Sir Mark Todd is giving himself "24 hours to sulk" after a disastrous final showjumping round knocked his team out of medal contention.
The Kiwis finished fourth in the eventing competition, with Todd calling it one of the biggest lows of his long career.
"We're all feeling pretty down at the moment. It's certainly not the result we'd wanted or hoped for, but it is what it is so we've got to take it," he told Paul Henry on Wednesday morning.
Todd says his horse Leonidas took a while to warm up to his surroundings.
"He started to get a little bit worked up just before I went into the arena this morning, and then when he got in he froze."
Leonidas dropped four rails - even three would have been enough to secure New Zealand bronze. One rail would have won them gold.
Ironically, when Todd and Leonidas came out for their individual showjumping round, they had a perfect run.
"It was just a case of too little, too late," says Todd.
"My horse Leonidas, in the first round he went in there and got very worked up. He got in the arena and he was very tense and just didn't jump at all. Come the second round he relaxed - he'd been in there, he knew the surroundings and he jumped like he normally does. It was a little bit of a bittersweet result."
Especially considering he's never won the team eventing gold - only the individual.
"The team gold medal is something that has eluded us all these years, and to have it reasonably close within our grasp today then have it slip away was pretty tough to take," he says.
"If only my horse had done what he can do. With each rail that dropped, I knew we were sort of dropping further out of it. It was spiralling out of my control and there was nothing I could do."
Already one of New Zealand's oldest Olympians - his first Games was in Los Angeles in 1984 - Todd's not making any decisions just yet on whether it's time to hang up the stirrups - that might come tomorrow.
"We're allowed 24 hours to sulk, and then we'll get over it," he says.
Newshub.