On Sunday evening, all the Olympic horse-and-rider combinations were allowed to enter the main arena at the Equestrian Park in Baji Koen for a ring familiarisation. They could do a course of ten jumps, including a combination as well as an open water, or just show the horses around in the ring – within the 90 seconds scheduled for each of them. It was up to the riders which fences they wanted to jump, and in which order. Except for the open water jump – which according to the rules had to be included – none of the obstacle material, water jumps or ditches to be used for the Olympic competitions was allowed as part of the training track. WoSJ had a talk with Swedish reserve rider Rolf-Göran Bengtsson – an experienced Olympian – to learn more about the importance of this training round.  

“This is of course of importance, and not only for the sake of showing the horses the arena,” Bengtsson says. “The horses have been here for almost a week, so most of them haven’t jumped for a while, and without this training it would be difficult to go straight in to jump a 1.60m course on Tuesday. The course today was very nice and set at 1.50m – a perfect warm-up for what is to come. There will certainly be changes when the competition begins – to the fences, the technicality and so on – but it is good that the horses have some bigger jumps in the main arena in their bodies.” 

Bengtsson explains that the training round usually is approached different if you are planned as a reserve rider; “If you are on the team, you will have to start to jump in two days from now. If you are a reserve, you might not jump anything more at all or you will start later on in the week. Seeing that I am reserve, I did the whole course while my teammates – who will start to compete on Tuesday – only did a few jumps.” 

Some riders did the water jump, while some chose not to and Bengtsson explains that this usually depends on the horse. “I would say that if you have a horse that has jumped open water under the lights on several occasion, you might not jump it, but if you have a horse that does not have that experience it can be good to have jumped it once before the competitions begins. The open water was very inviting tonight with clear fencing in front and a pole over it and it didn’t cause any problems for the horses jumping it.”

The first jumping competition in Tokyo will be the individual qualifier, which takes place on Tuesday 3rd of August at 19.00. You can find our full guide for the jumping competitions via this link. 

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