Edwina Alexander Winning at the 2005 CSI 5-Star at Valkenwaard (NED) Photograph:Wendy Scholten

Edwina, who has been selected to represent Australia in showjumping at the World Equestrian Games in Germany in August, was competing against some of the biggest names in showjumping at the prestigious horse show. They included Athens Olympic gold medallist Rodrigo Pessoa from Brazil, 2006 World Cup runner-up Jessica Kurten from Ireland, and Athens team bronze medallist Otto Becker from Germany.

 

(Peter Cooke was there to see for himself.  Read his report below.)

Paterson-Robinson, 27, from Geelong, has been living in Europe for six years. He came to prominence by being the first Australian rider to win the prestigious FEI World Breeding Showjumping Championship for Young Horses at Lanaken, Belgium, in 2001 and again in 2003.

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Peter Cooke reports on Monte Carlo:

On Friday night (23 June), I had the pleasure of attending the Monte Carlo showjumping event.  The event was conducted over three nights and the sand arena was imported and placed on the bitumen car park adjoining the boat harbour, and I mean if a horse jumped out of the arena, it could land in any one of probably 25 multi-million dollar boats!  The arena was a different shape being 75m long coming to a 15m point at one end and bulging to 35m in the middle and again closing to a 20 end at the other – very difficult to build in; however, Olaf was on the job.  He very kindly took me into the ring with him, and this is just the best place to watch from.

Even though this was not the Grand Prix and perhaps the best horses had competed in the warm-up class the night before, there were 35 entries and included many well-known and top-line horse and rider combinations.  Olaf thought so as his course for the one round with jump-off was 12 fences with a double and treble and equally as big as the Shepparton Selector Series event, yet crammed into this postage stamp of an arena.  There were two vertical fences at 1.60m, and the combination of vertical, oxer, vertical was well up there. 

After the first five horses, as Rodrigo Pessoa came into the ring, Olaf quoted “this course is for real jumpers, now we’ll see one”! He did produce the first clear round.

The first round produced 5 clear rounds and probably a further 10 horses on 4 faults. Edwina was riding Isovlas Socrates and was only about third from the end. 

She rode a perfect round, just calm, focussed and on the job.  Clearly, Edwina has adapted to riding in Europe and is at home here!  A good result and some excellent jumping. 

The jump off was very open for the first three fences and then a tight turn to the double, followed by another couple of turns to the last two.  Pessoa came out first and just blitzed the round, clear and very quick – so I thought – out came the technician Otto Becker and he gave the class a good crack, clear and just .3 sec behind.  The next two were young guys from Germany and Ireland and the German split the previous times and the other rounded Pessoa up by 0.35sec.  Not possible to beat this round!!  With nothing worse than 5th place in front of her, Edwina wound up and galloped the first fence (1.60m) and did not touch the reins for the first three fences, turned up to the double, found a shorter cut through to the next fence and galloped the last to be well over a second in front and the clear winner.

The electronic scoreboard was something to behold:

1. Alexander      0-0-37….

2. Pessoa          0-0-38….

3. Becker          0-0-39….

Having been part of the whole Athens process, this performance (albeit a “mere” Friday night class) gave me a lot of pleasure and hope.  It is a rare event to hear the Australian national anthem at the prize giving ceremony for a showjumping event.  We had the opportunity to watch the other classes and Edwina rode Pialotta and two other younger horses, all with great credit and merit.

Regards

Peter