For those who are interested, I think the draw works like this:
The first drawn team will send out Rider 1, then second team Rider 1, third team, Rider 1, etc. As soon as the team’s have all sent out Rider 1, then they begin the team order again with Rider 2, then Rider 3, etc.
They slot in the Individual Riders around the team order as they have drawn; in that way, both team riders and individual riders go in order of the “draw”.
Where the strategy comes in is who the coach decides is rider 1 – the pathfinder; this would be a horse and rider very likely to get from fence 1 to the last fence, so while it might not be our best dressage placed person, it’s going to be a horse that has NO stop or issues.
Karen maybe on Mr. Medicott.
She will report back what she felt and saw – then the two riders in the middle of the order would be the ones with the greenest horses, perhaps Otis and Ringwood Magister, whose riders would benefit most from the information of the previous rounds. You hope that the weather holds for your top dressage horse so that the footing is not an excuse in front of all the skinny fences or if they go late, if the footing isn’t hardened, causing stinging feet and then have the jog the next day be in question…there are other factors, too, individual things that only the riders and coach will know.
Then last, the coach will put our anchor man, the one we can count on the most to get around, such as Phillip. The last man has a lot of pressure, because they will know what has gone wrong, and what has to be done to get around – how impossible the task is. That person would be one to handle pressure no matter what.
So that’s my take on the order, and how team riding works at events like this.
but I believe the same concept applies to each round for them as well.