British team remains European Eventing champions

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The British eventing team successfully managed to retain its European championship gold medal for the seventh consecutive year.

Held in Pratoni del Vivaro, Italy, the British team made up of the seasoned campaigner Mary King, current European and world champion Zara Phillips, first time senior squad member Oliver Townsend and the in form Daisy Dick, cruised to a convincing win of 66 penalties in front of second placed France.

The event was not without its incidences. Zara, on the usually reliable Toytown, had an uncharacteristic stop in the show jumping which put them out of contention for an individual top 3 medal placing, and the French team had the unfortunate situation that one of their team horses had to be pulled out of the final phase because of a chipped stifle. This led Britain to have an enviable 22 fences in hand over the French coming into the show jumping phase.

Of the stop Zara commented: “It didn’t go right for me, but I’m really happy for the team and for Mary."

Mother-of-two Mary King rose to individual silver position after a faultless show jumping performance on her horse Call Again Cavalier.

The individual gold position was taken by the class Frenchmen, Nicolas Touzaint, who throughout the competition showed his winning credentials having been the only combination to add nothing to their dressage score of 29.4 over the three phases.

The team placing stands with Britain winning gold, France silver and Italy bronze. Individual top three placing saw the French rider Nicolas Touzaint getting gold, Mary King silver and the German Bettina Hoy taking home bronze.

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