Dateline: 3rd August, 2008 - Hong Kong
Olympic vets for all nations working overtime.....
As the beginning of the competition nears, Olympic Vets for all nations are working overtime to keep horses healthy and performing at peak levels in what has been described as "testingly difficult conditions with humidity far worse than was anticipated".

With the eventing competition listed to begin as early as 6.30am and with some phases listed as beginning at 10.45pm to try and alleviate the need for horses to be working in the worst of the heat there are definitely concerns about the horses welfare.

Considering that Hong Kong racing facilities are only available due to racing being cancelled at this time of year due to horses suffering in the extreme conditions we can only hope that all the Olympic and Paralympic horses come through with no long lasting ill effects.

No doubt riders and owners will take much comfort in hearing that the Olympic horses will have immediate access to the one of the top equine hopsitals in the world according to Olympic Chief Veterinarian Dr Leo Jeffcott who says that "without a doubt, these are the best facilities we've been given to run the Olympics". Hopefully the riders and owners will not need to put these equine hospital facilities to the test and all horses will return in the condition they left home!

Dateline: 22nd July, 2008 - Portugal
Dressage medals decided for the Junior and Young Rider Dressage...
The Portuguese, known for their hospitality and charm disappointed nobody with their fabulous event held last weekend for the Junior and Young Rider European Dressage Championships.

The Germans and the Dutch continue to have a firm hold on the bulk of the medals with the ounger riders, in the same way the Senior riders have done for many years.

Sanneke Rotherburger, daughter of International showjumpers riding in the German Junior team took home a Team Gold and also 2 Individual Gold medals. This young lady has a huge future ahead of her and when reaches 18 year sof age will have the luxury of choosing whether she will ride for Germany or Holland as she holds dual nationality.

Holland's Young Rider, Lotje Schoots went home a happy girl when she was part of the Gold Medal Team and also took home an Individual Gold medal.

Lotje's boyfriend, Diederik van Silfhout also part of the Gold medal team, added a Silver and Gold Individual to his tally.

It might appear in the team tally that there were only 3 countries participating but this was not the case - Germany, Netherlands and Denmark just seemed to be that bit better than the rest and held the medals.

Germany took Gold in the Juniors and Silver in the Young Riders - Netherlands took Silver in the Juniors and Gold in the Young Riders and Denmark too Bronze in both.

Portugal's Boaventura Freire took Individual Bronze which exceeded his own expectations and thrilled the host nation crowd.

Dateline: 22nd July, 2008 - Prague
There future is in safe hands for showjumping ..........
While the senior riders gear up for the Olymic Games, the Juniors and Young Riders were strutting their stuff in Prague and when the final results came in the Young Rider medals saw Switzerland take out Gold, the Netherlands went home with the Silver and Great Britain took Bronze after a battle with France which resulted in a jump off for Bronze. Germany finished 5th with Ireland just sitting behind them in 6th place.

The Young Rider Individual Gold also went to Switzerland with Phillip Zuger, Silver belonged to Thomas Weinberg for Germany and Bronze also went to Germany for Christoph Bruse.

The Junior Team Gold went to Great Britain, with Denmark coming up to the mark for the Silver medal and Germany grabbed hold of the Bronze medal. After a cracking start from Ireland they finished with a 7th for the team placing.

The Individual Gold medal went to a very proud Manuel Anon from Spain, with Great Britain's Jason Smith snaffling Silver just ahead of his team mate British Matthew Sampson. Switzerland's Stefanie Lauber just missed a medal taking 4th position.

With the excellent result from Ireland's Nicola FitzGibbon, finishing 8th in her final Young Rider Europeans (as she turns 21 in September) we will see her and Puissance in the International ring at Dublin Horse Show in the first week of August.

We understand that due to David Blake's excelelnt results in the Junior European Championships, finishing in 7th place, he has also been offered a place in the Dublin Horse Show International ring.

It will be a great opportunity for these two youngsters to try themselves out against the Senior riders at one of the biggest shows in the world - we wish them both the best of luck.

Dateline: 17th July, 2008 - Prague
Junior and Young Rider Championships underway.........
The first day in Prague saw Ireland's David Blake (Killard Horizon) take first place while his team mates Conor Drain (Shanroe Spirit) placed 5th and John Higgins (Flaming Star) placed 7th.

The Young Riders, on day one, saw the win go to Jody Bosteels from Belgium riding Nina Droeshout with second going to Maikel van der Vleuten riding VDL Groep Parmala Douche for Holland.

Anthony Condon (Goldex) for Ireland placed 4th, Benny Kuehnle (Cruisings Mickey Finn) placed 5th jumping clear as did David Simpson (Cruise With Me), while Nicola FitzGibbon (Puissance) came home with four faults and Mark Flynn (Highlander) did not have the best day at the office with 3 down.

The Junior Championship medals are being contested by 101 combinations and the Young Riders have 75 combinations with 29 countries represented.

The teams competition for Young Riders begins on Friday with a Nations Cup format - 15 Young Rider teams are contesting for the Gold, Silver and Bronze with Germany leading the charge. Ireland comes out at team number 5.

The Juniors begin their Team competition on Saturday.

Dateline: 3rd July, 2008 - Australia
A day early and the news is now OFFICIAL.....
As the Beijing Olympics draw closer the discussions amongst the horse world have naturally been all about who will represent which countries - and Australia is no exception!

The Australian Equestrian Federation have been sending out many emails regarding the media discussion of teams and have stated categorically that the teams would not be announced until 4th July but we awoke in the northern hemisphere to discover that certain publications were sent the officially media announcement of the teams a little early!

Perhaps this was to stop the speculation! Our phone have certainly been running hot with text messages announcing who was on what team for the past week or more.

So the waiting is over and the following lists the Australian representation in Hong Kong:

Showjumping

Edwina Alexander - Isovlas Itot du Chateau (Isolvlas Socrates and Isovlas Pialotta)
Laurie Lever - Ashleigh Drossel Dan
Peter McMahon - KS Genoa
Matt Williams - Leoconte6

Dressage

Hayley Beresford - Relampago Do Retiro
Kristy Oatley - Quando Quando (Don Bolero)
Heath Ryan - Greenoaks Dundee

Eventing

Clayton Fredericks - Ben Along Time
Lucinda Fredericks - Headley Britannia
Sonja Johnson - Ringwould Jaguar
Megan Jones - Kirby Park Irish Jester
Shane Rose - All Luck

Dateline: 29th June, 2008 - Hickstead, England
Battle between two winners..........
In a great battle on the Hickstead Derby Course today we saw the 2006 winner (Will Funnell and Cortaflex Mondriaan) and the 2007 winner (Geoff Billington and Casabacus) do battle in the two horse jump off.

Both riders completed 4 fault first rounds when Will Funnel's Cortaflex Mondriaan had a late falling first rail at the Devil's Dyke and Geoff Billington and Casabacus knocked the centre post of the palisade.

The two riders knew what had to be done and Will Funnel coming out first had to ride for a clear round over the 10 fence jump off to put the pressure on Geoff to go clear with pace - and as they came through the finish flags this is excactly what they achieved - a superb clear round in 97.98secs with a push to the final fence, the rustic rails daring the bravest of riders - but it came off and the capacity crowd roared their approval!

So the job was left to Geoff to try and win this presitgious and famous Derby event with a clear round in a time less than 97.98secs with £40,000 at stake as the winners purse.

Geoff and Casabacus looked good as they came beautifully around the course clearing the Cornish Wall, the Derby Rails, the big Gate, the Viaduct Wall, the Privet Hedge, the Devil's Dyke, the Open Water and all looked good until Geoff, taking the same approach to the rustic palisade again had the fence falling when the horses stifle just tapped the upright post bringing it down, with just the double of gates and the final rustic rails to complete the course. After bringing down the palisade for four faults, Billington took his foot off the pedal knowing that the £25,000 was his today!

The unluckiest rider today would have to have been 18 year old William Whitaker and Animation II who were looking good for a four fault round and would have then been part of this jump off until a bad ride to the last saw them finish with 8 faults (which gave them equal 3rd in the final placings) - and this young man was furious with himself as he came through the chute afterwards saying "such a shame for the mare, she jumped so well - I let her down, what a disaster!"

But this is not the last we will hear from yet another incredibly talented Whitaker.

Things did not go well for Ellen Whitaker, who heard this week that she was not selected for the British Team in Hong Kong and today she was eliminated at the Hickstead Bank on a new ride, Ocolado, who she has had for 6 months now.

Dateline: 28th June, 2008 - Hickstead, England
Speed Derby at Hickstead again belongs to Irishman Shane Breen....
The crowd were on their feet roaring as Irish son-in-law of Douglas Bunn won the Hickstead Speed Derby on Carmel and Dermott Ryan's 10 year old Royal Concorde setting a new record winning time of 91.63secs breaking the previous record held by another Irishman, Cmdt John Ledingham and Castle Pollard in the 1980's.

Breen beat Belgium's Nick Motman's by an extraordinary 8 seconds to take out the class which saw the Irish taking most of the money home.

Breen taking first place, Motman's for Belgium second, Ireland's Peter Smythe and Hygie de Golf took 3rd, Ireland's Ronan McLaughlin took 4th, Ben Maher for Britain took 5th and Irishwoman, Olive Clarke took out 6th place with Butler's Pantry Paradise G.

Dateline: 19th June, 2008 - Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Opening classes at the Super League CSI show are done and dusted....
McLain Ward made sure the Star Spagled Banner was played for the growing crowd in Rotterdam today, winning both the 1.40m and 1.50m classes. The host nation stood for their anthem courtesy of Maikel van der Vleuten when he took out the 1.45m class from 46 other competitors.

Beezie Madden had a good day at the office with second placing in the 1.50m class and 4th in the 1.40m class while Germany's Marcus Ehning took out 3rd in both the 1.50m class and the 1.45m class.

HRH Al Saud Prince Abdullah had a good start to the competition taking 9th place in the 1.45m and in the 1.40m, Jillian Terceira representing Bermuda took 8th place.

Also super news to see 23 year old Australian Matt Williams place 15th in the 1.50m class out of 53 starters. Matt was the highest pointed Australian rider at the recent Australian Olympic selection events, which must surely see him heading to Hong Kong on Leconte6.

In the 1.45m class Irishman Cian O'Connor was the highest placed of the Irish contingent with his 10th placing.

Dateline: 14th June, 2008 - Cannes, France
Edwina Alexander struts her stuff in France.....
Australian Chairman of Selectors, Graeme Watts, was left to do the crossing of the t's and dotting of the i's at the relatively small CSI3* in Aach, Germany while fellow selector, Peter Cook left the 8 riders, the National Coach and his assistant, the Chef d'equip and large entourage of supporters to travel to Cannes in France for the 3rd leg of the Global Champions Tour CSI5* event to watch the pre-selected Edwina Alexander - and she gave him plenty to crow about as she took second place in the major Grand Prix behind Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum and Shutterfly who took home a cool €100,000. Edwina and her newest acquisition now carrying the Isolvas lable, Itot du Chateau collected €60,000 for her dance around the fences! Both women jumped double clear and were the only ones to do so this evening in France.

No doubt Mr Cooke was suitably impressed - it is reported he will return to Aach for the final round in the selectors decision making as to who will join Edwina in Hong Kong.