Beezie Madden has led this World Equestrian Games show jumping competition from start to finish, and at the conclusion of today, Sept. 2, she’s still on top.  But she’s got some serious competition for the individual gold.  Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum of Germany, Jos Lansink of Belgium, and Edwina Alexander of Australia will join her tomorrow in the battle.

The two rounds today were held just to determine who those four finalists would be, and their faults today were added to their totals from the speed round and the two rounds of the Nations Cup.  And tomorrow, in the unique World Championship format, they’ll start on a clean slate score-wise, and jump a round each on their own and each of the other three horses to decide the individual medals. 

In more than 30 years, there have only been two women who qualified for the final four.  Canada’s Gail Greenough won the World Championship in 1986, and Helena Lundback finished fourth in the 2002 WEG.  And now, there are three women in one final.  “If we could all gang up on Jos, that’d be great, but unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way!” Madden joked.

Madden and Authentic came into today with a perfect score of 0, since they won the speed round and then booked two foot-perfect trips in the Nations Cup.  When the five riders behind her in the standings had rails in the first round today, she had a little bit of a cushion to not be perfect yet again.  And she needed it.  The first round included a line that called for either five galloping or six tight strides from an oxer to the open water.  Madden barely fit the six strides in to the water, and Authentic put a foot into the drink.  She then also had to muscle him around the turn to the next fence, a wall, but he squeaked over it and then jumped perfectly. 

So, coming into the second round, she had 4 faults to her name.  But her nearest competitor, Lansink, had 5.01 faults next to his name, after a brilliant clear first round from Cavalor Cumano.  Madden and Authentic made no more mistakes, not putting a foot wrong in Round 2 and coming home clean to assure Madden a spot in the famed final four tomorrow.

Alexander, riding the indomitable Isovlas Pialotta, had the fairy tale story of the day.  She came into day 2 in 20th place, with 10.24 faults to her name.  But she and Pialotta—a compact bay mare who American fans will remember as the former grand prix mount of Lynne Little—were one of only two clear rounds in Round 1 today.  And she followed it up with another brilliant clear in Round 2 to move all the way up to fourth in the standings and into a chance for individual gold. 

“It’s very exciting.  I had my bags packed, all ready to go home, but now I guess I’ll have to unpack!” Alexander said.

Alexander, 32, is a native of Australia, but lives in Valkenswaard, the Netherlands, where she’s the girlfriend of trainer Jan Tops.  She moved to Belgium in 1998 to train and show, and represented Australia in the 2002 WEG in Jerez, Spain, on Quell Damme van Heffink.  Just after that, she moved to Stal Tops in the Netherlands, and in 2005 Tops and Cees van Opstal bought Isovlas Pialotta for her to ride.   “She’s the best horse I’ve ever had to ride, and probably the best horse I’ll ever have.  Probably the last two years in my career, I progressed a lot,” Alexander said. 

The other names in the top four need no introduction, but they had to fight their way into the final just like Alexander.  Michaels-Beerbaum and Shutterfly started the day in sixth place, and had 5 faults in Round 1, when she tried to fit six strides in on the way to the water and had a foot there, just like Madden.  A time fault gave them 5 faults for Round 1, but they followed that up with a clean round. 

Lansink and Cavalor Cumano began the day just behind Michaels-Beerbaum, in seventh, but two clean rounds on the huge and powerful Cumano put them into the top four.  “He is a very strong horse, and he hasn’t done many competitions for the past few months.  And I rode him twice a day to prepare him for this, so he’s very fit,” Lansink said.

Lansink and Cumano booked double-clear rounds in the Nations Cup, but had started the week down the standings.  Lansink had had to ride his speed round in a pelting downpour, and had an uncharacteristic rail.  “I’m very happy with the way Cumano jumped all week,” he said.

Clean rounds weren’t common today, and many riders who’d been at the top of the standings all week saw their shot at gold slip away.  Gerco Schröder of the Netherlands and Eurocommerce Berlin had been stalking Madden all week, lying in second with just 0.43 faults.  Schröder had anchored the Dutch team gold-medal effort with double clears on Thursday, but he couldn’t repeat the performance today.  Two rails fell in Round 1, putting him in fourth—but still with a shot at qualifying for the final.  But Round 2 brought another rail, at a plank vertical, and dropped him out of the running.

McLain Ward started today with a shot at the final four, lying fifth on Sapphire.  But the back rail of a liverpool oxer and the top rail of a vertical in Round 1 put him into ninth, and a clear Round 2 couldn’t make up the difference. 

German fans love no one more than their hero, Ludger Beerbaum.  And while he had started his week with a slow round in the speed leg as the first to go the first day, he put in two clean rounds in the Nations Cup for Germany’s team bronze.  He was carrying 2.70 faults from the speed leg (calculated by converting their placings there into faults), and in third individually.  But L’Espoir caught the back rail of the middle element of the triple combination in Round 1.  But since Schröder and Dutch rider Jeroen Dubbeldam (who was in fourth place with BMC Up And Down) both had 8 faults in Round 1, Beerbaum stayed in third place going into Round 2.  It was not to be, however, since L’Espoir punched out the front rail of an oxer at Fence 3, and Beerbaum was out of the final. 

The competition tomorrow will be fascinating, as the horses they’ll all have to ride are all very different types.  Authentic is a small horse, who doesn’t have a massive, powerful jump, but uses his scope to jump just high enough.  Cavalor Cumano is a typical European stallion—very large and powerful, but beautifully broke.  He explodes off the ground and clears the jumps by a foot.  Shutterfly is a sensitive, but enormously scopey, horse, known for extravagant efforts over his fences.  And Pialotta is the wizened veteran of them all, having been ridden by many different riders and having all the ability and experience.

“Probably Shutterfly, Pialotta and Authentic will be similar to ride, but Jos’s horse is a bit different,” Madden said wryly.  “There are a lot of unknowns tomorrow—we go in on our own horses, knowing how they were prepared and how they lasted through the week—physically and mentally.  But on new horses, that’s all unknown.”