10 Best Championship Moments

Medals, tears, joy and disaster — Pippa Roome looks back at a decade of Olympics, World and European Championships

2010 BRITAIN TAKES WORLD EVENTING TEAM GOLD

ALTHOUGH Team GBR ruled the podium at European Championships from 1995 to 2009, by 2010 it was 16 years since Britain had taken world team gold, when the “golden girls” triumphed at The Hague.

But the quartet of William Fox-Pitt, Mary King (Imperial Cavalier), Nicola Wilson (Opposition Buzz) and Tina Cook (Miners Frolic) changed that story in 2010, battling through a gritty, close competition at Kentucky, USA, to come out on top. William also collected his first world individual medal, silver on Cool Mountain.

“We thought we had a strong team, but the pressure was on,” said William at the time. “We have a fantastic back-up at home and it felt exceptionally important to pull this one-off .”

The 2010 World Equestrian Games (WEG) also marked Michael Jung’s first individual gold on La Biosthetique-Sam FBW, nine marks ahead of the field.

“It was a case of Michael first, the rest nowhere. He’s so far ahead we’ve got our work cut out in the next two years,” said William, looking ahead to London 2012.

As it turned out, Michael would dominate the decade, taking six individual championship gold medals and winning an individual medal every year except 2018.

2010 TOTILAS RULES THE DRESSAGE IN KENTUCKY

THE Kentucky WEG ushered in a new era of incredible dressage performances and sky-high scores.

The stallion Totilas was the sensation of the Games, with Edward Gal becoming the first rider to score the golden hat-trick when he won the team grand prix test individually and both the special and freestyle.

“I feel relief. I knew we could do this, but its another thing making it happen,” said Edward.

Totilas led the Netherlands to their first team gold, despite the elimination of Adelinde Cornelissen and Jerich Parzival for blood in the mouth.