‘A solid test with room for improvement’: Danish dressage combination lead the way amidst scorching heat at Olympics

Reigning individual European silver medallists Nanna Skodborg-Merrald and Zepter (Blue Hors Zack x Wolkentanz II) were the star names in the first group of riders to go in the Paris 2024 Olympic dressage grand prix.

In the unrelenting heat at Versailles, the combination put in a composed but cautious grand prix, scoring 78.03% to top the group – putting to bed any lingering concerns about Zepter’s fitness after a lengthy break at the start of this year.

“I’m very happy,” said Nanna, “I think I had a really good, solid test without big mistakes but also with plenty of room for improvement.

“He was nice and with me the whole way around but I have to find a little bit more.”

The Danish team shouldn’t struggle at all to be one of the 10 teams qualifying for the special and this score will be more than enough to qualify Nanna for the freestyle, so there was no need for the combination to come out all-guns-blazing.

“The atmosphere was unbelievable,” Nanna added. “It’s a lot, it’s big, so you have to be really focussed.”

Nanna Skodborg-Merrald and Zepter first, Dinja van Liere and Hermes second in first group of riders for Olympic dressage grand prix

Dark horses for individual medals Dinja van Liere and Heremes (Easy Game x Flemmingh) were next to go, scoring 77.76% to place second in the group.

The combination had a lot of highlights, especially in the piaffe and passage tour for which they picked up several nines. However, some tension and a couple of small mistakes kept their score from being higher.

There was a bit of disagreement in the judging, with a low of 75.11% and a high of 79.35%.

“I was a little stressed before because I wanted to do a good test,” Dinja said. “We’ve done a lot of competitions but the Olympics are something else so I really wanted to ride my first test and now I can breathe.

“Hermes is really good in the hot weather, he can handle it very well but he was a bit spooky in one corner so there was a bit of tension and a mistake there.”

Stefan Lehfellner was first into the arena with Roberto Carlos MT (Rosandro x De Niro).

The combination had been the alternates from Austria but had to step up to the team when Christian Schumach and Te Quiero SF withdrew five days before the competition started.

Roberto Carlos MT was quite tense and boisterous entering the atmospheric arena, but Stefan gave him a confidence-boosting ride. Despite no disastrous mistakes, the 14-year-old gelding was quite resistant to the contact throughout leading to a score of 68.17%.

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