‘These things go in cycles’

Horse injury was a major factor in poor performances, but our para dressage team gave Britain a boost

AT the 2013 European Eventing Championships, when Britain was in the doldrums, William Fox-Pitt commented: “These things go in cycles, the Germans won’t be winning forever.”

Four years on, the European Championships in our three Olympic disciplines couldn’t have shown this more clearly.

Our eventing team gold two weeks ago followed a barren Rio, while Britain’s showjumpers and dressage riders — who raked in two golds and a silver at last year’s Olympics and also won team medals at the last Europeans — came home empty-handed (report, p32).

Multiple factors contributed, from the decision not to send a showjumping team, with priority going to the Nations Cup series, to bad luck with horse injury, which resulted in us fielding just one showjumper and a three-man dressage team including a reserve horse.

Bar isolated individual results, British showjumping this year, frankly, is a washout — thank goodness our Irish neighbours gave us

something to cheer about. In dressage, the retirement of superstar Valegro would always have meant a step back in our medal hopes, but had our original four-horse dressage team competed, they would probably have secured a medal, rather than a frustrating fourth. It’s easy to say “if only”.

The one constant in Britain’s championship performance is our still-unbeaten para dressage team, who extended Britain’s remarkable gold run last week and garnered eight medals. Huge plaudits to them and their support team. H&H