ALCESTER rider Nick Skelton scooped individual bronze in the FEI Showjumping European Championships in Madred, And it was a double for Skelton, who helped Team GBR to team bronze on Friday.

Having jumped superbly all week on Beverley Widdowson’s eye catching grey gelding Carlo, Skelton had just one unlucky fence down in each round to post a final score of 9.04.

With three riders left to jump, the pressure was on to see who could hold their nerve and take a medal.

Rolf-Göran Bengtsson for Sweden added a single time fault to his first round clear to close on 6.77 whilst Carsten-Otto Nagel for Germany chalked up four faults for a score of 8.69 to put them both ahead of Nick.

With a fence in-hand only Gerco Schröder for the Netherlands could deny Britain an individual medal.

In an agonising repeat of the events that lost the Dutch the team competition on Friday, Schröder clocked up his first faults of the week onboard Eurocommerce New Orleans.

Two fences down dropped the unlucky Dutchman out of the medals to finish fourth on 9.54.

Skelton has represented Great Britain at six previous Europeans and took individual bronze at the Championships in 1987.