From the moment we stepped onto our balcony on Saturday morning we knew this was going to be one of the hottest days we had so experienced here in Portugal - and it was! Having said that, the actual temperatures seem to stay fairly consistent (between 27 and 30 degrees Celsius) but the degree of "bearability" is very dependent on the breeze and this particular Saturday morning there was little, if any breeze and the day was definitely a scorcher! By now most horses and riders had been here for at least a week and so were almost acclimatised to the conditions - although today most did have perspiration dripping.
Coming from Australia, where we are well used to searing temperatures, I was surprised to see some teams putting wet towels on the horses from ears to wither and riding out in the sun - I am certainly not criticising this practice but merely commenting on how differently things are managed in the northern hemisphere - but we were always told that this would heat the horses up more as the moisture itself gets warm - so many things done so differently!
The first class for the day was the Junior Teams competition - and it was an exciting competition to say the least! Again the top 10 teams went on to contest for the medals in the second round and those teams who missed out went on to complete their second qualifying competition for the Individual medals.
This class came down to the wire with the top seeded four teams having next to nothing between them - as we went into the second round of the teams competition The Netherlands and Great Britain had four clear first rounds and were sitting on zero penalties going into round two.
Germany and Belgium sat with a total of 8 faults apiece coming into round two - so at the opening of play in round two the medals could go just about anywhere - different to the Young Rider class where the British team were well out in front all the way through to the gold medals hanging around their necks!
So as the first German rider went through the course clear the roar went up from their supporters for Kristian Kniha.The Belgian supporters were just that, supportive when Nick Motmans dropped one fence.
The Dutch roared and were very "orange" as their first line rider, Jack Ansems, came through the finish flags with clear jumping and clear time.
The British went beserk when Martha Beaumont came through with clear all round!
From there on in the crowd was on the edge of their seats - Germany's second rider, Tanya Sprehe followed up with a second clear round and Belgium's Charlotte Thiesman dropped a rail. For the Netherlands second rider things fell apart a little when Maikel van der Vleuten had a foot in the water and added another 8 penalties to finish with 12 penalties in total.
Tim Gredley was second out for Britain and he jumped clear giving Britain their second clear, matching Germany's score for second round - but Britain remained in the lead at this point.
Germany's Thomas Weinberg had a foot in the water plus another fence down and so Germany now sat on 8 faults in round two, but their last rider, Felix Hassman jumped a super clear round leaving them on their first round total of 8 faults.
Belgium's last two riders jumper super clear rounds, never looking like making a mistake and this left them on a total score of 12 from the two rounds - so at this stage it was fairly clear that Britain had won the Junior Gold medal but the Silver and Bronze were still very much undecided!
The Netherlands went into this final round with zero points and when their last two riders had a rail a piece we had a jump off for Silver and Bronze as both Germany and Netherlands were now sitting on a total of 8 faults from the two rounds.
Britain's Gemma Plumley collected four faults on her trip around the arena but this made no difference to their two round zero score when final rider James Billington (pictured below left) jumped clear all the way giving the British the Junior Gold medal to add to their Young Rider Gold medal won the previous day! Pictured below right is Tim Gredley for the Brits.
