Horse With Different Color Shows the Way

The real veteran is named Ratina, a mare who won a team gold medal and individual silver medal for show jumping in Barcelona when she was ridden by Piet Raymakers of the Netherlands. Now, she’s carrying Ludger Beerbaum of Germany, and in the first round she did it well enough to make him one of only seven riders from the field of 82 to complete the 14-fence course without jumping or time faults.

Ratina was in form despite a three-week layoff from competition to acclimate to local conditions in Georgia.

Two U.S. riders, Anne Kursinski on Eros and Leslie Burr-Howard on Extreme, also had clear runs in qualifying for Thursday’s team championship.

Italy’s Valerio Sozzi on Gaston M, Dutch rider Jan Tops on Top Gun, Belgium’s Ludo Philippaerts on King Darco and Austria’s Helmut Morbitzer on Racal were the others who mastered the course.

The 40 best scores from Monday’s event plus the Nation’s Cup on Thursday will qualify riders for Sunday’s individual event.