The top American rider so far at the Pau, France, 5-Star event is Grace Taylor, who rose from twentieth after dressage to ninth on Game Changer following her tour of the the usual twisting cross-country course designed by Pierre Michelet.
She has 33.5 penalties, as does fellow American Boyd Martin on Cooley Nutcracker, but she was closer to the optimum time, with just 2.4 time penalties compared with Boyd’s 3.6, after he slowed to avoid running over some spectators. So he remains in tenth place, which is where he was after dressage. His mount was Liz Halliday’s 2024 Olympic ride, but he took over part of her string after she suffered a traumatic brain injury following a cross-country fall in August 2024.
It’s all very close going into Sunday’s show jumping at the last 5-Star of 2025. Great Britain’s Sarah Bullimore leads on 5-Star debutante Corimiro after finishing eleventh in dressage, but her 30 penalties don’t give her much of an edge, less than a rail, all the way down to Boyd’s placing.
The only other Americans in the top 25 are Cosby Green on Highly Suspicious (35.3). fifteenth, and Emily Hamel, twenty-fifth with Corvett (42.2). Cosby also is 0.2 penalties behind Emily with Jos Ufo de Quidam in twenty-sixth place.
Eight of the 53 starters were eliminated on cross-country, and two retired.
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