VERSAILLES, France (Reuters) – Germany’s reigning champion Jessica von Bredow-Werndl got the best score of the Olympic dressage so far during the second day of qualifiers on Wednesday as the top 15 riders present in Paris all made the cut.
Von Bredow-Werndl, on her mare Dalera, scored 82% to top Group G and lead a list also including French rider Pauline Basquin, Briton Charlotte Fry, Emmelie Scholtens from Netherlands and Germany’s 2021 Olympic silver medallist Isabell Werth into the next stage.
Werth, 55 and at the seventh Games, is aiming to make history by becoming her country’s most-decorated Olympian ever.
She has won seven gold medals since her 1992 debut and is looking for an eighth on Wendy, a black mare she took over only months ago.
“I have to say that I naturally had to focus and concentrate a lot when I rode her in, because she’s just 10 years old,” Werth told reporters after the second day of Grand Prix tests.
“But it was so great to feel how the mare really gets along with it and as things went on I was then able to enjoy it more and more,” she said.
“We had a super test today… but I also know how quickly the tide can turn, so now we calmly just keep riding.”
Ten national teams made it through the qualification with Germany, Denmark and Britain leading the board ahead of the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, and France.
Dressage team medals will be awarded after a Grand Prix Special, a slightly more demanding version of the qualifying tests, on Saturday. The 18 best riders will fight for individual medals with freestyle on Sunday.
(Reporting by Tassilo Hummel; editing by Clare Fallon)
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