Championnat du Monde d'Attelage en Paire
(World Pairs Championships, Conty, France) - By Mike McCutcheon
The three members of the GB team: Geoff Brown, Fred Pendlebury and David Matthews met up with individual competitor Owen Pilling and headed over the channel to what has to be the most easily accessible of all of the main European competition venues: Conty in Northern France. Conty is situated about 60km north of Paris so it's a only a couple of hours drive from Calais. This made it easy not only for the drivers but the huge crowd of British supporters who travelled out there to cheer on the drivers. It's also very close to Beauvais airport so Louise and I, Mary Kusin, David Brown, Mike, Lyndsey and Victoria Brown, Colin Smith, Ian and Catriona Bertram all headed out on the Wednesday afternoon Ryanair flights from Scotland to support for the GB team, and especially Owen, Janet and the rest of Team OPG.
The first thing you noticed at the site was the mud! There had been torrential rain, high winds and thunder and lightning during the previous night, and with the stabling block being situated on a stubble field, the stabling area had turned into a bog. The dreadful quality of the bedding straw provided didn't help at all. The GB team had been fortunate to have a sheltered spot for their lorries and caravans - many of the other teams had their awnings, tents and equipment blown away in the Tuesday night storms.
Thursday dawned clear and bright, and the first two of the GB competitors, Fred and Owen had good conditions for the dressage. Bizarrely, lines had been mown 15 metres from the sidelines, so there was no need for judgement in the size of the one-handed deviation in the test. Davy Brown noticed that the marker letters were not the required distance from the arena edging boards. In fact, lots of small details were lacking - have you ever seen a dressage steward at a national (never mind world championship), in baseball cap and poncho?? Owen's horses were turned out beautifully, in spite of the conditions back in the stables and the quickly deteriorating warm-up arena - great credit to Janet and to Louise Allen, Owen's groom. Fred was happy with his dressage score of 57.09 but Owen was left kicking himself over a slip in the test, which dropped his creditable score of 62.46 down to 67.46. It just shows how much pressure drivers feel in such a competition. Also at this level, the 5 points difference meant 57th place instead of 40th place where he should have been.
A nations gathering was held on the Thursday evening, with the Brits putting on a fine display of cheeses (I know 'cos I spent a good while cutting them up), and the Pims went down only too well, the Hungarian goulash was reportedly superb - it was just a shame about the USA with their less-than-inventive Jack Daniels, Coke and M&Ms!!
Unfortunately, in the early hours of Friday morning, the storms returned. Paul (Geoff's groom) was the first out to do feeds that morning, only to be greeted by "ah Team GB - you have a problem". During the storm, at least 3 stable roofs had collapsed, with one of Geoff's and one of Fred's horses standing with the stable roof down on their backs, and Owen's Zenno standing in the back of his stable with the roof inches away from his hindquarters. Why did no-one alert them earlier? All the drivers' mobile numbers had been left at the stables! I'm afraid this was symptomatic of the event - the organization and logistics left a lot to be desired. Luckily no harm was done, none of the horses had panicked, and no-one was injured. However, it doesn't bear to think about what could have happened.
As a result of the rain, Friday's dressage quickly turned the main arena into a muddy bog. There was so much sawdust down, that X extended at least 5 metres! Barry Capstick was the first competitor out that morning and he did a beautiful test with a score of 46.46. Geoff Brown was next from Team GB to go, but one of his young horses spooked at the giant display screens, and did not settle. As a result he was punished by the judges (understandably at this level) with a score of 71.55 but fortunately David Matthews did a very polished test to be in joint 10th place overnight with a score of 47.62 despite the fairly atrocious conditions, leaving Team GB in a reasonable 8th place going into Saturday's marathon.
The weather on Saturday was nice to begin with, but as usual the showers were not far away. Fred was first of the Brits out on the marathon course. There was only one problem - none of the obstacles had electronic timing so it was impossible to know who was putting in the fast times! That was so frustrating for us spectators - and again typical of the lack of detail by the organizers. Fred was first out, and although not the fastest, he drove a very nice smooth round to finish in 36th place in this phase. However due to the very bumpy and hilly terrain, Beryl came back with yet more bruises - we all felt sorry for her, she seemed to have a week of bumps and bruises. Next for Team GB was Geoff Brown. He drove in typical attacking fashion, and posted some good times, but the rain had started already. Geoff took 26th place in the marathon. Owen was next with his marathon groom Stuart Ritchie. They got a break in the weather and posted a very fast round - only 2 penalty points behind Geoff in the marathon results - but it was David Matthews who stole the show. In heavy rain, he flew round the obstacles and finished 5th overall in the marathon - to the delight of the huge number of vocal flag-waving GB supporters. Combined with his dressage, this put him up to overall 4th place at the end of marathon day.
Saturday evening was spent at the Team GB camp - this time instead of going home smelling of cheese, I went home smelling of BBQ smoke - but it was worth it. There was a great atmosphere, there was a huge assortment of meat to be cooked, others brought salads, yet more cheese, and the drivers, the team vet (Anja), trainer (Boyd), Chef d'Equipe (Derrick) and assistant Chef d'Equipe (John) and their helpers all got the chance to relax and enjoy a very sociable evening.
Sunday was dry but overcast - but yes during the day we had yet more heavy showers. Going in reverse order, Owen was first of the Team GB drivers into the arena. An incredibly tight and twisting course on a now muddy and undulating arena was a huge challenge, but Owen had a total of 19.36 points in the cones, finishing the event in a respectable 48th place. Fred was next and after a 12.44 cones course, he finished in 31st place. Geoff was next and unfortunately he demolished cone 19 while driving from 13 to 14. Disastrously, he restarted by driving cone 13 again, and that meant elimination - no cone can be driven more than once!! That piled the pressure on David Matthews but the trappy course claimed yet another victim and his 16.86 penalty points in the cones dropped him from 4th place to 15th overall, which just shows how close the competition is at this level. Barry Capstick finished the competition in 11th place. To put the degree of difficulty into perspective, there were only 2 double clear rounds out of 67 competitors, and only another 4 who were clear on cones and close to the allowed time. Notable were several young drivers: the eventual individual winner, Carola Diener (GER), who at the age of 23 led from the start - winning the dressage phase, holding her lead in the marathon and coming 5th in the cones to take the individual gold medal; Stephane Chouzenoux (FRA) - a tremendously popular young French driver who claimed individual silver after a very consistent performance in all three phases; and Tom Engbers (NED) who won the marathon and took individual bronze. The Netherlands took team gold, and Team GBR finished in 8th place, which at this level of competition is still a very creditable performance.
As supporters we had a great time - we were made to feel welcome by the teams, the weather and the mud did nothing to dampen our spirits or quieten our voices, the local town of Amiens was a good base for many of the supporters, and unsurprisingly we returned the hire car in a rather muddy state ("ah - you 'ave been in the countryside!"). Well done to Owen and all the team for a great performance in some very trying and sometimes exhausting circumstances. There were displays of excellent driving and beautiful turnout from all the GB drivers. We've all learned lessons about what makes an event good (or not), the incredibly high standards to which international drivers have to aspire these days, how tight the competition is, what can go wrong, what can go right. Best of all though, WE ALL ENJOYED IT.