Today's line up of 25 seemed slightly more interesting. Or maybe annoying because I don't know what the judges are smoking. If I were the judge, the young Brit, Charlotte Dujardin would still be on top followed by the Netherlands riders [Cornelisson, Gal and Van Grunsven], the Canadian, Ashley Holzer on Breaking Dawn [ who had a helicopter flying overhead for the entire time] and of course, Fuego with Munoz Diaz aboard.
The German, Sprehe, on Desperados looked like a train wreck to me but up pops a high score of 77 something. The Portuguese horse was fabulous, and gets largest neck flop of the day. Neck flops are the large atrophied neck of ungelded horses. It helps to exaggerate the arch of the neck, looking like a chess piece with a body. The Spanish horses are all very arched and heavy in the front which tends to make their hind ends look down and very underneath.
If I had to choose a horse out of the line up it would be the ten year old Canadian KWPN Breaking Dawn who is as square as a milk crate and doesn't paddle an inch. He has four white almost matching socks. Valegro is also a KWPN but has a butt big enough for three horses. He's got huge legs, although they are kind of short to my taste. Valegro carried the day though.
There weren't any disqualifications today. All horses went smooth. Steffan Peters on Ravel made it onto the board at 6th for the U.S.. Tina Konyot aboard Calecto V [U.S.] is at 27th and Jan Ebeling on Rafalca is in 30th. The US team overall is 5th. Great Britian leads, followed by Germany in 2nd, Netherlands 3rd, Denmark 4th, Spain at 6th.