SINGAPORE – Three years after gelding Tribbiani’s unexpected loss at the Tokyo Olympics, national dressage horse Caroline Chew has secured an individual spot in Paris 2024 Dressage in Singapore pending formal approval by the International Equestrian Sport Federation After that, you’ll get another chance.
On December 29, the 31-year-old London-based lawyer placed 10th with stallion Zatchmo in the Mechelen leg of the GP FS – Grand Prix Freestyle to Music competition, posting a personal best score of 75.975. This is equivalent to 239 Olympic ranking points.
The best four scores from 2023 will be considered for the Olympic qualification rankings. The top two competitors will be selected from five groups: North-West Europe, South-West Europe, Central, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and South. East Asia and Oceania – each national Olympic committee gets his one individual spot.
Chu has participated in a total of six qualifying rounds in Europe, and apart from his performance in Mechelen, other strong performances were in London (75.665 for 236 Olympic ranking points), Madrid (74.310 for 223 points) and Wrocław (73.530 for 215 points). Included in the top 4.
Her total of 903 points puts her second in the Southeast Oceania Group behind New Zealand’s Melissa Galloway, who scored 1,023 points for her gelding Windermere Jobey W. Bush.
Chew, who splits his time between London’s Freshfields and Gloucester stables, told The Straits Times: I’m very happy with how it worked out and I’m relieved that it’s coming to an end. ”
Dressage is made up of a number of exams in which riders and horses are awarded points by performing routines that include specified movements, and given that Tribbiani only started competing together in 2023, , Chu’s performance with 14-year-old Zatchmo is even more impressive. It’s been going on for years.
In fact, she started the year with both horses from the same Blue Horse stable in Denmark, and from September she focused solely on Zatchmo. Notably, Chu is also tied for third place in the Olympic qualification rankings with 883 points after the first four months of this year.
She said: “I have known Tribbiani for nine years, so I always intended to start the year strong with him. We took the big step of going to America to do the winter circuit. It was a huge undertaking for our team, and with the support of our colleagues at work, we got our campaign off to a great start.
“When I returned to Europe, I switched my focus to Zatchmo and started trying to develop that partnership, which paid off towards the end of the year.
“Tribbiani will be turning 20 soon, so we have a really great partnership and are very comfortable with each other, but there are always worries about injuries and other considerations. He made the decision to acquire Zatchmo in 2015 to ensure he had access to two irons.
“Both horses are generally very gentle. Gashmo is a stallion, but he is not aggressive and is easy to handle. He loves all kinds of food and is always hungry. He usually wants carrots. is.
“He’s a really talented horse and his performance with previous jockeys also factored into our decision to purchase him. We still learn new things about each other every day. It’s about finding ways to communicate and applying what we learned from Tribbiani to exciting new partnerships.”