It was a first in so many ways - the first time for the Games to take place outside Europe, the first time for Para Dressage to join the seven other disciplines, the first time all the action would take place at a single location - the fabulous Kentucky Horse Park - and the first time the Games benefitted from an official sponsor; the animal health and nutrition group Alltech.A total of 632 athletes and 752 horses from a record 58 countries fought hard for the 81 medals up for grabs. And in another first, the fact that they were all competing on the same site meant that the camaraderie evident in Aachen four years earlier was to be seen again as Jumping riders cheered on the Drivers, and Dressage riders welled up with emotion watching the supreme effort put in by their Para-counterparts. The figures were impressive, 400 million television viewers, tickets sold in 63 countries and all 50 US states, 570,000 spectators from 61 countries and a local economic impact of $328 million.
"I had no difficult moments with any of them. I decided to go their way and not to try and make them go my way, and it paid off!” said Belgium’s Philippe Le Jeune, reflecting on the rides on his rival's mounts after claiming the individual Jumping title. The 50-year-old was not the favourite going into the competition but his mass of experience and his capacity to sit quietly and let four of the top horses in the world do what they do best saw him win through in the final-four medal decider. Springing a big surprise however, the silver medal went to the relatively unknown and inexperienced Abdullah Al Sharbatly from Saudi Arabia who pinned 2008 Olympic champion Eric Lamaze from Canada into bronze and pushed former World and Olympic champion Rodrigo Pessoa from Brazil off the podium.
This was an extraordinary edition of the Games from a Belgian perspective, a second consecutive individual Jumping champion, all three men standing on the podium on the final day based in this small European country and Belgium also claiming team bronze behind France in silver and the mighty Germans in gold.
The host nation took the early lead in the team competition but slipped to third after the first round of the Nations Cup when Germany’s Janne Friederike-Meyer (Cellagon Lambrasco), Carsten-Otto Nagel (Corradina), Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum (Checkmate) and Marcus Ehning (Plot Blue) snatched the lead. Brazil, Canada, France and Saudi Arabia who were chasing each other’s tails and threatening, but once out in front the Germans couldn’t be dislodged. The French climbed from fifth to take the silver and when the Americans had a meltdown and plummeted all the way to tenth it was the Belgians who stayed solid to take the bronze, helped by double-clears from Le Jeune and defending individual champion Jos Lansink.
The final-four competition was a classic, with horses of extraordinary quality and tense excitement to the very end. Le Jeune said he intended to “have some fun”, the great horseman talking to and patting each horse before mounting and then cruising home clear every time. His own Vigo d’Arsouilles, Al Sharbatly’s excitable mare Seldana, Pessoa’s Rebozo and finally Lamaze’s super-stallion Hickstead all giving their best to leave him in an unassailable position, and although Sharbatly looked at sea during his warm-up with Hickstead, the great horse brought him home safely to help seal silver ahead of Lamaze in bronze.
One hundred and twenty athletes from 41 countries competed.
The Netherlands’ Edward Gal and the fabulous black stallion Totilas became the first partnership to win three World titles at a single Dressage Championship when helping secure team gold and then dominating both the Grand Prix Special and Freestyle in Kentucky. A year after posting their third world-record-breaking Freestyle score at the FEI European Championships in Windsor (GBR) where hardened horsemen were seen wiping tears from their eyes, the sensational pair brought their magic to America but they didn’t steal all the limelight. Great Britain’s Laura Bechtolsheimer became the first British rider to take three medals at a Dressage World Championship and Steffen Peters made history as the first American to win an individual medal in 78 years.
The Dutch bonanza began when they broke the long-held German stranglehold on the team title despite the heartbreak elimination of Adelinde Cornelissen when her gelding, Jerich Parzival, bit his tongue. Imke Schellekens-Bartels (Hunter Douglas Sunrise) and Hans Peter Minderhoud (Exquis Nadine) put them in the lead on the opening day, but Gal had it all to do when the side was reduced to just three. More than rising to the challenge however he produced a score just a single point short of the Grand Prix world record he set with Totilas at the Europeans in Windsor to put the result beyond doubt. In the battle for silver it was Bechtolsheimer’s performance that gave the British the edge over Germany.
After taking silver behind Gal again in the Grand Prix Special Bechtolsheimer pointed out that the sport of Dressage “is a lot more open now. It used to be just Isabell (Werth) and Anky (van Grunsven) but now quite a few of us feel like we have a chance!” The winds of change were blowing in Kentucky, and US supporters were ecstatic when Peters and Ravel took the bronze here and then did it again in the Freestyle in which a personal-best gave Bechtolsheimer her third silver. But no-one could come close to the 91.800 percent score of three-time gold medallists Gal and the magical Totilas.
A total of sixty-five athletes from 33 countries competed.
As expected the British were in stunning form, winning the team title as well as scooping 13 individual medals, including six golds. The British team of Sophie Christiansen (Rivaldo of Berkeley), Anne Dunham (Teddy), Lee Pearson (Gentleman) and Jo Pitt (Estralita) pinned Germany into silver medal spot and it was Stinna Tange Kaastrup, at only 16 years of age, who clinched team bronze for Denmark.
For the individual competitions, Britain’s Lee Pearson lived up to expectations with a hat trick of gold medals in Team, Individual Grand Prix and Freestyle Grade Ib, while team-mate Sophie Wells also won individual Grand Prix and Freestyle gold in Grade IV. Germany’s Hannelore Brenner matched this result in Grade III.
In Grade Ia, Britain’s Sophie Christiansen and Emma Sheardown took gold in the Individual Grand Prix and Freestyle respectively while Grade II was dominated by Petra Van de Sande (NED) in the Individual Grand Prix and by FEI “Against All Odds” Award winner Angelika Trabert (GER) in the Freestyle.
Michael Jung riding La Biosthetique Sam FBW became Germany's first-ever individual Eventing World Champion and Great Britain claimed its fifth team title. At the age of 28, Jung had already won a European bronze medal the previous year, but Kentucky marked the beginning of his phenomenal rise to become the most successful Event rider ever in the history of the sport.
The British team was filled with class, William Fox-Pitt and Cool Mountain won the Kentucky 4-Star event just four months earlier and he was joined by stalwarts Mary King (Imperial Cavalier), Nicola Wilson (Opposition Buzz) and the 2009 European double-gold medal winning partnership of Tina Cook and Miners Frolic. Second behind Germany after dressage they went out in front on cross-country day and enjoyed a runaway victory with three showjumping clears on the final afternoon. King and Cook were also on the winning British team at the second edition of the Games at The Hague in 1994. A resurgent Canadian side took silver, led by former US riding star David O’Connor whose wife, Karen O’Connor was in the American team that was squeezed off the podium into fourth place by the bronze medallists from New Zealand.
Jung led the individual leaderboard from start to finish with a dressage score of 33 and was untouchable for the title. Fox-Pitt lined up in silver but a long way off the winner’s score while, for the first time in his already-20-year-long career, New Zealand’s Andrew Nicholson claimed an individual World Championship medal when taking bronze with Nereo. Last to go on the final afternoon, Jung’s La Biosthetique Sam looked so fresh, composed and content that it was hard to believe he was at the end of a such a monumental contest.
Eighty athletes from 24 countries competed.
It was individual gold at last for Australia’s Boyd Exell after many years of trying. Producing a world-record Dressage score of 30.08, and taking third place in the Marathon, he drove a safe course in the Cones phase to claim the title ahead of Dutchman Ijsbrand Chardon in silver and America’s Tucker Johnson who took the bronze in the final event of his career.
Exell thought he would have to fight hard just to earn silver, but when his horses produced a sparkling dressage test the door to a golden opportunity began to open. Chardon didn’t make it easy for him however when pinning him back to third in the Marathon in which Sweden’s Tomas Eriksson was runner-up. A huge number of spectators turned out to watch the 25 starters in the Marathon over Richard Nicoll’s course, and with temperatures rising to 30 degrees Celsius the ice, water and misting fans came into good use. When the results of the first two phases were calculated, Exell went into the final day just 1.72 penalty points ahead of Chardon, and when the Dutchman dropped one ball the Australian drove with great caution, collected a few time penalties but without endangering his gold medal.
The Swedish team were in bronze medal position going into the final day but when Tomas Eriksson took a gate from the wrong side they were eliminated and this left Germany to fill bronze medal spot behind the American silver medallists while the Dutch claimed the top step of the podium.
Twenty-five drivers from 19 countries competed.
Spain's Maria Mercedes Alvarez Ponton and her horse, Nobby, wrote their names into the history books of the sport of Endurance when adding yet another individual gold medal to their 2008 World Championship and 2009 European Championship titles. The hat-trick has never been done before and Nobby's extraordinary recovery-rate proved key to their success once again. Ponton had given birth to a baby daughter only seven weeks prior to the Games.
His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) took the silver medal with Ciel Oriental while his son, His Excellency Sheikh Hamdan Bin Al Maktoum took bronze, and it was no surprise when the UAE claimed the team title as HE Sheikh Hamdan joined with HE Sheikh Majid Bin Mohammed Al Maktoum and Sheikh Rashid Dalmook Al Maktoum to finish well ahead of the French in silver medal position and Germany in bronze.
The winning team completed with a combined time of 23.53.36 and the third-placed German team were one of the surprises of the competition. Japan fielded a team for the first time in these Championships although they did not complete.
One hundred athletes from 29 countries competed in the Endurance discipline.
The host nation and defending double-champions from the USA scooped the first gold medals of the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games™ when spinning, slide-stopping and galloping to a convincing victory in the Reining Team Championship. Dominating the leaderboard, their final score of 674.5 left them almost 10 points clear of Belgium in silver medal position while Italy took bronze. It was an historic moment for the Belgians as they claimed their very first World Championship medals in this discipline.
The US team consisted of Tim McQuay (Hollywoodtinseltown), Craig Schmersal (Mister Montana Nic) and Shawn Flarida (RC Fancy Step) and the hosts also dominated the individual Championship when Schmersal took the silver behind Tom McCutcheon (Gunners Special Nite) in gold. Favourite to take the title, America’s Flarida was penalised for grabbing the horn of his saddle when a stirrup broke, Defending champion, Canada’s Duane Latimer (Dun Playin Tag), had to settle for individual bronze.
Sixty-three athletes from 21 countries competed in the Reining discipline.
Great Britain's Joanne Eccles and Switzerland's Patric Looser claimed the Female and Male Individual titles in the Vaulting Championship. Eccles earned the second-highest score in the Freestyle with her 'Candle in the Wind' routine and clinched the overall Female gold, having led the Technical test. She was the first British athlete to win a World Championship title in Vaulting. Silver and bronze went to German vaulters Antje Hill and Simone Wiegele.
In the Male Championship Patric Looser triumphed over 2006 FEI World Equestrian Games™ champion Kai Vorberg (GER), who had to settle for silver this time around ahead of Andreani (FRA) in bronze.
Vaulting proved a real crowd-puller in Kentucky and the host nation held their nerve and really rose to the occasion to win the squad title. They looked very vulnerable after their routine fell apart in the Freestyle, their horse, Palatine, growing increasingly anxious and leaving them with a third-place finish. But on the final day it all come together, and to the theme of Romeo and Juliet, with Rosalind Ross and Devon Maitozo playing the leading roles, they rocketed back up the leaderboard to steal the gold.
Silver went to Germany while Austria took bronze, and the Swiss team slotted into fourth place ahead of France in fifth and Brazil in sixth. A total of 12 nations competed in the squad competition.
In total 149 athletes from 17 countries competed.
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