The Cinderella story of dressage did not have a happy ending, as the USA’s Marcus Orlob and Jane were eliminated in their Olympic debut partway through their Grand Prix test after a judge spotted a nick on the mare’s right hind leg. Although it was small, it showed up on the front of her white fetlock. Had the leg been brown or black, the scratch likely wouldn’t have been obvious from the judge’s booth.
The 10-year-old mare had whirled after entering the arena, trying to follow the previous horse who was leaving. For eventing dressage, horses entered and exited through separate gates, but that was not the case for Grand Prix. It is believed Jane cut herself as she spun quickly and half-reared.
Marcus has a cool head and did a great job of calming her down and getting her into the ring, where her test was going well, with marks as high as 7.6 for half-pass. But it was in the zig-zag that the horn sounded for him to stop, and judge Suzanne Baarup, president of the ground jury, came out to tell him why he was being excused.
The U.S. Equestrian Federation reported that after Jane returned to stabling she was relaxing in her stall and the cut was no longer bleeding.
Recalling what had happened, Marcus said, “I was excited to go down center line; clearly Jane, too.
“I believe she maybe nicked herself in the entry, because I never had this issue. She felt in the ring amazing, I was super happy with her once we went down center line. She settled nicely and unfortunately, due to blood, we are eliminated. It’s like a very minor cut, almost like a mosquito bite,” he noted.
“We showered her, nothing to see anymore, she’s happy, she’s healthy. It was bad luck. Unfortunately, that’s our sport.”
Although the crowd made her nervous in the beginning, “Once I got going, she got more and more relaxed,” commented Marcus, who said he was thinking, “Okay, I’ve got this now. I was really sad to hear the bell.”
That marks the end for the U.S. team in Paris, since there are no drop scores in the Olympics and teams have only three members. Although the U.S. was not a candidate for a medal, it was expect to finish in the top six or seven in the field of 15 countries.
Adrienne Lyle and Steffen Peters, the other team members, are continuing to ride, trying to qualify for the freestyle, which will accept 18 entries. Adrienne scored 72.593 percent Tuesday percent with Helix. That is on the cusp of what is believed will be the qualifying score for the Freestyle. Six-time Olympian Steffen rides Suppenkasper on Wednesday.
Marcus, who only began riding Alice Tarjan’s Jane in March, just made the cut for the U.S. contingent that went to Europe, where competition there would help determine who would be on the U.S. team.
A native of Germany who is a naturalized American citizen based in Annandale, N.J. Marcus had been Alice’s coach. But she turned over the mare she had trained to him because she wasn’t strong enough to show Jane at her best.
The thought of being in the Olympics with such a short run-up was amazing, especially since Marcus had never been on a U.S. team. But the combination had amazing performances in the observation trials in Germany and won a team place on the basis of those scores and the potential they showed.
Adrienne only began riding Helix this year, but she is a two-time Olympian and the horse had been competed previously in European Grands Prix by a Swedish rider.
Having Marcus eliminated before her ride was bad timing, and Adrienne felt for her teammate at the same time she knew she had to focus on her own ride. But of course, she was sad.
“My heart just broke for him,” Adrienne said.
“I thought he was riding so beautifully and that’s such an incredible horse and combination coming up. To be having such a great ride and hear the bell ring, none of us knew why at first. Sometimes those things happen. The good thing is the horse is fine. Hopefully, he left a nice impression on everybody to see what they’re capable of.”
In terms of her performance, Adrienne said, “I am thrilled with my horse out there. He was really excited at first and the fact that he settled down and trusted me means everything.”
Taking the ride on a horse trained by someone else, when she usually does her own training, “was a challenge and not something I’d done before. It was learning to speak each other’s language.”
Her score was “about dead-on with our average when qualifying. I’m excited for the future.”
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