Rachel Dowley
FOUR years of waiting for another individual gold medal to add to his already record-breaking tally came to an end this week for an emotional Lee Pearson of Britain, who took the Grade Ib individual title with Zion.
Pearson has won 32 Paralympic, world and European titles in his career so far but his last individual gold was four years ago at the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games 2010 in Kentucky.
At London 2012 he took silver and bronze in the individual tests, something of a shock result at the time, and gold in the team competition, and then missed the cut for selection for the British team at last year’s European Championships.
Pearson scored 77.310% ahead of his London 2012 rival and freestyle gold medallist Pepo Puch of Austria.
Riding Fine Feeling S, Puch scored 74.793% to take silver, while the bronze went to Nicole Den Dulk of The Netherlands, riding Wallace to score 71.621%.
Speaking afterwards, Pearson said: “It’s been a tough journey, what with London and not getting selected for the Europeans and a tough five years personally as well. It’s also been tough with this horse. A lot of people didn’t have faith in him, but I always have from day one. We’ve had our problems - he broke my back in four places - but I adore riding him. I ride him outdoors on my own and we’re just two naughty beans that have fun together. We make the perfect pair.”
Irish rider Helen Kearney and Mister Cool recovered from a slightly disappointing performance in the team competition where the grey gelding spooked at one end of the arena, the pair climbing the leader board in the individual test on Wednesday to qualified for yesterday’s (Friday) freestyle.
Scoring 71.522% to finish fifth, the 2012 Paralympic medallist was described by Irish para dressage chef d’equipe Dara Kearney as having ridden “a beautiful test, she was very accurate, and she got everything possible from the horse.”
Fellow team member Breda Bernie also put disappointment behind her after being eliminated in her first test on a technical error, she returned to finish 10th in the individual equivalent. On board Master Mexico, the former ride of international eventer Michael Ryan, she earned a mark of 68.069%.
Speaking after her test, the Irish chef d’equipe Dara Kearney noted: “Given this combination have only been together for six months, to put Tuesday behind her perform like that is a phenomenal achievement.”
Donal Healy, owner of Master Mexico throughout his eventing career, was on site to watch his horse compete, and was delighted to see him coming to the fore in a new discipline.
After a below par performance on Wednesday, the experienced combination of James Dwyer and Orlando did not progress to the freestyle competition yesterday. Dropping to ninth place on 64.429%, Dwyer was “slightly disappointed” with his ride.
Kate Kerr Horan put in another impressive performance to once again finish ninth at Grade II.
Despite scoring 66.343%, Kerr Horan confessed: “I was a little bit disappointed with test today, but the judges were marking very hard and Lara was very good.”
Ireland finished in 12th place of the 19 teams competing in Normandy, finishing on a combined team score of 406.483.
Britain’s team of Lee Pearson (Zion), Sophie Christieansen (Janeiro 6), Sophie Wells (Valerius) and Natasha Baker (Cabral) were crowned the world para dressage champions once more in Caen. The British have now been unbeaten at WEG since 2002 and this time won comfortably on a score of 456.024 after fielding one of their strongest and most experienced teams to date, leading by a margin of 20%.
The Netherlands team of Frank Hosmar, Sanne Voets, Rixt van der Horst and Demi Vermeulen took team silver on a score of 436.941, while the German team of Elke Philipp, Hannelore Brenner, Caroline Schnarre and Britta Napel claimed bronze with a team score of 432.510.
In the process, Britain, The Netherlands and Germany booked the first three team spots on offer for the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.
Assessing the performance of the Irish para dressage team in France, chef d’equipe Kearney remained upbeat.
“Since our success at London 2012 we have been undergoing a period of transition, and only two of our bronze medallists were competing in Caen. Our team was a mixture of youth and experience, and our younger members will benefit from this experience and continue to work towards fulfilling their potential.”
Kate Kerr Horan summed it up by saying: “It was an amazing experience to ride at WEG among the best para dressage riders in the world. For me, it was made all the more memorable by being given the privilege of carrying the Irish flag at the opening ceremony, and now I’m looking forward to Rio!”