Oliver Townend and Cooley Rosalent. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
Tom McEwen made a valiant effort at clinging onto his dressage lead with JL Dublin, but after holding it for 24 hours, he was elbowed out of the top spot by late contenders Oliver Townend and Cooley Rosalent, who delivered a smart, consistent test to put a 21.1 on the board.
This week marks ‘Rosie’s’ sixth five-star start, and she’s already a winner at the level two, having taken the title at Kentucky last spring – but despite all this mileage, she’s still just eleven years old and, Oliver explains, greener than most give her credit for.
“She’s still relatively babyish. I know she had success in Kentucky, but she’s still green with the crowds, and a bit shy,” he says. “One of her last memories [of an atmosphere] is galloping around with me and the crowd all clapping at Kentucky, so this is a big atmosphere and a big day for her. She went in there and really brightened up with the crowds: she spooked when someone let a chair go, and then again when the ring steward took his hat off. I thought, ‘Oh Christ, here we go. It’s going to be a long six and a half minutes!’”
“But once she got in there,” he continues, “she started to breathe and relax. She came to hand quickly — which is what good horses do. You’re always relieved when they do it in the moment.”
Still, though, he was relieved to come to the end of the test, through which he aimed to nurture the young mare and build her confidence.
“Honestly, finishing and getting out of there with that mark on the scoreboard was the best part,” he says. “It could have gone either way. I took a risk coming out of the first corner — I just let go — and she did go the right direction. It would’ve been very easy for her to stick her head up and goggle around, and that probably would’ve ended the test. But I liked how she came to hand more than anything.”
Oliver Townend and Cooley Rosalent. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
A year on from her five-star win, and two years on from her debut at the level, Rosie is, he says, “a different league. I was dealing with a stringy baby before! If we can keep her like this for the rest of her career, great. If she improves from here — then she’ll be a very, very good one.”
Tomorrow’s cross-country challenge sees Oliver start his day on the evergreen Ballaghmor Class, who sits ninth overnight on a 29.3 – and after many long hours of waiting, he’ll return to the startbox with a different plan of action for Rosie.
“They’re completely opposite types. She’s very easy to add [strides] with — very nippy,” he says. “She can add strides where there are normally none. Sometimes I’ve got to be brave and make things happen, and other times I rely on her to come back to me quickly. But she’s very good, and there’s a lot of gallop in her pedigree.”
That gallop comes through her damline – her mother was a National Hunt horse, and won the Scottish Borders National at Kelso.
“She’s just a natural athlete,” says Oliver. “Her pedigree’s second to none, and her father was a 1.50m horse. Somehow, the magic’s happened in the breeding, and it’s worked out about as well as it possibly could.”
Gemma Stevens and Jalapeno. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
Day one leaders Tom McEwen and JL Dublin now sit second going into cross-country, just 1.3 penalties – or three seconds and a whisper – behind the leaders. This afternoon also gave us a new face on the podium in Gemma Stevens, whose second ride of the week, the stalwart Jalapeno, partnered her to an excellent 24.7 and third place provisionally.
“I’m absolutely thrilled,” says a beaming – and slightly teary-eyed – Gemma. “It hasn’t been an easy preparation with her. She’s definitely been quite on edge, which is slightly new territory for me — normally, she’s very relaxed, almost lazy. But the last few days, she’s been seriously hot to trot. I had to ride her a little tentatively, but honestly, she was still amazing, and she pulled off a serious, serious test.”
The key to eking the best out out of the former Karin Donckers ride, with whom Gemma finished sixth with here in 2023, has been making sure her schedule is tailored to what she enjoys most.
“We’re always just trying to keep her fit, sound, and happy — she’s 17 now, and she’s a proper woman,” laughs Gemma. “She knows exactly what she wants out of life, and most of the time, it’s not really to work that hard! So we have to persuade her constantly and keep her happy. She’s quite a cantankerous old girl, so we do lots of different things to keep her interested.”
That includes “lots of turnout during the day, water treadmill sessions, hacking, trotting up hills — things like that. Not too much time in the school, because it really irritates her. But she’s so well-trained that I can just pick her up when I need to. She honestly only goes in the school once a week, because otherwise, I annoy her! She’s a funny old stick — but wow, can she do it when she puts her mind to it!”
Gemma’s excellent test today means that she goes into cross-country with two horses in the top ten: yesterday’s ride, Chilli Knight, sits in tenth on 29.5.
“I honestly can’t believe it — I’m chuffed to bits,” she says. “I never thought ‘Alfie’ would be this high up, even with the cross-country still to go. He’s right there, waiting and ready to count.”
Both horses are by the stallion Chilli Morning, as are many of the horses in Gemma stables – but despite some physical similarities they, like Oliver’s two matching horses, will require different plans and rides tomorrow.
“They’re very similar types, but completely different ways of going. Jalapeno will probably tell me after three minutes that she’s tired — which she’s not — so I’ll be working hard from minute three! But that’s fine. Luckily, I’ve been in the gym! Alfie will want to gallop right to the end. He’ll jump the last fence and still want to gallop around the whole arena. I’m really looking forward to it. I’m also terrified! But if you’re not terrified of Badminton, well…!”
Fiona Kashel and Creevagh Silver de Haar. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo hold fourth place overnight on 25.3, followed by Emily King and Valmy Biats in fifth on 27.3 and Tom Woodward and Low Moor Lucky, sixth after the first phase in their five-star debut on 27.9.
We’ve got an all-British top ten going into cross-country, thanks in part to the efforts of Surrey-based Fiona Kashel, who rode the test of a lifetime with Creevagh Silver de Haar to produce a five-star personal best of 28.4. They’ll head into the next phase in provisional eighth place, closely followed by Yasmin Ingham and Rehy DJ on 29.1 and Oliver and Ballaghmor Class on 29.3.
“I’m overwhelmed! I’m so proud of him,” says Fiona of the seventeen-year-old gelding. “He’s not the biggest mover, he’s not the biggest jumper, but he just tries his heart out. We’ve got a really special relationship — he owes me nothing, and I love him.”
The pair has a long partnership, but although Fiona bought him as quite a young horse, she didn’t have him earmarked as a top-level horse.
“I couldn’t keep any show jumps up on him as a seven-year-old, and I couldn’t stay on him either — he kept leaving legs,” she says. “I actually tried to sell him, but he wouldn’t pass a vet. I sold him a lot of times, and he failed every single vetting — despite being the soundest horse I’ve ever had! So I kept going with him, and he’s just kept answering every question. Honestly, the last two years, he’s felt better than ever. He’s really like a fine wine.”
Fiona was one of the many riders waitlisted for this year’s competition, and she found out just a handful of days ago that she’d been accepted.
“This time last week, I wasn’t even in — they only rang me Saturday afternoon to say I was off the waitlist,” she says. “So it’s been a bit of an emotional roller coaster to get here. But he’s been on great form this year; he’s jumped some dressage over the winter, and he’s had some really good spring runs, so I’m really excited.”
Despite being waitlisted, Fiona kept working towards the Badminton goal – so much so that she enlisted her dressage trainer, Damian Hallam, to coach her through the test every two weeks this spring.
That was a tactic that could have proved disastrous, but might have actually ultimately given them an edge – but not in the way that Fiona had planned for.
“I don’t know if I should admit this, but… I actually learned the wrong test,” she says. “I’m blaming my mother, who does all my scheduling! In January, I texted her, ‘What’s the Badminton test?’ She replied, ‘2024 B,’ so I’ve been having lessons on 2024 B every two weeks.
“Then, on Friday night — when I still wasn’t in — I saw a video of Kirsty Chabert doing a run-through of her test on Facebook, and I thought, ‘That’s not the test I’ve been doing.’ I checked the schedule — it was 2025 C! But I figured, ‘it doesn’t matter, because I’m not in.’”
Then, she continues, came that fateful phone call on Saturday.
“So Damian drove two hours from the New Forest on Monday night to help me run through the correct test. I’d been at Bovington on Sunday, and the horse had galloped Saturday, so that was the only window. Damian didn’t even know the test himself yet, so I’m just pleased I didn’t go wrong. I think my mum’s pleased I didn’t go wrong, too!”
And the feeling of not just getting the job done, but getting the job done like that?
“Amazing,” she grins. “To do it here at Badminton, in front of everyone — especially since we’re quite local — it’s so special. It’s nice to finally be able to say I can ride! It’s taken quite a while, but I can do it. He just keeps getting better and better.”
So that’s one box ticked – but what of tomorrow?
“I hate going cross country,” she says with a laugh – and a grimace. “If I never went cross country again, I think I’d be very happy. I quite like it once I’ve finished — but that’s about it! The jumps are just big for him, and he’s not the biggest jumper. It’s a big, bold, scopey course. He’s seventeen now, and I’ve just said to myself, ‘I’ll take one fence at a time.’ If he’s going well, I’ll keep going. If it’s too much for him, I’ll pull up. I’m just going to enjoy the experience.”
Tim Price and Vitali. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
One horse and rider combination that we’d all expected to see at the business end of the leaderboard failed to disrupt the top bods in a surprise twist at the very end of the day’s sport. That was New Zealand’s Tim Price and Vitali, who set the Burghley dressage record score in 2023 with an 18.7, and who are consistent performers in this phase. But today, the fifteen-year-old gelding fell victim to tension in the ring: he tried to canter, rather than trot, out of his first halt, and while the extended trot started as one of the best, boldest, and most expressive we’ve seen this week, it lost rhythm and impact in the middle when the horse very nearly broke into canter. From then on out, it was a back-and-forth affair: a handful of 7.5s and 8s, and then another tricky moment, tact, and smatterings of lower marks. They left the ring on a 30.6 – a disappointing mark for Tim, but one that still keeps him close enough to the hunt in equal sixteenth place at this stage.
“He’s been so good all week, and he was going beautifully in the collecting ring,” rues Tim. “He did relax a little bit as he went through, but I needed another ten minutes after the seven minutes of actual test time – he’s just getting so fit. He’s got it all there, if he would just breathe and let me sit on him normally.”
Tim has come so close to winning five-stars on a number of occasions with Vitali, whose biggest struggle, historically, has been in the final phase. It would be just like the sport, he acknowledges, if Vitali now goes on to jump clear on the final day for the first time.
“I was looking forward to really fighting for a different position tomorrow. But you know how this game goes: you’ve got to go and do all three phases and do them well. It may be just one of these weird weekends where I was nowhere near the lead, and end up with a good result. You just don’t know. It’s a mysterious old game, but he’s very well, and that’s the main thing. He’s healthy and fit and I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”
Tomorrow’s cross-country phase begins at 11.30 a.m. BST/6.30 a.m. EST, and will see 80 horses and riders head out of the startbox – down by one so far, following the withdrawal of Jesse Campbell and Cooley Lafitte, who had a tricky start to their week in the dressage ring to sit 77th at the end of this phase.
Eric Winter’s course is widely considered to be a more flowing, less technical one than we’ve seen over the last few years, and with fast ground, it would be easy to assume it’ll be a less influential phase than usual – but at 11:40, it’s a serious stamina challenge, and there’s no shortage of colossal questions out there. That time, too, may well prove to be tighter than anticipated: we caught up with Ireland’s Sam Watson after his dressage test earlier, who shared that when he wheeled the course, it came in at 11:55. You can take a look at the challenge that’s been set with our course preview here, and stay tuned for more from the riders on how they feel and what they’ll plan to watch, re-walk, and do out there tomorrow.
In the meantime, you can recap all of today’s action over on Cheg’s live blog, check out all our coverage and bonus stories so far here, watch it all back on ClipMyHorse.TV, and keep it locked on EN for more from between the boards here at the 2025 MARS Badminton Horse Trials. Go Eventing!
The top ten at the close of dressage at Badminton.
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