This week WoSJ has no other than Rodrigo Pessoa as our guest commentator from the European Championships in Herning. Below are Rodrigo’s thoughts on the second day of the championships here in Denmark;

“In general I thought today’s track was pretty good, and it was not crazy big. A lot of faults came in the triple combination, and obviously the difficult part was the b-element. It was a narrow oxer that was difficult both for the horses and riders. For the horses it was difficult as they had a hard time judging the width of the fence. It was only one meter wide, and many of the horses were thinking it was a vertical – dropping down on the back pole as they misjudged. For the riders it was not so easy to ride, as it was as narrow as it was. Many did not push as much as they would on a wider oxer and they landed on the pack pole as they could not reach over. The combination was also difficult, and the water caught out some. But I thought the course was very fair, and that it was good. With nineteen clears overall it was a good balance.

As for the team championship there were no big surprises. The only thing was that France – they had one rail down to Great Britain and Switzerland – dropped down to third. Unfortunately for France Silvana ran a little out of juice. It’s very close between the top four though, and everything is wide open for tomorrow’s final.

I think Nino jumped unbelievable today. The more he jumps the better he gets! Both Ben and Steve are real fighters – and I think the individual gold will be between the two of them. They are solid riders, and their horses are technically good with a lot of blood and the stamina to pull it together – which is necessary in a championship like this.”

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