Equestrienne Jillian Terceira's Olympic hopes went up in smoke last night as she was eliminated from the individual showjumping event in Hong Kong.

Following a strong performance in the first qualifying round on Friday, it all went horribly wrong in the second qualifier.

Terceira was forced to withdraw mid-way through the round as her 15-year-old stallion, Chaka III, refused for a second time.

Under Olympic rules, a second refusal means automatic elimination.

The 37-year-old Terceira will have gone into the round full of confidence after chalking up just five penalty points on Friday which left her tied for 39th in the 77-strong field.

And with 50 riders advancing to a third qualifying round today, the Holland-based rider was in good position.

But after a promising start last night when Chaka cleared the first three fences, a hoof in the water at the difficult fourth put four penalty points on the board.

A fault at the fifth added another four, and rider and horse then demolished the sixth fence.

That early confidence now shattered, the horse refused the seventh and was eventually pulled up at the 10th after stalling again.

Her first Olympic experience over, Terceira can take some consolation from the fact that several riders found last night's course much more difficult than that which they encountered two days earlier.

Next up after the Bermudian was Azerbaijan's Jamal Rahimov who was also eliminated and had to be helped out of the ring after his horse refused and threw the rider into the dirt, kicking him in the process.

Ukraine's Aleksandr Onishchenko suffered a similar fate as his horse, Codar, didn't take a liking to the course.

Consoled by Chef de Mission Heidi Mello, groom Debbie Kleot, coach Norman Dello Joio and veterinarian Michele Heyvaert as she left the ring, Terceira had qualified for her first Olympics at the Pan-Am Games in Rio de Janeiro last year, but was only selected by Bermuda Equestrian Federation after her rival, Patrick Nisbitt, who also qualified in Brazil, was forced to withdraw