The riders in Grade I delivered high quality and expressive freestyles which were rewarded with a lot of great scores. Taking the gold today with a massive 81.640% was the Italian Dressage queen Sara Morganti riding Mariebelle. Michael Murphy and Cleverboy from Ireland also did a fantastic job, and delivered a flawless freestyle scoring just below 80 with a total of 79.887%.

It was a close call for the bronze but in the end Germany’s Martina Benzinger and her horse Nautika had the margins on their side, and finished on 78.347% and were able to claim the podium spot.

Unfortunately, the European champion from the individual competition, King of the Dance, did not pass the second vet-check yesterday and therefore Rihards Snikus (LAT) was not able to compete today.

Sarah Morganti said after her ride: “I am really really happy. I hoped for a gold medal because I don’t have a European one, it is really so incredible that I can’t even believe it! Especially because I am here with my second horse actually. It is incredible!”

“She was a little shy in there today maybe, but she really listened to me and did her best. She is still unexperienced but with more experience she will get more confident in the arena hopefully”.

More to follow…

FULL RESULTS