A third gold medal for Isabell Werth at the Europeans

Isabell Werth has achieved a hat trick of golds at the Longines FEI European Championships, after taking the title in the Freestyle.

Personal best

It was a fiercely competitive class with Isabell pulling out all the stops. She rode a flawless test to score a massive 90.98% on Weihegold OLD, pushing team mates Sonke Rothenberger and Cosmo into silver medal position once again, by just 0.3%.

Cathrine Dufour and Atterupgaards Cassidy won their second individual bronze medal of the championships on 84.56%. All three medallists produced personal best Freestyle scores.

“We all pushed each other today,” said Isabell. “When I went in, both Weihe and me knew there was no little mini-mistake allowed, and that made it very exciting!”

‘Very satisfying’

Carl Hester missed out on a medal once again, although he briefly took the lead with his score of 80.61%. Carl’s floorplan perfectly played to Nip Tuck’s strengths and the level of technical difficulty was only matched by Isabell Werth, but he had to settle for fourth place.

“I’m pleased, but he was a little more difficult than I expected today,” said Carl. “I gave him an easy morning to make sure he wasn’t too tired, but he was very excited!

“His scores have gone up all week and that’s very satisfying. We never thought he’d get this far but it’s testament to his temperament, he’s a worker. He finds it easy to do the difficult stuff, so time to work on a new freestyle. I know I can make it even harder!

Impressive work

It was only Spencer Wilton’s second Freestyle with Super Nova II and the 13-year-old struggled with the noise of the crowd, but he produced some impressive work to score 75.44%.

“Well, it could have been a lot worse!” said Spencer. “We had a tricky last few minutes with the applause for Pattrik [Kittel] – he’s never heard noise like it. Hopefully he’s gained in confidence and will take it all as a positive.”

You can watch the action from Gothenburg on H&C as we are showing highlights of the Freestyle and the Grand Prix Special.

FEI Europeans 2017: Dressage (GPS) is on 30 August at 9pm and FEI Europeans 2017: Dressage (FS) is on 31 August at 9pm. You can watch on Sky 253 or online via H&C Play or Amazon Video.

H&C coverage of the European Championships is sponsored by