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United Kingdom -- The Independent carried a story on
July 27, 2000 by Genevieve Murphy about the competition for the British show jumping team:
BOTH DI LAMPARD and Geoff Billington will be intent on proving a point to the Olympic
show jumping selectors when they compete in the Traxdata Royal International Horse Show,
which begins here today. This is the last show before the British teams, for all three
equestrian disciplines, are announced on 3 August.
Lampard, out of action for two months with a thigh injury, made a successful comeback
during The Horse Show at Great Leighs in Essex last weekend. Three of her four rounds with
Abbervail Dream were faultless, but Hickstead will be a more crucial test.
Billington has had falls at combination fences with Virtual Village It's Otto at both
Modena and Cannes. He nevertheless knows that it will be hard for the selectors to omit
such a class horse from the Olympic team if he regains his best form in tomorrow's Nations
Cup and Sunday's King George V Gold Cup.
Waiting in the wings are two lesser-known riders, Andrew Davies and Carl Edwards, who
were with the Whitaker brothers on this month's winning Nations Cup team in Aachen.
Davies, a 25-year-old Welshman, will be hoping to strengthen his Olympic claims when he
rides Captain Wellington for the home team tomorrow - together with Lampard, Billington
and John Whitaker. Edwards will have the same purpose during Saturday's Spanish Nations
Cup in Gijon, where he rides Bit More Candy.
The Hickstead line-up of seven nations include the Irish, who now hold a strong lead in
the Samsung Nations Cup series, and a powerful team from France. Ireland is represented by
Peter Charles, the former European champion, and three younger riders who are making such
an impact on the sport: Captain Gerry Flynn, Cian O'Connor and Kevin Babington.
Flynn and O'Connor are the two leading riders in the Samsung series. Babington made an
impressive debut at Aachen, where he made only one error with Carling King during the two
rounds of the Nations Cup.
The most valuable prize of the show is a pounds 24,000 Lotus car which will be awarded
to the winner of the Horse and Hound Eventing Grand Prix. This is far more tempting than
the pounds 5,000 which went to last year's winner, so it should persuade more of the
leading show jumping riders to take on the eventers - especially that the dreaded dressage
phase has been scrapped.
Injured Horse Removes Jocelyn from New Zealand Team
New Zealand -- The Dominion carried a story on July 29,
2000 by Kent Gray about Daniel Jocelyn’s withdrawal from the New Zealand Olympic
team:
DANIEL JOCELYN is "absolutely gutted" after being forced to withdraw his
injured horse Silence from New Zealand's Sydney Olympic Games eventing team.
But the England-based Wainuiomata horseman said last night that the setback had made
him more determined to ride for New Zealand and he is already talking about taking Silence
to the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece.
Silence injured his wither in a fall on a road near Jocelyn's Berkshire stables earlier
this month. An abscess had since formed above the nine-year-old gelding's original right
shoulder cut and Jocelyn conceded yesterday there was no chance Silence could go into
quarantine next week fit as required by the New Zealand selectors.
"I'm absolutely gutted," Jocelyn said. "We put a saddle on him (on
Thursday) and you could see he was trying his heart out for me.
"But in my heart I knew he wasn't right and it wouldn't have been fair on the rest
of the (NZ) team if I hadn't pulled out."
Jocelyn said he would remain in England despite his Olympic dream being shattered.
"I still want to ride for New Zealand, that's the whole drive. We've got a lovely
setup in England and I've got a couple of young horses (Pee Wee, 7, and Macattack, 6) who
hopefully will be breathing down Silence's neck in the future," he said.
"I'll get Silence ready for Badminton next year and the World Games in 2002 and
there's always the 2004 Olympics.
"This has been real hard but hopefully we'll have some success to talk about in
the future."
A decision on whether a replacement will be named for Jocelyn has yet to be made. New
Plymouth's Heelan Tompkins is the most likely candidate should a replacement combination
be named.
The only other serious contender, 1996 Atlanta Olympics individual silver medalist
Sally Clark and her mount Squirrel Hill, appears to be out of favour with the selectors.
