Whitaker.
Walking the course, Edwina thought the track in the compact Thomas & Mack indoor arena was “very technical and big enough” and predicted to foreign technical delegate Leopoldo Palacios that there would be eight clears. Little did she know she would be the first and the only one of the first 19 riders.
Edwina said she had expected the line to the treble would ride more like a short six than it did “and I got there a little bit long”. “That’s why I think I had it down in the jump-off because I came in a little bit close.”
She said yesterday’s bad warm-up (Isovlas Pialotta stopped at a practice fence), starting early in the draw, and not having competed indoors for three weeks had all left her nervous heading into the first day’s competition, and she overrode the horse.
Tonight, she was much more relaxed. “I think after I walked the course and realised how difficult it was, I reminded myself that a lot of the indoor tracks I’ve ridden have been really difficult and I thought ‘I can do this – stay positive and strong and trust the horse’.
“So I had a totally different mentality tonight – it’s all in the head.”
Edwina, from Glossodia, NSW, moved to Belgium in 1998 to see whether she could make a success of showjumping. She originally intended to stay only six months, but returned in 1999 and rode for Belgian Ludo Philippaerts for three years before starting her own company buying and selling horses.
During this period, she represented Australia at the 2002 WEG in Jerez, Spain, on Quelle Damme van de Heffinck, finishing 48th. Four years ago, she moved to the magnificent Stal Tops stables at Valkenswaard in the Netherlands and in 2005, Stal Tops, Edwina and Cees van Opstal bought Pialotta for Edwina to ride.
Sunday’s Final III is a 1.50m to 1.60m Table A over two rounds starting at noon.
All results (and live scoring during competitions) http://events.horses.nl/2007/lasvegas/results/results.htm
Melanie Beebie reports:
Gavin heads for Del Mar
Sydney Olympian Gavin Chester was disappointed with his performance tonight in the Rolex FEI World Cup showjumping Final II in Las Vegas.
The Stratford horseman said the 1.60m, 14-fence track was easily the biggest Warlord II had faced “and certainly being in the tight indoor with those tight lines, that adds more difficulty to it”.
The 10-year-old grey stallion by Daley K had six down to finish 34th in the 36-strong class, reducing his overall standing from 29th to 32nd, one place behind Olympic gold medallist and three-time World Cup title holder Rodrigo Pessoa.
With his World Cup campaign over, Gavin will head back to George Meyer’s property in San Juan Capistrano before competing at Del Mar Show Park in San Diego in about 10 days.
“I think he got a bit shell-shocked tonight – it made his eyes poke out a bit. I’d like to let him back off from this situation now.”
Gavin said he knew when he walked the course “it would be bloody difficult for me and my horse”.
“We are just not used to having it come up in your face all the time,” he said. “The line from 3 to 4 was tough and I knew we would have to be on our game from 9 to 10, which was a similar corner but just on the other rein. The last line was a tight 5 strides from an oxer to a really tall vertical [heading towards the in-gate].
“It was a big course and I knew I was going to have a bit of a battle.”
The course rode pretty much as expected but if he had another chance he would “perhaps choose another way to do it”.
Having the first fence down was obviously a less than ideal start, although Gavin said Warlord “felt like he was going to jump No.1 really nice when he left the ground”. The vertical he had down at No.4 on a tight right hand turn from 3 “was a total lack of experience”.
“I was thinking I should try not to mess with him too much and make it flow as good as I could. Also, when you’re not riding at this level for so long it takes you a little bit to get back in sync,” said Gavin, who took a five-year break from World Cups after the 2000 Games.
Gavin said he was really pleased with Warlord in the opening speed class last night but a little bit disappointed tonight.
“I’d like to have gotten around with two or three down but it was very difficult,” he said.
“I still see no reason why my horse couldn’t jump that [course] with a bit more time – those horses at the top are doing this every week in Germany.
“Having said that, people will read the results and see we had that many down, but some of those fences we had down weren’t disasters.”
In their first year together, Gavin and Warlord won a record five World Cup qualifiers in a row – Adelaide Royal, Metropolitan in South Australia, Melbourne Show, Werribee and Wodonga. The pair topped the 2006 leaderboard ahead of Paul Athanasoff and Paula Hamood, winning the right to compete in this week’s World Cup finals.
While Warlord is relatively inexperienced at this level of competition, Las Vegas 2007 is Gavin’s third World Cup final. He won the puissance on Big Flood in Vienna in 1981 and in 2000, while he failed to make the final day’s competition on Another Flood, he finished fourth in the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
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