William Fox-Pitt & Chilli Morning Get Ready for Badminton Dressage

William Fox-PItt and Chilli Morning head to dressage. Photo by Samantha Clark. William Fox-PItt and Chilli Morning head to dressage. Photo by Samantha Clark.

William Fox-Pitt and Chilli Morning are just getting ready to do their dressage at Badminton and William was kind enough to chat as he walked up to the warm-up arenas. Chilli Morning was also very polite and relaxed, I had to remind myself I was walking beside a stallion through a busy three day event and not get too casual! For someone with more three day wins than anyone, and such a vast wealth of experience  William admitted that he still gets nervous which I was surprised to hear and found strangely endearing; when a fan shouted Good Luck to him as we walked past he replied “Thanks, I’ll need it!” and gave him a jaunty thumbs up.

Badminton this year, and Rolex last week have been an adjustment for William as he’s had to get used to just riding the one horse, “I’ve been very lucky to have always had two so it’s a bit different. There’s a lot of waiting, particularly riding Bay My Hero and Chilli Morning, they’re both very relaxed, user-friendly horses so I’ve been having a bit of a holiday. Once you’re on and going though, the adrenalin starts and you’re away. When you’ve got two you’ve definitely got the advantage of having lots to do and being busy so you don’t have so much time to think and mull things over, so I get it totally, give me two to ride any day!”

Chilli Morning looks a picture of health – gleaming coat and bulging muscles but still very fit, a real power pack in a beautiful package, “I think he’s on good form, he’s had a couple of good runs, he’s coming here quite fresh. He came out the WEG really well which was a relief obviously because that was quite a taxing event but he feels on good form and very relaxed so I’m hoping he stays that way. You never know, sometimes he can pretend a little bit and hide his nerves, I haven’t worked him a lot today so I hope I’m not regretting that later.”

There are three young men working for William who rode Chilli while he was in Kentucky, “I’ve got a very good team at home, they all get on with him very well, he’s easy now. I did all the work before I left and they just did some gentle canters and then because we had a week when I got back I could pick up his cantering again so I think he enjoyed my absence.”

William Fox-Pitt at Badminton Photo by Samantha Clark

William Fox-Pitt at Badminton. Photo by Samantha Clark.

William has made no secret of his appreciation of Derek Di Grazia’s courses, and compared last week’s Rolex to Badminton’s tomorrow, “I praised Derek’s course a lot, I thought it was very well thought out, very imaginative, very challenging, particularly in those circumstances and I think here circumstances are different after last year, one’s come perhaps a little bit on the backwards foot, lots of not so great pictures last year and I think Giuseppe and Hugh Thomas wanted to paint a good picture this year. There’s plenty to jump, I’d say maybe it doesn’t have the same imagination we saw in Kentucky, there was a lot of variety there.

“I think here the course is just going the reverse way so there’s a tendency to feel a little familiar with the track which is always dangerous, we’ve jumped the lake that way before but it’s difficult that way. There are a few tough fences out there, I think the Vicarage Pond is a serious fence but the long route is very doable, I’m quite surprised he left that option there and I think we’ll see a lot of combinations going the long way there because that is one of the most serious fences on the course.

“Then we have this rather strange combination near the end which is slightly different so we’ll see how that rides. I’ve got a bit of time to watch people through there but I think we’ll see it ridden in all ways. There’s plenty of variety and I hope the course should ride well for the experienced combinations and if we don’t get too much rain I think the ground will hold up well. I look forward to riding it but I have a bit of a long wait so I’ll be biting my nails!”

Off to watch William’s dressage, biting my own nails. Wishing the Fox-Pitt eventing team the very best of luck this weekend — Go Chilli!

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