The see-saw of eventing: at Boekelo New Zealand qualify for Rio but victory for Britain's Nicola Wilson
Nicola Wilson's victory circuitWhat goes up must come down - that rule of the eventing world was confirmed at the Boekelo CIC3* event this weekend in Holland. However, it's the even performance that wins the day as Britain's Nicola Wilson proved taking top honours.
She was fifth after the dressage, fourth after the cross country, and missed a clear in the show jumping by one time fault to win the overall title.
New Zealand's place at the Rio Games depended on their performance - and their top two riders in this competition fared unevenly.
Mildenhall-based Jonelle Price on Cloud Dancer II was in first place after the dressage, but though she went clear in the cross country, she added 14.8 time penalties to drop to seventh place. Three fences down and fourteen faults in the show jumping took her to 22nd place.
Marlborough-based Jesse Campbell and Kaapachino went clear in the cross country, adding just 0.4 time penalties to finish the day up from twelfth place to lie second. But after 21 faults in the show jumping, he was back to 26th place.
But the New Zealand team of Jonelle Price, Jesse Campbell, Tim Price (34th) and Dan Jocelyn (45) did enough to clinch their place for Rio 2016 - and took third place behind Ireland and the USA in the Nations Cup.
Adding to New Zealanders' glee, Blyth Tait (two-time Boekelo winner and winner of an Olympic gold) who was competing as an individual on Xanthus III, was one of only eight combinations to come through the show jumping without a fault - and finished second just 2.1 points behind Nicola Wilson.
The only other team seeking a Rio place in the same Group as New Zealand was Japan. Their hopes ended when one of their team was eliminated in the cross country.
Relief all round for New Zealand's eventers who are based in the Marlborough area. As another of them, veteran New Zealand Olympic Sir Mark Todd tweeted: "Yeah!!! NZ have qualified for the Olympics. Well done Dan, Jesse, Tim and Jonelle. Awesome job."