What a way to spend your birthday, posting a personal best, and at the World Championships no less. I think Belinda was the first rider of the morning to improve on her GP score. Everyone before her had failed to do so; in fact, I think all but one had actually done less well today. But Belinda charged in and laid down a really super test with Anton, who looked truly happy and committed to his task today.
Belinda enjoyed some time on top of the leader board this morning
Strictly speaking, Belinda’s 72.409% is a hair less than the 72.431% she got in the Special at a Welly World CDI this spring, but let’s face it. The score carries considerably more weight here. I am sure she is filing this one under ‘career highlights’ in her mental rolodex. But here’s something interesting. If you look at the results from Lexington four years ago, Belinda’s scores here are higher than Ashley’s and Poppy’s were. Ashley was eleventh after the Special with 71.708%. And if you look at our team results, the average here in Normandy for the team was 70.571%. Canada has never delivered a team average that high. In Lexington Canada was seventh on 68.7%. Canada was ninth here, out of 24 teams (which as far as I’m concerned is at least five more teams than we needed to see).
The take home message for DQ Canada is two-fold, and interconnected: we need one super star – not a Valegro (that star might not be feasible to reach for) but at least a Desperados. And if we have one horse that can finish in the top five individually, we know from the results here that we do have the kind of team that would support a star to a strong team result. There are some great things happening with our high performance program. All the riders on the team have said how great the team spirit is, and how much the support they are getting from volunteers, staff, sponsors has been brilliant. It’s taking it up another notch to get the dollars flowing into the purchase of potential horses to fill the position of super star, and I hope the momentum isn’t lost following WEG. Now is the time to add fuel to the fire.
