April 26, 2025 
Anything above 50% odds are definitely in your favor in equestrian sports, but what about a 97% win chance?
Your name must be Michael Jung.
After an enormously successful day of sport out on the cross country field at the KY3DE, Jung held onto the top spot, adding 2.4 time penalties to his dressage score on fischerChipmunk FRH for a total of 21.0.
His newest record of the week? The largest margin after cross country in any CCI5*-L with 11.8 penalties in hand going into the final phase.
“[I’m] very thankful and very happy,” Jung said. “I had a great day. He’s an amazing horse. The dressage is super calm, but if you go to the cross country, he’s full of energy. He has very big strides. He’s very honest with me. I really can trust him. I still get better and better with him, together, still learning, but I think we have a great partnership, and that’s very important for the cross country.”
When asked what these record-breaking performances mean to him, he kept an even keel. “I’m more thinking about the competition, and I was really happy how I went through the course. So for me, I just want to have a good round. I really love riding the horses. I do it every day, riding the horses, training the horses, going to many, many competitions. I know it can go wrong all the time. So I try to go out, do the best [I can], take care of your horse if it went wrong, and be prepared for the next day.”
Luckily the day went well for the closest U.S. challenger to Jung’s domination.
Boyd Martin (USA) held onto second place with the Holsteiner gelding, Commando 3. He added 6.8 time penalties to his dressage score but it was enough.
“[Eventing] is an emotional roller coaster. You’ve got to become a good loser in the sport, because you’ll lose a lot more times than you win,” he remarked about the mental toughness to compete at the CCI5*-L level and eventing in general.
“I was lucky to get through the fast way at the head of the lake [on Federman B] so I changed my plan for my other two horses to go the long way since the ground gets chopped up as the day goes on. They’re three very different horses [and] they’re three individuals. I was probably a little bit cautious on [Luke 140]. I thought, Come on, Boyd-y, toughen up a bit. I went pretty quick on [Commando 3]. He’s young and fit and gave me a great round. It was a challenging course and the ground, I thought was a bit tiring. [But] very pleased with the day!”
Of the rest of the field, the rider with the highest win chance after Jung’s whooping 97% is Martin with 1% on Commando 3.
The award to the highest climber through the ranks goes to the third ranked rider in Harry Meade (GBR) on Et Hop Du Matz. After a self-confessed disappointing dressage, Meade rocketed up 14 places from seventeenth to third on his first ride and eighteenth to fourth on his second ride.
On both of his horses, Et Hop Du Matz and the former William Fox-Pitt ride Grafennacht, Meade was the only rider in both the CCI4*-S and the CCI5*-L divisions to make the time.
“I was confident they were fit,” he explained about the success of adding no time penalties to his scores. “I thought I’d just get out there and see how they felt.
“I’ve always felt [Et Hop Du Matz] would be a really good cross country horse, and I hoped he’d be a really good five star horse. He was great, very adjustable. He’s got a long stride, but he can shorten and adjust as well. To be honest, he gave me an absolute peach of a ride!”
Meade and Grafennacht only began their partnership following Fox-Pitt’s retirement from upper level eventing last fall. But now they occupy fourth place on the leaderboard.
“I was actually questioning whether I run her at about 11:30 this morning. Then I thought I’d just start out and see how she felt,” he said of the new ride. “We had a run in Italy to qualify [together]. I wasn’t even thinking about coming here. I thought I’d go out, do that event, and reflect afterwards. She won it by quite a big margin; about 24 penalties. I thought, well, it’s a bit of a no brainer to bring her here, but I hadn’t had a cross country school before I took her to Italy because we were so wet. When we came back from Italy, she had a couple of quiet weeks, and it hadn’t rained at all so it had gone from being soft to rock hard. She came here without a school so I thought I’d just have to just learn as much as I could about her on the way round.”
We can only aspire to be the kind of rider Meade is.
The 2025 edition of the Defender Kentucky Three Day Event concludes tomorrow with the show jumping phase, beginning at 2:00 pm EST.
Will it be Germany, USA, or Great Britain at the top of the podium? We know which one the safe bet is but as the riders said, this is a roller coaster of a sport and it’s still anyone’s game.
