Great Britain’s showjumpers endured a difficult day at the Olympia World Cup in London – Robert Whitaker narrowly missing out on the podium in fourth while world number one Scott Brash failed to make the jump-off.
Brash has been leading the world rankings for 13 months and is aiming to pass the current record of 15 months in the New Year.
However, his cause was not helped at Olympia on Sunday as he and horse Hello Sunshine failed to reach the second round after knocking down a fence, while Brash’s fellow London 2012 Olympic team gold medallist Ben Maher also failed to make it past round one after incurring a time fault.
In total, 13 horses progressed through to the jump off with Whitaker drawn to go first, as had been the case in round one.
He posted an impressive time of 40.49 seconds which set the standard to beat for several riders before Marco Kutscher and Daniel Deusser went faster for a Germany one-two , with Sweden’s Malin Baryard-Johnsson taking third on H&M Tornesch.
Whitaker’s father John – Olympic team silver medallist in 1984 – had a chance to win it late on with Argento but a dropped fence meant he finished tenth.
© Sportsbeat 2014