Kim Severson won Rolex last year by the largest margin that has ever been recorded in the sport. That is not going to happen this year. 2006 may well be the most competitive Rolex that we have ever seen. Two of the favorites beforehand—Winsome Adante with Kim Severson and The Foreman, Mrs. Annie Jones’ horse ridden by Phillip Dutton—have withdrawn. That opens the door for several of the other world-class riders that are here this week. I’ll share my updated pick to win it all in a minute. But I will say right now that I predict that there will be at least five horse-and-rider combinations who will step into the show jumping arena on Sunday afternoon with a chance to win the watch.

I have interviewed most of the experienced riders here this week, and during the interviews I was struck by several things. First was a surprising difference of opinion among the top riders about Mike Etherington-Smith’s cross-country course. They all agree that Mike has done it again, in that it is a brilliant design, beautifully executed. But they disagree about the level of difficulty of the course. Some feel it is bigger and harder; some feel it is a little easier than last year. Another thing I noticed is all of these top riders’ quiet confidence. They won’t make any predictions to you. But they are all here to have a go and they are all super, super good riders, and that is going to make for a very exciting competition. These days cross-country courses tend to have questions that the horses and riders are used to seeing. All of these horses have jumped corners, narrows, big drops into water, and so on. So the test will be, finally, who can do these familiar but difficult questions at the highest rate of speed and still have enough horse left to jump clean on Sunday.

As a final comment, I noticed that the riders these days are not as nervous and tense in the run-up to the event. I think this is partially because of the change in the format. Walking the cross-country courses these days tends to be more like walking a show jumping course. The striding is more predictable; the questions are questions that horses and riders have seen before and it comes down to a question of execution rather than possibility. The classic rider in years gone by was facing a test that they were not completely sure that they were up to because the classic is and was the complete test of horse and rider. I have been critical of cross-country designers in the past who have relied on an endless series of narrow jumps to get their cross-country results so I’m happy to say that this is one of Mike E-S’s more straightforward courses. This year only 45 percent of his obstacles have some element of accuracy involved as opposed, for example, to last year, for example, when more than 60 percent of the jumps required perfect precision in the approach. I would think that at least half of the field will jump clean and from six to 10 riders will make the time. This will place the emphasis back on the dressage score and the final show jumping results, and this will set up a cliff-hanging, nail-biting finish. When it comes down to the last show jumping jump, I predict that Leslie Law will just hold on to the lead with his gold-medal horse, Shear L’Eau, ahead of Andrew Hoy, William Fox-Pitt and Darren Chiacchia in any order that you like.