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TOKYO, July 25, 2021, /PRNewswire=KYODO JBN/--

Sensational start to Dressage titles race

It may have been a long time coming, but the opening day of Equestrian Dressage

at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games more than lived up to expectations. Emotions

ran high and so did the scores as superb individual performances saw The

Netherlands take the early lead in the battle for the Team title, while

Germany's Jessica von Bredow-Werndl set a personal-best when posting the

biggest mark of the evening with TSF Dalera.

The Grand Prix continues tomorrow when another 30 horse-and-rider combinations

take their turn. And if Dorothee Schneider (Showtime) and Isabell Werth (Bella

Rose) can come anyway close to the score achieved by compatriot von

Bredow-Werndl then Germany looks well on the way to securing the Olympic

Dressage Team title for a fabulous 14th time.

Groups

With the competition divided into six groups in total, and three of those

groups taking their turn today, it was Great Britain's Charlotte Fry and

Everdale who set the early target score when posting 77.096 to top Group A. But

only two athletes earned marks over 80%, and Denmark's Cathrine Dufour was the

first of these when putting 81.056 on the board with Bohemian to take complete

command of Group B.

"It was important for me to give him a really great feeling in the ring today",

Dufour said. I didn't want to push too much because I wanted him to be

comfortable in there. And even though there's no audience there's a vibe in the

arena and they can feel it!"

Much of her previous success has been achieved with the diminutive Cassidy who

carried her through Junior and Young Rider level to triple-bronze at the Senior

European Championships in Gothenburg (SWE) in 2017 and bronze again in the

Grand Prix Special at the Europeans in Rotterdam (NED) in 2019. Tonight she

admitted she felt a bit guilty about leaving the 18-year-old gelding at home

and bringing the 11-year-old Bohemian to Tokyo instead.

Firm basis

Meanwhile Edward Gal's score of 78.649 left him second in Group B and gave The

Netherlands a firm basis on which to build their team challenge. His black

stallion, Total US is only nine years old, and a son of Totilas who, with Gal

onboard, set the world of Dressage on fire a decade ago.

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Media Toolkit

View the FEI Equestrian Media Toolkit here:

[https://inside.fei.org/system/files/EQUESTRIAN MEDIA TOOL KIT_TOKYO2020.pdf ]

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competition results [https://tokyo2020.live.fei.org/ ] throughout the Games.

Click here: [https://olympics.com/tokyo-2020/en/sports/equestrian/ ] for more

information on Equestrian at the Olympic Games

[https://olympics.com/en/sports/equestrian/ ].

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Media contact:

Shannon Gibbons

FEI Media Relations & Media Operations Manager

Shannon.gibbons@fei.org

+41-78-750-61-46

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SOURCE: FEI