Charles says merit alone will get him on British team

PETER CHARLES yesterday rebutted a comment that there is no room for him on the British team, saying his selection, if it came, will be on merit alone.

Following Charles’s change of nationality last week, show jumper Robert Smith made the comment about Charles’s prospects with his new country.

Yesterday, however, Charles countered: “In order for my application to go through, it needed the full approval of the team manager, Derek Ricketts, the full approval of the performance director, Will Connell, the full backing of the British Show Jumping Association and the British Equestrian Federation. Robert was expressing a personal view and not the view of the governing bodies,” said the 47-year-old Hampshire-based rider.