Relander and her horse, Expert, successfully cleared the first three jumps, but Expert then refused to jump a water obstacle, which meant Relander had to abandon the effort.

Afterwards she said: "There's always that fear that a horse will refuse an obstacle. You can never account for this in equestrian sports, but the competitor's plan is always to finish the course."

"The horse has jumped this type of obstacle before, but in this case it was scarier as the water obstacle was lengthier and with brighter colors, and there was so much more going on around them. It's hard to say what they saw," Relander went on.

"In equestrian, sometimes the rider has a bad day, and sometimes the horse does. This time, it was horse the didn't feel good enough to make the jump," she summed up.

Rylander added that the nature of the course was only made available around a month before competing, while including a water jump was difficult in that this is usually a feature of a team event – and since Estonia currently lacks an olympic equestrian team, there was no scope for rehearsing for it ahead of time.

"The horse did well to get this far, and that means a lot," she added.

Rylander added that Expert had negotiated water jumps in the past, when he was younger, for instance when she competed on him in the European Championships, "but it's not an obstacle that's used often because it requires a lot of speed, which is hard to practice at home," she added.

n an interview with ERR last week, Relander mentioned that Expert had previously faced issues with water obstacles.

The 525-meter olympic showjumping course featured 14 obstacles ranging of 150 to 164 centimeters in height.

The top 30 competitors advanced to the final.

To advance from the heats the course needed to be completed in at least 79 seconds.

The show jumping final is scheduled for today, Tuesday, at 11:00 a.m. Estonian time.

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