Peter Charles had the perfect warm-up for today's World Cup qualifier at Olympia, riding Traxdata Nustria into second place in the Champagne Taittinger Christmas Cracker jump-off class yesterday. But the Hampshire-based rider was never trying to beat the target set by Frenchman Hubert Bourdy, saving his eight-year-old's energies for this afternoon's feature.
Charles and Nustria finished second in this class 12 months ago behind Germany's Ludger Beerbaum, but the horse has missed virtually the whole of this year following a career-threatening injury in June.
A horrendous overreach required surgery and intensive physiotherapy and the horse did not get back into competition until last month, but Charles believes he is now back to his best.
The Belgian-bred horse - which Charles is ultimately aiming at the Sydney Olympics - made his seasonal debut in Berlin, but wasn't campaigned at the top level until last weekend in Geneva, where he missed the cut for the World Cup qualifier. Trevor Coyle went on to win and Charles said yesterday that he had never seen the stallion Cruising jumping so well. Coyle has already qualified for the World Cup final in Gothenburg next April and currently leads the western European league on 40 points after his second consecutive Millstreet win at the end of October and his Geneva triumph last weekend.
He is drawn 21st of the 36-runner field today, two slots ahead of compatriot Peter Charles, whose points tally of 14 leaves him some way off a qualifying slot. But Charles had other business to attend to first last night, when he put his Dublin record-breaker Traxdata T'Aime into the UPS Puissance. Hopes of victory were dashed, however, when the French gelding took the top layer off the big wall at 7 ft in the fourth round.
Just three were left in at that stage and Alex H, the horse that Germany's Ludger Beerbaum had ridden to share the 1997 honours, joined T'Aime on four faults for Norway's Geir Gullikson. But the gigantic Renometto, joint-winner for Beerbaum's compatriot Rene Tebbel last year, made no mistake to claim outright victory this time and leave Charles equal second with Gullikson.
