AACHEN, Germany--New Zealand and Great Britain are tied for the lead while The Brit's Tom McEwen on JL Dublin leads individually after day one of Eventng dressage.
Phillip Dutton on Denim (Photo by Allen MacMillan)After two riders from each of the teams, New Zealand and Great Britain each scored 55.9, and Germany is third on 59.9 while the U.S. is sixth of the 16 teams with a score of 64.9.
McEwen leads on 26.6 with Jonelle Price of New Zealand on Senor Crocodile second on 27.3 and Alexis Goury of France on Je'vail third on 28.5.
Caroline Pamukcu on HSH Blake is 14th on 32.3, and Phillip Dutton on Denim is 15th on 32.6.
Due to hot wesstherin Aachen, in Dressage, the Grand Prix Special Individual Final will now start at 08:30, 2:30am Eastern, with a break from 12:30 (6:30) to 15:00, before resuming at 15:00.
The revised schedule reduces competition during the hottest part of the day/
Eventing cross country timesmay also be changed aat a later date.
FOR THE dressage test, thi was the first competitive outing of the Olympic Short Test, which will also be used at the Los Angeles Olympic Games 2028.
Caroline Pamucku on HSH Blake (Photo by Allen MacMillan)The updated test asked plenty of questions, with little room for error as every transition and movement arrived in quick succession.
"The flying changes still can get better," said Dutton after completing his test. " You don't have much time to regroup after the changes. Overall, I was pleased wit the test."
"It's a tough course," said Dutton of Saturday's cross country course. " "It's a proper five-star course. "There are a lot of options if something goes wrong. "I'll have to do a lot of studying tomorrow. The first and second water are strong, and the bank, and coming home the mounds are pretty hard."
McEwen’s performance laid the foundation for Great Britain’s opening-day aim for the gold medal, with teammate Gemma Stevens on Flash Cooley adding 29.3 to bring their provisional team total to 55.9.
“Dubs always delivers. I’m really, really pleased with him,” McEwen reflected.
Tom McEwen on JL Dublin (Photo by Kim MacMillan)“It’s a really good test, and you can see people are performing it really well,” he said of the new dressage test. “I think on Friday, especially hopefully with the Brits, you’re going to see some really good tests delivered.”
New Zealand matched Great Britain stride for stride, with stellar tests from Price and Johnstone leaving the two nations level at the top.
Price admitted the result exceeded her expectations after Senor Crocodillo produced a clean and consistent test to record a personal best of 27.2.
It was also the second-best Dressage score at a Championship of Price’s career, behind only the 26.1 she produced with McClaren at Praton, Italy in 2022.
“He’s a quiet achiever, this guy,” she said. “He’s just such a trier and over the last couple of years we’ve been able to really start solidly building a test, so it was pretty cool to come out and show him at his best. If I broke 30, I was pretty happy, so to be comfortably shy of that was probably above expectation.”
With another 44 still to come on Friday, many of the favorites for team and individual medals are yet to enter the arena, leaving the Championship wide open.
Among them are Germany’s Michael Jung and fischerChipmunk FRH.
The 18-year-old gelding is the only horse to have led a World Championship after Dressage more than once, doing so with Julia Krajewski of Germany ) at Tryon 2018 and with Jung at Pratoni 2022.
