Natasha Baker has won individual silver with her new ride, Mount St John Diva Dannebrog, in the Grade III class at the World Equestrian Games.
‘Insane!’
Natasha finished just behind defending champion Rixt van der Horst in gold position, while Team USA scored its first ever WEG medal with Rebecca Hart taking bronze.
Natasha and ‘Diva’ have been together for less than a year, and this was only their third international competition.
“To get a silver medal with seven months of riding her is just insane!” said Natasha. “If somebody had told me in January that I would be competing here I would have told them they were lying.”
‘So proud’
The pair were drawn first to go in the class, and their performance grew in confidence to produce a lovely test, with a score of 72.471%.
“She was amazing; she went in there like she owned it and I am so proud of everything that we have achieved in such a short space of time. I am so grateful to her owners [Mount St John Stud] for giving me this opportunity.”
Natasha took on the ride in February 2018, after a year searching for ‘the one’. Her former top horse Cabral was a tough act to follow, as they won 11 gold medals together.
‘Learning curve’
Tragically ‘JP’ died last year, just before he was due to retire at Badminton Horse Trials.
“I knew JP inside out and I knew how he would have been in there, whereas I am still learning about Diva,’ said Natasha. “It’s such a learning curve coming here with a new horse, but I’ve got more years to get to know her.”
Last in the class was fellow British team member Erin Orford with Annabel Whittet’s Dior, who were making their world championship debut. After a small mistake early on, they came back to finish positively, ending on a final score of 68.853%.
Both Natasha and Erin will compete in the team competition on Friday, alongside Lee Pearson on Styletta and Sophie Wells and C Fatal Attraction – who won individual gold in the Grade V.
You can watch all the action from WEG on Horse & Country in our daily review show. We also have coverage of all the Olympic and non-Olympic disciplines.
Horse & Country is on Sky 184, Virgin TV 298, Horse & Country TV, Amazon Video and Roku.
[bigbutton url=”https://horseandcountry.tv/app/details/sport1/Category22366/553″ text=”Click here to watch our WEG coverage”]