Nick Skelton could offer a glimpse of London 2012 when he returns to the Nations Cup arena in Rome today.
Skelton features in a powerful Great Britain squad alongside John and Michael Whitaker, Ben Maher and Peter Charles for the second competition of this year’s Meydan FEI Nations Cup series.
The fifty-two-year-old will be aboard the talented Carlo 273 – a horse for which Skelton has considerable hopes.
Nick Skelton
The combination is fresh from scooping a 65,000 euros prize at the Global Champions Tour Grand Prix in La Mandria, Italy last weekend, when Skelton steered Carlo to second place, just two tenths of a second behind German winner Marco Kutscher after jumping three clear rounds.
“Because of his age, I will not be aiming him at the World Championships later this year,” said Skelton, adding “He will do the GCT shows and hopefully be really ready for the big stuff in London 2012.”
Following an impressive joint-third place at the Nations Cup opener in France earlier this month, Britain’s showjumpers will look for another strong performance under new world class performance manager Rob Hoekstra.
Michael Whitaker has been selected with GIG Amai, while his elder brother John gains a Nations Cup recall with Peppermill, Maher boards the consistent Robin Hood W and Charles is on Murka’s Pom d’Ami, fresh from two clear rounds in La Baule earlier this month.
The British leg of the series takes place at Hickstead on July 30th 2010.
