Edwina Alexander, the first Australian to make the individual final at a Showjumping world championship, had just a single rail down to finish fourth at the World Equestrian Games in Germany.

The thrilling final, during which the four medal contenders ride their own and then each other’s horses over four rounds, came down to the wire when Alexander, America’s Beezie Madden, Germany’s Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum and Belgium’s Jos Lansink each jumped three consecutive clear rounds.

In the final rotation, Madden and Lansink jumped clear again, bringing the tally to 14 clear rounds in a row.

Alexander was next out on Michaels-Beerbaum’s Shutterfly, which had become increasingly upset in the highly charged atmosphere of the main stadium, and unfortunately had the first part of the treble at fence 4 down for four faults.

When Michaels-Beerbaum then jumped clear on Madden’s Authentic, she, Lansink and Madden, all on zero faults, progressed to a jump-off on their own horses for the medals.

Lansink was crowned world champion after jumping clear in 45.01 seconds on his wonderful Cavalor Cumano, which was named leading horse. Madden had one rail down in 43.74 seconds for silver and Michaels-Beerbaum had a rail in 45.4 seconds for the bronze.

“I’m very happy to be in the last four but a bit disappointed. I would have loved to have won a medal but someone had to be fourth and unfortunately that’s me,” said Holland-based Alexander, whose world ranking had rocketed from below 500th last May to 39th before WEG.

“But all the riders were so fantastic over the whole week and I wasn’t expecting to get to this position so I’m very happy with what’s happened.”

The 32-year-old may have been unlucky in being the last rider on Shutterfly, which Michaels-Beerbaum described as extremely sensitive to noise.

Her 15-year-old mare, Isovlas Pialotta, jumped clear for each rider.

“My horse jumped fantastic with all the riders and she has pulled up great so for me that’s very important,” Alexander said.

Australia has never won a Showjumping individual or team medal at either a world championship or Olympic Games.

Vicki Roycroft’s 10th placing at the WEG in Stockholm in 1990 was Australia’s previous best world championship finish.

The four riders in today’s final had just three minutes in front of the packed grandstand to get used to each new horse and could jump only two fences in the warm-up arena. In the competition, they jumped eight fences on each horse, set at a maximum of 1.60m.

Equestrian Federation of Australia