Linda Zang, FEI "O" Judge, gave us her impressions of the two US riders competing at CHIO Aachen. 

It was very interesting to see Lisa Wilcox compete at Aachen as it was the first time I saw the combination competing. With a score of 66.7% its obvious she’d be ranking as one of the top riders for the US after the two competitions that our top five riders participated in Europe. Its very unfortunate that Lisa would not follow the rules that were established over a year ago. Many people do not realize that USET must establish rules and have them approved by the IOC (International Olympic Committee) well over a year before any international competition and these rules must be followed strictly and not changed to benefit an individual situation. If you break the rules, USET or AHSA, must be responsible for any action taken by the IOC to protect all competitors for an Olympic field.

As the end of the selection process came near, USET had contacted Lisa and urged her to finish the process following the rules which gave her three CDIs in Europe to participate in to get the last required score.

I truly hope that Lisa continues to ride such fantastic horses and improve her riding and performance so when we need a team for WEG for Spain she will be available to represent the US.

We also saw Carrie Schopf compete and looking at this competition her horse was performing better than she performed in the US Qualifiers in Florida. Her horse was more engaged and showed more strength and softness at the same time. If she continues to improve she will also be a good representative for the US in the future.

The German team will have new riders making Germany very strong. The up and coming rider we saw here was Nadine Capellman with Fabenfroh – this horse has such outstanding gaits and can well perform 9s and 10s without much improvement. We were not able to see the Dutch as they keep their No 1 team at home, but we did see a very strong Danish team which will easily have two riders who can produce 72% in international competition and two more over 68%. Another team looking very strong is the British. I believe that the US will have to be at their very best to contend for a medal. Now that our riders have gone back to the US, they will have time to train and bring the horses back to top competitive form after their hard travel. They will gather at Dr. Salick’s farm in Hidden Valley, Ca for quarantine.