Adam Heaton - Chef d'Equipe - British Reining.

Chef's Blog.

Manerbio – Friday 12th September

Countdown to the FEI World reining Championships – coffee has been replaced by champagne.

It rained today, no it really, really rained. The water in the alley between the stables was eighteen inches deep. The hailstones were the size of grapefruit and the show was delayed by quarter of an hour to clear the water from outside. Still, it made the British feel at home.

For those of you who have never experienced a team event, and judging by the number of Brits here tonight there aren't many people who haven't, the tension is incredible. The feeling slowly switches from one of boredom to one of anticipation to one of electrification. And when you get an full-scale electric storm thrown in, it just adds to the whole event. Being British, being knee deep in water, it actually makes you feel like you really are at a horse show!!!

And that reminds me, you probably want to know about he horse show.

To go into full details would bore you rigid, and stretch my memory to the limit so I'll focus on the heroes of the night - Team GBR!!!

As we went through the opening ceremony, my thoughts were with David Deptford, warming up outside, preparing to follow Pete Kyle into the arena. When David had finished his run, scoring 216 with his usual modesty claimed he should have done better. For the record he rode Old Vaquero not just beautifully, but exceptionally well and I know that he gave us the best possible start. I'd also like to express my eternal gratitude to John Faulkener, the owner of Old Vaquero, for supplying such a wonderful horse.

The next British rider was Tammy. On Jack Wonders Who, a horse she has had less than a season to get acquainted with. No-one was sure what we would get. What we got was the ride of her young life. Scoring 217, our combined scores at the end of two rounds put us fourth position. Three ahead of target at this early stage, thing were looking good.

For Team GBR, Francesca ran next, a less than generous 217 maintained our strong position, and Doug was warming up. At this point, let me tell you, we were up to third place. Then disaster struck, not for any of the British rider but in the shape of Sylvia Rzepka. Scoring a 227, she catapulted Germany from sixth into bronze medal position.

That left the pressure on Doug to conjure up a score and a half. And an incredible ride, resulting in a career best of 223 put us back into medal contention. The result was now in the hands of the Belgians and the German team. Bernard Fonck's run didn't change the team order, it was down to Daniel Klein for Germany. Despite two early lead changes, a stumble and numerous other problems, Daniel somehow carded a 219, enough to take the bronze and put team Great Britain (yet again) in fourth place.

The result though, was almost irrelevant. I have spent the past week (and more) working with four of the finest reiners Great Britain has. At all times they have been wonderful to work with and it has, more than ever before, been a privilege to be Chef d'Equipe. We were beating the Germans for most of the competition, we beat the Belgians, we beat the Swiss, we beat Canada, we beat France and we beat the Netherlands. Hell Doug beat all the Americans!

I shouldn't feel disappointed, but I do.

David, Doug, Francesca and Tammy deserved a medal tonight. They should all be running in the final on Sunday. David sadly missed the cut by 1/2 a point but he was a major part of the Great British team who are in the words of the German Chef d'Equipe 'The best British Team ever'.

And I won't argue with that.

The individual is on Sunday – let’s look forward to that.

Adam.