After a silver medal shaped success for our dressage team in the 2022 FEI World Championships in Herning, Denmark, the focus now turns to the Jumping competition where five team places (and hence fifteen individual ones) are up for grabs.
There are seventy-five athletes in the jumping competition in Paris 2024: the three members of the twenty teams (sixty in all) and then fifteen individuals. GB will be expecting to qualify a full team, and that’s putting it lightly.
The first qualification event starts today in Herning: hosts France have taken the first spot, and then five places will be earned in this competition. Twenty-two countries, including GB, are taking part in the competition, and the top five will book their ticket to Paris. If France come in the top five, as they have already qualified, instead sixth-placed will get the berth.
Each team has four members, and the highest three scores will be added up for the final ranking, the exception being Israel with just three members. GB have a four-strong team then: going first is Joseph Stockdale, the son of the late Beijing 2008 show-jumper Tim Stockdale. The younger Stockdale is likely to be a reserve, this being the highest level he has ever competed at, and what an experience it is for the 21-year-old. Stockdale and his horse Equine America Cacherel (yes, the horse’s name has put a sponsors’ name at the front of it: I can already imagine some IOC apparatchik losing his mind) have put in a string of consistent performances over the year and deserve the chance to make their name at the world-class level.
Second in the team is Harry Charles on Romeo 88, a duo that competed in this event in Tokyo 2020, where the GB team finished 10th. Another youngster at just 23 (this is equestrian we’re talking about), Charles was called up at the last minute to the British team after being originally selected as an alternate when a teammate picked up an injury, but was actually the best performing Brit in that final. It won’t be easy for him when we’re targeting a top five place and there is some world class talent, but in elite sports you have to show up at the big occasion.
Ben Maher is our third athlete, and it’s a big contrast as this is an established athlete, winning gold in this event at London 2012 and gold in the individual event in Tokyo 2020. That introduction should be enough for you to understand the talents of Maher then, but his horse Faltic HB might be a little less known, as Maher is still relatively new to riding him. However, results show that there is little to be afraid about.
Finally, Scott Brash was also on the team with Maher that won gold in London 2012, and he rides Hello Jefferson, the horse that took him to joint 7th in the individual event in Tokyo 2020: Brash describes his horse as “powerful, careful and quick”, which is quite handy really if he’s going to be running and jumping for a living.
In 2020, GB didn’t qualify from this event and had to pick up a spot at the regional qualifier for Europe instead, and that time there were six places on offer rather than just five. If you want to watch this, it’s on the delightfully named clipmyhorse.tv, but only for “Premium members” for the low low price of… £129.95 a year? Blimey. Luckily you can get a one month free trial.
With the IOC looking at sports to put on the chopping block, equestrian fills the criteria and quotas are getting cut every Games. Surely the FEI will want to grow their sport from its (in no way unjustified) perception as a sport only for the elite? If they do that’s not the way to do it. The action starts at 10am UK time.
GB Games 