This final day at the team competition became for more moments a kind of roller coaster when watching it from the sideline.
From yesterday´s performances for Danish Agnete with Jojo AZ and Anna with Arlando the Danish standard was set, and at the same time the expectations for good/top performances from both Anna with Donnperignon and Cathrine with Cassidy today.
Anna and Donnperignon starts out with a small lack of balance out of the corner into the first extended trot at the diagonal. Good half passes where Pepe looks a bit tight in the neck. Bit tense rein back, nice first piaffe og passage. The walk is with good quality, but could show more over the back suppleness. Small tensions hind for the second piaffe tour, and Pepe seems not to be ready for the canter transition which becomes somewhat late. Small error hind for the zig-zag canter, but for the rest the qualities are very nice.
And then it came to the final part of the competition, and after Patrik Kittels performance it was clear that the score to beat was 74,77% for Cathrine and Cassidy to bring home the team silver medal for Denmark. So it became like always when watching "just lean back and enjoy", but this time, at kind of diffrent, as every single Dane for sure felt the pressure. Everything was in the hands of Cathrine, and she was the only one together with Cassidy to decide whether the Danish team got the Silver or the Bronze medals for the team.
Cathrine Dufour, just 25 years old, enters the arena with her dance partner Atterupgaards Cassidy showing the judges and her teammates that she just went in there for the Silver nothing else. Encredible ability to performe with maximum pressure. Going into the arena with the audience applauding when Patrik Kittel just left the arena, starting her test the best way, just floating trough all the parts, with just a small tension for the transition from passage into canter, and a very strong centerlinie when doing the two pirouettes, with the most natural thing, giving Cassidy a well deserved pat at the neck when finishing the second pirouette.
Cathrine left the arena knowing she did her best together with her Danish Warmblood gelding Atterupgaards Cassidy.
This stadium Ullevi is with a kind of Danish magic, as Denmark exactly 25 years ago won the European Championship in football. Some of us still remember that day, and will for sure also remember this special moment for Danish dressage.
For Danish national coach Nathalie zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, these Championships has already gone into the history books with her leading the team to the silver medals. Great achievement and a very big and special moment when this medal became a reality.
Nathalie was the one to decide which combinations for Gothenburg, where the three Olympic girls, Cathrine, Anna and Agnete were quite easy to decide. But for sure the moment when Nathalie gave young Anna Zibrandtsen the chance to represent Denmark for her first Championship with her newly purchased very succesfull horse Arlando, it was also a kind of risk. But Anna Zibrandtsen showed exactly yesterday why she fully deserved the spot, when going in there and deliver a ride like any other experienced team rider - big cadeau to both Nathalie and Anna.
All 4 riders are ready for Fridays individual Grand Prix Special, where the best 30 combinations from yesterday and today are qualified.
See the individual results here.
