FEI World Breeding Eventing Championships

by Kate Green

Nicolas Touzaint brought the huge crowd at the 20th Le Lion d’Angers to their feet as he jumped clear to score a remarkable sixth victory at this venue, winning the Young Horse World Championships for seven-year-olds for a record fourth time in five years. Armed with a seemingly unending supply of exciting young horses, the young Frenchman won the CCI 2* aboard his girlfriend Veronique Real’s Anglo Arab Tatchou and finished second in the six-year-olds’ CIC 1* on Lesbos.

For the record, Touzaint’s first Le Lion victory came in 2001, in the six-year-old classification, on Galan de Sauvagere, who also won in 2002 and went on to take Olympic team gold at Athens. In 2002 he won on Hildago d’Ile, a member of the silver medal French team at the European Championships this year, and then on Joker d’Helby in 2003 and 2004.

It was a close finish, as Touzaint did not have a show jump in hand over Britain’s Kristina Gifford – also a former Le Lion winner, in 1996 on State Diplomat – who clinched second place on the racing-bred English Thoroughbred Miner’s Lamp with a clear round.

Frank Ostholt, third for Germany and a team bronze medallist at the recent Europeans, piled on the pressure with a clear round on the ZFDP Little Paint and New Zealander Andrew Nicholson, who has been a big fan of Le Lion for many years, was fourth on the British warmblood/TB cross Silbury Hill, a quality horse of whom he has high hopes.

The CCI may have been dominated by “big names”, but the CIC saw a refreshing new face in Janet Wiesner, a self-confessed amateur rider from Germany who has a full-time job as an economist in Dresden. Wiesner, 27, was third after cross-country but show jumped clear to win on her dressage score of 45.7 on Matthias Schultz’s impressive chestnut Westphalian Libero 103 by the Thoroughbred Laurie’s Crusado.
One rail down ruined the double for Touzaint, who dropped to second on Lesbos, a Selle Francais by Marie-Christine de Laure’s Atlanta Olympic ride, the British-bred Trakehner Yarlande Summersong. Belgium’s Karin Donckers dropped from second to fifth with a fence down on King.

Olympic judge Angela Tucker, a grandmother and the oldest rider to complete Le Lion, showed her experience to finish third with a beautifully ridden performance on Fran Morgan’s Irish-bred Irish Jester, a former winner of the four-year-old Burghley young horse championship in England.

Le Lion, back under the brilliant directorship of Jean-Michel Foucher, attracted a record crowd of 30,000 on cross-country day who enthusiastically cheered every rider from each of the 22 nations competing.

Pierre Michelet’s imaginative course, beautifully presented and with the usual variety of carved animals – a terrier and rabbit had been added this time – was judged by riders to be slightly kinder than usual at the start, but a string of more taxing combinations near the end plus the uniquely electric atmosphere is test enough for young horses.

Despite heavy rain before cross-country day, the going was perfect, which made the optimum time very achievable. There were 39 clear rounds from the 54 CCI 2* starters with 44 completing and 17 inside the optimum time of 9min 36sec. In the CIC 1*, 44 of the 48 starters completed, with 38 clear and 27 inside the time.

The only serious fall was suffered by CCI competitor Suzanne Westergreen from Sweden when Touch of Lyric flipped over the white-painted spread at the pergola in front of the chateau. She sustained a broken leg and pelvis.

Team (studbooks) results:
1. Selle Français with 119.36 points
2. Belgium Warmblood with 138.08 points
3. Anglo Arab with 139.68 points