In less than favourable weather conditions, 10 teams started in the Meydan/FEI Nations Cup today in Hickstead, England for the seventh leg of this eight leg, 10 team series.

Coming into this leg, the Italians knew that even the most spectaclular of results would be unlikely to save them from relegation to the B league for 2010. One would suspect they knew they were in trouble but have sent out a huge warning to the rest of the showjumping world as they engage Markus Fuchs as their National Coach starting later this year!

Sadly the Italians cannot save themselves from relegation at this late stage - but make no mistake, they will return with a fire and a will to regain A League status again for 2011, I have no doubt.

The first round saw some seriously large scores, verging on the "cricket score" variety - the Italians were definitely in trouble as first team out with their first score being 22, followed by an elimination and then further messed by a score of 20 and 21 forcing them to sit on the bench for round two yet again.

Sweden's Jannile West clocked up a score of 39 in the first round, but certainly improved in round two when recording a score of just 8 faults.

Another who made a great improvement in round two was Belgium's Kim Thiry who retired in the first round after clocking up 28 faults - round two saw a score of 13 faults.

One of the shock results for this leg was American, Laura Kraut and Olympic Gold medal partner, Cedric came through the finish flags with 19 faults recorded showing that today was no walk in the park.

The Swiss joined the Italians on the bench today when they had an unfortunate start to proceedings with the elimination of Christina Liebherr whose horse had already shown a distaste for the open water in Aachen last week, put on the brakes and refused to go near it today in Hickstead. This was not a good start for the team who won the opening round in La Baule.

The first round produced only two clear rounds and they came from France's Penelope Leprevost and Germany's Janne Meyer, which turned out to be more important than would be realised as round one finished!

Round two produced three clear rounds and fewer cricket scores. The three clear rounds came from Ireland's Cameron Hanley, Sweden's Rolf-Goran Bengsston and the third made the only double clear for Germany's Janne Meyer.

Cam Hanley's clear round was jumped during the worst of the torrential downpour and he said afterwards, "my horse was great today because even if I couldn't see the fences he was still going to jump them!"

Kevin Staut opted to retire for France in round two after two fences fell and he realised his score would make no difference, so opted to save his horse from the less than pleasant jumping on the sodden ground.

So France and Germany were sitting on 16 faults apiece as the final rider came into the ring - Andreas Knippling for Germany needed to return a score of 4 faults or less to win outright, 8 faults would produce a jump off and anything more would give the win to France - so the pressure was on!

But an outright win was not to be today when Knippling lowered the final two parts of the treble which was the penultimate effort fo this track and this left us with the fourth jump off from this series.

So the battle for first place honours came down to France versus Germany - first out was France's Roger Yves Bost who left the door wide open with the Hickstead planks ending on the floor, for Germany's first time A League member, Janne Meyer.

A very excited Meyer told the media conference, after she produced the winning clear round "Lambrasco is very small, but he grows very big when he comes down to a big oxer and I'm so happy to have horse like him!" She continued, "I have him since he was seven years old but I never expected he would jump so high - when I got him first he was so small and so fat - but he always, always wanted to go clear. I wasn't sure if I could win it but I had a good feeling going back into the ring and I really didn't feel under big pressure".

Meyer, who has also been listed to start in the final round in Dublin in two weeks time, continued with her vote of thanks when she said "I'm so happy and so proud of my horse, he just wanted to jump clear. I want to say thank you to him and to my team".

The final placings for the 7th round:

1st - Germany (first win of the series)
2nd - France (wins in Rotterdam and Aachen)
3rd - Ireland (win in Falsterbo)
4th - Sweden (no wins this season)
=5th -Belgium (no wins this season)
.......- USA (wins in Rome and St.Gallen)
7th - Great Britain (no wins this season)
8th - Netherlands (no wins this season)

The Leaderboard coming into the final leg at Dublin Horse Show on 7th August, 2009

1st - France - 43.5 points
2nd -USA - 39.5 points
3rd - Germany - 36 points

=4th - Switzerland - 28.5 points
.......- Netherlands
6th - Ireland - 27.5 points
7th - Sweden - 23 points
8th - Belgium - 20 points

9th - Great Britain - 15.5 points
10th-Italy - 4 points

The only given at this point is that even if the Italians win the final leg in Dublin they would still only finish on 14 points and so would be last in the league and so relegated.

Great Britain will need to place 4th or higher with Sweden and Belgium finishing below them to avoid relegation, which would no doubt come as a shock to the system of a country who have been at the top of the showjumping tree for many years now.

So by our calculations it would look as though France, USA, Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands and Ireland will return for the 2010 A league series.

Sweden, Belgium and Great Britain will be battling it out to stay playing in the big boys and girls club!