Kept lid on - best test

Friday, August 10, 2012
2:59 PM

Imperial Cavalier made Mary King ‘so proud’ after putting in the performance of his life at the Olympics.

but it didn’t happen without a lot of work. In the build up to the event, King had to outthink the horse, who is highly strung and can get ‘spooky’ .

“He is a busy sort of horse, always looking for the next thing and I had to keep a lid on him in the dressage. We kept him busy in the week before the trip to Greenwich. Then the Sunday before we took him up to Aston Le Walls in Northamptonshire with one of Emily’s horses so that he was at a competition and I rode him about there, then turned him out in the field when we got home, but he was up and about early the next morning ready to go to Greenwich. When we got to the Olympic Park he was yawning but it still could have gone wrong if the crowd had wound it up during my dressage. I rode into the arena putting my finger to my mouth to ‘shush’ them and thank goodness they responded. It went very quiet. He produced his best ever test at that level. I messed up in the last canter change which was a shame but overall it was a wonderful test. Really his best ever championship test.”