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The British Show Jumping Team claimed the Bronze Medal and more importantly, qualification for the 2008 Olympics at the European Show Jumping Championships in Mannheim, Germany on Saturday 18th August 2007. It was a thrilling result as Ellen Whitaker and the rest of the team beat the Swiss into 4th place at the last minute.

The gold medal went to the Netherlands and the silver went to Germany.

The results were particularly significant because the British Team failed to qualify for the 2004 Olympics which resulted in overall funding for Show Jumping being cut. The team hope that their results will help to raise the profile of show jumping in UK sport and thus increase the funding available for the sport.

This year’s winning British squad were Michael Whitaker riding Suncal Portofino, John Whitaker riding Peppermill, Ellen Whitaker on AK Locarno and David McPherson on Pilgrim II. Both Ellen Whitaker and David McPherson rode superbly on their team debuts.

At only 21, Ellen was one of the youngest riders at the Championships but she was more than equal to the task, jumping with great style and rhythm. Her performance on Locarno was outstanding.

The course was unusual and complicated with very different fences, designed to test both horse and riders’ bravery, ability and care. The twisting track, designed by course designer Christa Jung, contained four alternatives and although the distances between the jumps were more than adequate, they were on curving lines which made the course very demanding. The jumps, containing colourful guitars, musical notes and bicycle wheels were also visually challenging for the horses. Thankfully, the British horses proved themselves to be more than up for the task.

While the main Olympic Games will be held in Beijing in China, the Equestrian events – Show Jumping, Dressage and Cross Country will be held in Hong Kong. The reasoning behind this is mainly to do with quarantining the horses before and after the event.

Hong Kong expect around 300 horses to arrive from Britain and other countries so they are ready to compete in the Olympics. Seating is planned for up to 20,000 spectators.

With the form our British Show Jumping Team has shown individually and together, perhaps we can look forward to show jumping being the rowing equivalent of the 2008 Olympics!

Following a superb win by Nick Skelton and Arko III in Estoril, John Whitaker from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire continued the British success and enjoyed his birthday celebrations with a superb win on the Global Champions Tour in Brazil.

 Riding Cecilia Humphrey’s skewbald stallion Cortaflex Utah Van Erperkom, John rode a double clear to clinch the Nestle 1m55 Masters, and €75,000 first prize, by the narrowest of margins from America’s Lauren Hough and Casadora. In third place was the shows organiser, Alvaro De Miranda (Doda) riding Ad Picolien Zeldenrust.

This is the first time Brazil has hosted a CSI5* event, held in Sao Paulo, with over 1 million dollars in prize money to be won. Speaking from the show, John said, ‘I could not dream of getting a better birthday present, on such a wonderful tour as this. Everything was perfect and Doda deserves congratulations for such a great show.’

John’s brother, Michael Whitaker was the highest placed British rider in the Global Champions Grand Prix with sixth place, riding his own bay stallion, Insul Tech Mozart des Hayettes.