2002 World Equestrian Games

Beatriz Ferrer Salat Warms Hearts of Home Audience

Going last in the class was Spain's Beatriz Ferrer-Salat on Beauvalais. Though she entered to wild cheers, the whole arena was completely silent during her test. There were slight glitches in the piaffe, and the passage was not spectacular, but the test had no major mistakes and flowed from beginning to end. The cheering resounded throughout Chapin, breaking into the familiar Spanish flamenco clapping at times, while others actually pounded their seats. When the score was announced, 77.00%, the host country was in their glory. Ferrer-Salat is the first Spanish rider to win a Grand Prix Special in a World Equestrian Games.

"My test was nice," she said. "My horse went well. I risked everything." She added that she had not expected to win, calling it a "surprise" and that she had entered the arena without knowing the other riders' scores.

Ferrer-Salat said that though she owns two young Spanish horses, a five-year-old and a seven-yeasr-old, she has always ridden German horses in competition. "The German horses have power from behind that the Spanish horses don't have," she said. Ferrer-Salat lives in Germany during the winter and in Spain during the summer.

She said that after today's score she expects to finish in the top three overall and will use the same music from her freestyle of last season that has a Spanish flavor.

Beatrice Keller Burchler of Switzerland, the judge at C, said, "The quality in the tests was so exciting. Some riders did make big mistakes that took away important points but I admire the big risk they took."