Well the kiwis jumped well but they were so far behind on points that medals were not an option. I think we can still be proud of them though. Showjumping is very controlled and precise and takes intense concentration to navigate the horse, check position and approach to each jump and take off at the right moment. The Beijing course was tough and they did well to not accumulate many faults.

Seeing Mark Todd and Gandalf jump made me see what the hype was about with Gandalf. I missed seeing them on the cross country but I now not remotely surprised they went clear in each. Gandalf clearly has the stamina despite the demands of the dressage and cross country in the days before. He is a very solid, honest horse who seemed to me very easy to just guide and point at the jumps, always knowing where his feet were. I didn't for a minute doubt Mark's ability to pick a good horse but Gandalf's dressage as I said before lacked some flair but Mark is confident he has room to improve so I look forward to seeing more of Gandalf.

Sugoi looked gorgeous as he went round but his head strong, feisty-ness let him down once again. If he had just listened to Heelen he could have easily gone clear. Heelen did very well with him as it was clear he was trying to do his own thing throughout most of the round. It will be interesting to see how he develops too.

Lenamore surprised me. A couple of times I saw Caroline almost battling to pull in before a jump, which she managed well but unfortunately it was Lenamore not realising what was being asked too late that took the poles down. I had picked Lenamore as a much quieter horse after the dressage performance so it was a but of a surprise.

Snip's performance was also a real surprise. His impulsion wasn't quite right, he was quite messy with his feet and he failed to jump high enough several times. The difference between his jumping style and the cross country signalled that he seemed tired, maybe he had been a bit unsettled since the cross country or maybe the two previous phases took it out of him too much.

Looking back at the three phases I have to say I am very impressed with all the horses for different reasons. The riders did a superb job and I really feel for Andrew Nicholson and all the replays that have been going on of all the other times he nearly made it. He is a real credit to NZ equestrian and we all know what it is like to have nearly had it in hand only for something unfortunate to have happened.

I caught only some of the cross country rides yesterday from the NZ team. I was leaving the dentist and saw Heelen Thompkins and Sugoi begin their run. Sugoi showed the same temperament as he did in the dressage, eager to do his own thing periodically meaning Heelen had to bring him back to focus on her instructions. Given this, I was not surprised to see his refusals as the Olympic course is technically difficult meaning that horse and rider have to balance speed with focused precision. Sugoi just wasn't listening or focused from what I could see at crucial moments which led to the refusals. I still think he is a great horse though, he just needs to get over himself.

The only other ride I saw was Andrew Nicholson and Lord Killinghurst. It was a spectacular ride, the stuff of real professionals, both horse and rider knew what they were doing, were focused and ripped through the course. The commentator seemed surprised that Andrew was cutting corners and taking risks to cut down his time faults but I wasn't as you could see the harmony between horse and rider. Lord Killinghurst was focused, his experience shone through. Andrew clearly knew him enough to know how much warning he needed and the horse was solid and true and rose to the occasion.

Their fall right at the end of the course was not the fault of either horse or rider, it was just an accident brought on, from what I could see, by Lord Killinghurst simply tiring and maybe Andrew relying just a bit too much on him knowing what he was doing and not telling him clearly enough they had a tricky double approaching.

When you are physically spent but still have the last bit of the race to go you just start blindly hurling yourself to the finish line, the precision and technique you had at the start of the race starts to go, you can see the end, you are nearly there. It seemed like that for Lord Killinghurst, he looked really tired but he just kept going, his ears were still pricked forward he was giving it everything but his feet were getting just a little sloppy and that combination right at the end was a tricky one as the lines of the jumps whilst parallel had to be approached from an angle, making the timing of take off just that harder to calculate, the jump was narrow and solid at one end which invites a horse to veer to the side and skip the jump (as I saw a few horse do on that jump) and there was only one or two strides between the two which proved to be their downfall as the they cleared the first one messily but had no time to recover before the next. The fall looked awful but thankfully both horse and rider appeared unharmed. It was a real shame as Andrew was on target to have one of the fastest clear rounds and they had all but nailed it too.




I did not see any of the other NZ riders but I hear that Gandalf and Mark Todd jumped clear but were slow which maybe says more about Todd's break from competitive eventing than anything negative about Gandalf who clearly jumped well. I found after a 15 year break from eventing that when I got back into it my nerve was the slowest thing to come back. My knowledge was still there, I knew exactly what to tell my muscles and body to do, my fitness and muscles strength was slower but before the accident it was getting there but my nerve is shocking and has been the hardest thing to counter. Prior to the accident I still had momentary freaks as I approached high and technically difficult jumps and I especially had trouble taking them at the speed that is needed to beat the clock. I heard Mark Todd say in an interview that in the past 8 years he hadn't really jumped anything much less the height and complexity of the jumps at his level of competition.

I was not surprised to hear that Joe Meyer and Snip had the best cross country round. I said previously that Snip looked like he could jump. Snip retains his position as my favourite NZ Olympic horse.