Peebles rider Scott Brash withdraws from team jump

Having narrowly failed to make the individual showjumping final earlier this week, and hopefully keep up a great run of success in Japan for the Team GB equestrian squad, the Borders sportsman and his horse, Jefferson, had to withdraw from the team qualifier because of a minor injury.

The 12-year-old gelding suffered a small strain in one of his front legs while jumping the individual Olympic event and had been sidelined as a preventative measure to avert a more serious injury.

Brash, 35, and Jefferson had come extremely close to making the jump-off to contest the individual medals, stopping the clock half a second over the time permitted in the first round of the individual final to collect a single time fault.

Harry Charles and Romeo 88 were brought in to replace Brash and Jefferson on the UK Olympic showjumping team. They joined Holly Smith and Denver, and individual gold medallist Ben Maher with Explosion W int the team final later today.

Brash, who won team gold at London in 2012, said he was deeply disappointed but would give all his support to the British team.

The advice about Jefferson from the expert vets was to allow him to rest and recover as quickly as possible, he added.

The team incurred no penalties for the trade and all combinations started on a clean sheet in today’s team qualifying round.

The UK line-up got through in seventh place out of 10 and is due to contest the final, starting at 11am UK time on tomorrow (Saturday).