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Sam Griffiths – WEG 2010

Posted on Thursday, October 7th, 2010 at 4:11 am.

Well….what can we say…! Total disaster! Poor Sam and Happy ended
up on the deck in a crumpled heap. They are both OK though – just
bruised and shaken but what a time for something like that to happen.
Sam is totally and utterly guttted. Oh well, they are both in one
piece and that’s what matters more than anything – we’ll just have to
go and win Badminton now!

It was all going so well up until then – he had a good dressage – he
was a little disappointed not to have cracked the thirties but a lot
of people think he really didn’t get the marks he deserved and was
very harshly judged. However, he was still lying 10th overall after
the dressage and the Aussie team was in 4th position.

Cross country day then loomed – we all knew the course was a serious 4
star track but it was a course that would suit Happy as you needed a
really bold horse who could gallop. The Aussie team didn’t have the
best of starts as our trail blazer Paul Tapner had to pull up
Inonothing half way round as he went lame – we later found out that he
had cracked his stifle on a previous jump. Poor horse, he will be
fine, just needs rest. So now we needed all the next three team
members to get clear rounds in the bag – Stuart Tinney did just that -
he rode a masterful round to add just 1 time penalty to his score and
then Sonja Johnson had a great round too but had just a few time
penalties to add. Then it was all down to Sam and Happy to do their
stuff. After a long day of waiting around it was great to finally get
going – he warmed up really well and set off really positively. But
things starting to go wrong when Happy was really sticky through the
first water, he was then even more sticky through the coffin jump and
that was the scene of their early run out. But more bad luck was to
come when they headed up to the stone wall corner. They seemed to be
on their line but on take off Happy just drifted right to the widest
part of the corner and down they came. So sad to see them both on the
floor – they have hardly ever had a xc fault together….what a time
for it to happen. Anyway, thankfully they were both on their feet
quickly and headed back to the stables.

It is hugely deflating but that’s horses, these things happen to all
the best riders in the world and it was just s***t luck that it had to
happen here. Needless to say, we all had one or two drinks last night!

Meanwhile, Sonja Johnson’s horse has been taken to hospital with a bad
puncture wound so we only have one team member – Stuart to go and
support in the jumping today. Then all the preparations for the long
flight home begin.

Oh well, as I said earlier, we’ll re-group, dust ourselves down, Happy
will have a good winter break now and then we will aim to win
Badminton next year – I have every faith that they can do just that.
- Sam Griffiths, October 5, 2010

Tags: Sam Griffiths, WEG, World Equestrian Games