Germany, favourites to win the world show jumping championships, which start this evening at the World Equestrian Games in Spain, have a question mark over a key team member. Dobels Cento, the mount of the Sydney Olympic gold medallist Otto Becker, appeared lame after crashing through a fence in the warm-up session, in torrential rain.
A decision on the stallion's participation was due last night, but Germany, winners of the last three world championships, have a spare rider in Markus Merschformann. Twenty-one teams and 35 nations line up for the show jumping, which starts with the first leg of the individual competition tonight and features the nations cup team contest tomorrow.
Great Britain, a dismal ninth at last year's European championships, must finish in the first five to qualify for the 2004 Olympics. So far, with the failure of the 10th-placed dressage team, only Britain's bronze medal three-day event team is eligible for Athens.
For the first time for more than 20 years, the show jumpers are minus the talented Whitaker brothers, with Michael declining to travel to Spain after he was named as merely a reserve with Handel.
The three remaining members of the 2001 quartet are Di Lampard riding Abbervail Dream, one of the bronze medal team at the 1998 World Games in Rome but controversially left out of the Sydney Olympics, 23-year-old Scott Smith with Cambri d'Elle, who made his team debut last year, and Mark Armstrong riding Elise. Tim Stockdale, who has not competed for three weeks due to breaking a collarbone in a fall, makes his long-awaited debut.
Sheikh Ahmed bin Mohd Al Maktoum, the 16-year-old son of Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum, Dubai's defence minister and leading racehorse owner, has become the youngest winner of the world endurance riding championships, taking 9hr 19min for the near 100-mile ride.