Change to British Olympic team in Paris as ‘very, very talented’ mare set to start

There has been a change in the British showjumping team for the Paris Olympics, British Equestrian (BEF) has confirmed.

Team GB, with the BEF and British Showjumping, has announced today (30 July) that Olympic champion Ben Maher will ride his reserve horse Dallas Vegas Batilly, instead of Point Break.

“The change from Point Break is down to form post-travel,” a BEF spokesperson said.

Dallas Vegas Batilly is an 11-year-old mare by Cap Kennedy 2, out of a mare by L’Arc De Triomphe. She is owned by Ben, Charlotte Rossetter and Pamela Wright. Ben has been riding her since summer 2022, and he told H&H at the London International Horse Show a few months later that she was “very, very talented” and “a real championship, big-time horse for the future”. The combination won the FEI Longines World Cup leg in November last year, which they followed with a successful winter culminating in sixth place at the World Cup Final.

They were last in action in Aachen at the start of this month, where they jumped double clear to help Britain to third in the Nations Cup. They were unlucky to tip one rail in the first round of the Rolex Grand Prix two days later, but jumped clear in the second round to finish in fifth place in one of the world’s most prestigious competitions.

Ben goes to Paris to defend the individual Olympic title he won in Tokyo with Explosion W, and he has come fourth, a whisker off the individual medals, at both senior championships since, the 2022 World Championships at which Britain won bronze, and last year’s Europeans, both with Faltic HB.

The first showjumping horse inspection is tomorrow (31 July) and the team competition runs on Thursday and Friday.

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