It was so nearly a bronze medal, but New Zealand individual team member Jonelle Price secured fourth place in the eventing competition at the World Equestrian Games in Normandy.
Jonelle and Tim Price are based at Mildenhall – and Tim with his horse Wesko was a member of New Zealand’s national team at the Games.
Having put in the fastest cross country time over the rain-soaked course, Mrs Price and Classic Moet had one fence down in the final show-jumping phase of the competition. She was just 2.2 points behind Britain’s William Fox-Pitt who took the bronze medal.
Individual gold and silver went to the German riders Sandra Auffarth and Michael Jung. With three fences down, New Zealand’s Andrew Nicholson dropped from fifth to ninth.
The team gold went to Germany. The British team took the silver – a medal tinged with sadness at the death of team member Harry Meade’s horse Wild Lone. The horse had a heart attack after the cross country.
Meade said the death had nothing to do with the state of the course which Nicholson described as “The worst ground I’ve ever ridden on.”
Jonelle Price was a member of the bronze winning New Zealand national team at the London Olympics.
