It was a long day at the office on Day Two of the Aach Show for the 8 Australians looking for a place on the Australian Olympic Team!

The Australian riders are used to having full days of jumping at shows on their home grounds in Australia where they take a team of horses, so by the time the jump the main class of the day they have their "eye" warmed and ready - but this is not the case for them in Aach - except for Matt Williams who is based in Belgium and has two horses with him, his Olympic contention horse and his up and coming youngster.

Friday's program saw the Big Tour class (listed for 1.45m) beginning at 8pm under lights with fading natural light and with 107 starters listed we were in for a long night! Due to the changing light you could really say there were three classes in one - the first part was jumped under natural light - the middle section jumped under lights with fading natural light while the last third of the class jumped in darkness with full lights.

As the track was built, the brick wall was originally fence one but it was replaced by a roughly 1.35m verical when it was decided that once the lights came into play there would be unacceptable shadows cast by the brick wall - a decision which was greeted with approval of the riders.

The one round speed class in the final placings saw 15 clear rounds and 9 combinations jumping clear but catching a single time penalty out of the final number of 93 combinations lining up for starters orders.

The class was won in fine style by Jordan's Ibrahim Bisharat, riding the 9 year old Indorado gelding Team Harmony Sam-Sam who took the euro1,1750 for his clear round in 63.42secs from Switzerland's Simone Wettstein and JB Horses 12 year old Karandasj mare Optical Illusion who jumped clear in 66.01secs and she had a really good class when she also took 4th place with the 8 year old mare (with no breeding listed), Celerina II.

But we were here to watch the Australian's fight it out for team selection - so some background as we came into the third round towards this end.

Coming into this show the riders scores sheet goes this way:

The top 4 riders in the above table are close and ther are just single fences between so this weekend is important!

As we understand it after todays (Friday) and Sundays class the top two, by points (which are represented by rails down) will automatically join Edwina Alexander with the 3rd combination being selectors choice as will be the non-inclusive reserve combination.

So the class - a speed class with 12 fences, 14 obstacles on which there were two doubles coming at fences 10 and 12. The liverpool sat under the vertical at fence 9 which then saw related distance to a vertical/vertical double at fence 10.

The first fence sat around 1.35m with the rest of the fences ranging from 1.40m to 1.45m - this class ran as a medium level for technical content - the difficulty in light probably added to the degree of difficulty in this track.

First out was Chris Chugg from New South Wales and his chestnut stallion Vivant. The stallion did not appeared phased by the lighting and jumped very nicely, with an occasional light rub not causing any concern and they came through the finish flags with just the stile down (fence 7) as they came off a skinny oxer on a gentlly curved line. This line caused most of the problems on this course.

So Chuggie and Vivant finished with 4 faults to add to the above table.

Second to go for Australia was Tim Armitrano and Mr Innocent and today they added 8 faults to their total when the stile came down to be joined by the liverpool vertical to finish with 8 faults, which with one round to go would suggest that this combination are not heading to Hong Kong.

Adam Mellers and Animate seemed to settle comofrtably into todays class and went around without a nail laid to rail for clear jumping but they unfortunately picked up a single time penalty for their slow dance around the track today, which also would suggest that this combination is out of the running.

Vicki Roycroft and Noblewood Blatini had a bad day on course today when they had a rub at the first, brought down the second and third fences and rubbed the fourth fence. Things got a little better with a couple of rubs but rails staying in place until the liverpool fence came down only to be followed by the final efforts of 12A and 12B leaving this combination with 20 faults and to add insult to injury they also collected a time penalty to finish with 21 faults which must sadly put paid to Vicki's Olympic dream this year.

Peter McMahon and KS Genoa continued to thrill the brave spectators who stayed to watch the class in the icey conditions of this evening - where there is always a horse in the arena awaiting their turn, while there is a horse on course, this simply cannot be achieved with the Wild Child, Genoa - and those watching commented that the "wild grey muct be next" because there was no second horse in the arena.

This does not, however mean that Peter holds a class up - as soon as the horse ahead of him has finished Peter enters the arena and the mare shows her desire to find the first fence - and today from fence 1 to fence 12B this combiantion never so much as breathed close to a fence - and not a word could be heard as she played over this track which she found easy in both height and technicality and obviously the night lights did not bother her one bit - she was totally focussed on her job - to jump clear and in time - and this is precisely what they did tonight! Coming through the finish flags with all fences standing and well within the time on course of 72secs.

Paul Asthanasoff and Wirragulla Niklaus, the handsome chestnut stallion bred at Wirragulla in New South Wales were another combination who jumped a super round but a wide turn coming to fence 11 cost them a time penalty but they only added the 1 fault so have not knocked themselves out of contention at this stage.

Laurie Lever cemented himself as well in the race with a super clear round with Ashleigh Drossel Dan moving well up to all his fences and just playing over the height today. They came through the finish flags with all fences standing and also well within the time allowed.

Last to go was the "youngster" of the contenders, Victorian Matt Williams who was one of Australia's most successful Junior and Young Riders and he has made the transition from that to senior competition in Europe seem relatively easy as he comes into this third selection round in the lead with his superstar Leconte 6 - today the horse seemed to come out perhaps a little fresh and the horse had the liverpool fence down as well as fence 10b leaving them with 8 faults - but still well in for a place in the plane to Hong Kong.

So after Round three in the selectors series the standings look like this:

The riders were discussing at midnight as the class finished whether they would start in Saturday's class, as it was not a selectors round for them - and the Australian riders would all get a ride in Sundays Grand Prix regardless of qualification - if they do not qualify they will be permitted to compete non-competitive for selection purposes, thanks to the generosity of the organising committee.

So at 4am German time I apologise for lack of images but will bring you many from Saturday in Aache and felt you, are loyal readers would prefer to know the state of play as 8 riders play out to the final fence fo their Olympic dreams - even though it would appear at this stage as if the race for team selection would be between Laurie Lever, Peter McMahon, Matt Williams and Paul Asthanasoff with the others really being too far out of the number crunching with just one round left.