Caroline Harris and D.Day. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

“I’ve worked my whole life to even get to 5*, and it’s taken me until this year to finally get a horse to get here,” says 34-year-old Caroline Harris, her eyes brimming with tears as she stands still in the eye of the storm, moments after jumping the clear round that secured her the Les 5 Etoiles de Pau victory with D.Day. 

34 is, of course, practically still a baby by any metric – but in a sport that sees so many professional careers start in one’s teens, and where riders in their early twenties might be just as likely to win major titles as riders in their fifties and sixties, getting towards the middle of your thirties can start to feel like an awful lot of early mornings, rainy days, and trips to the muck heap. In the past few years, I’ve spoken to riders from all kinds of backgrounds, and all sorts of ages, ticking major boxes – riders who’ve made the step up to the top level in their forties after half resigning themselves to the fact that it just might not be on the cards for them; riders who’ve been called upon to represent their countries on Nations Cup teams for the first time in their seventh decade of life. Whatever, and whenever, your ‘first’ is, you’ll always remember it – and for Caroline, her first season at five-star has been the sort of yarn that pony novels have long been based upon. 

Caroline Harris and D.Day. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

You take one part young girl from a non-horsey family, one part sibling rivalry, one part inherent drive and one heaping helping of little-horse-that-could energy, and you get some kind of magic. 

“My family’s not horsey at all. My dad sent my sister off for riding lessons, and we grew up in London, so I just went along. I wasn’t really that into it – and then probably when I was 10, we moved to the country and I got a pony.  I’m quite stubborn, and because my sister wanted to do it, I was adamant I wanted to do it – so it just went from there, really,” laughs Caroline. 

When that bug bit her, though, it really bit her. By her late teens, she made her international eventing debut, and in her twenties, she opted to base herself with Australian five-star winner Sam Griffiths to learn the ropes as a young professional – a relocation that lasted for a decade. 

Caroline Harris and D.Day. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

These days, she’s based at Captain Mark Phillips’ Aston Farm with Zara Tindall and New Zealand’s Clarke Johnstone, and all three riders take an active part in one another’s day-to-day life. That mean’s that every day’s a school day – there’s something to be learned from every horse she sits on, but also plenty to be learned from watching, and chatting, and exchanging ideas and methods. And when she’s not there? She improves her feel at speed by pre-training racehorses part time. 

All of that adds up to shape a rider who can best be described as having kept her head down and plugged on with it all. Caroline’s well known for being an excellent producer of young horses, and several of her former rides have been bought up for bigger-name riders. And when that’s happened? She’s kept on keeping on, learning, producing, and waiting for the right horse to come along – and stay with her – so she could see her own dream through. 

It wouldn’t, admittedly, have occurred to her or breeder Fiona Olivier that now-ten-year-old D.Day might be that horse when he first arrived on her yard.

“Fiona bred him to just be a happy hack hunter for her son’s girlfriend, and they split up, so he ended up coming to me, and I thought ‘he’s a very cute Junior/Young Rider horse’, and he’s just gone on and on and on,” says Caroline, who now counts Lucy Matthews, Marie Anne Richardson, and Heather Royle among the gelding’s owners, along with Fiona. “He keeps just under the radar, just plugging away and just pulling out results, and I owe him everything for that.”

D.Day (Billy Mexico x Dillus, by Dilium XX) stepped up to four-star in mid-2022, finishing just outside the top twenty in a big class at Burgham’s CCI4*-S. Then, he went on to finish 16th in the prestigious CCI4*-S for eight- and nine-year-olds at Blenheim that year, before embarking upon a 2023 season that included a Nations Cup debut at Boekelo CCIO4*-L in October, a podium finish in an extraordinarily tough Chatsworth CCI4*-S in May, and a fourth place finish in his return to the eight- and nine-year-old class at Blenheim. And this season? A twelfth place finish in his, and Caroline’s, five-star debut at Luhmühlen in June, which came after the same placing in the tough, slick, and wet CCI4*-S at Bicton in May, and a win – again in the relentless wet – at Lignières CCI4*-S last month. 

Caroline Harris and D.Day. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

“I’m just so lucky that he is who he is,” says Caroline fondly. “He’s not the most talented in any shape or form, but he gives me everything all the time, and I owe him everything. I just can’t really believe it – I never came here thinking I’d even think about winning. I almost didn’t run yesterday, so I was really not looking forward to the ground, but it goes to show, a good cross country horse in the mud can pull you up sometimes!”

That ‘pulling up’ isn’t insignificant: the pair began their week in 22nd place on a score of 30.3, and climbed to the lead yesterday after delivering the swiftest round of the day for just 10 time penalties. In this era of the sport we’ve become so accustomed to a hefty first-phase influence, and it’s often hard to imagine anyone outside the top ten, or even the top five, making their way to the win – but this week’s result shows that there’s still room for a good, old-fashioned climb. It was with that half in her mind that Caroline made the decision to run yesterday. 

“My friends definitely gave me a bit of a kick up the backside,” she laughs. “He ran so well at Lignières in the mud, and he ran very well at Chatsworth in the mud last year, and they just reminded me of that.  I think because everyone else was running, I was like, ‘come on, stop being a wimp and go!’”

Caroline Harris and D.Day. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

But even so, actually climbing to the top spot was never on the agenda. Instead, the goal was just to consolidate everything they’d learned in their impressive debut a few months ago. 

“He went round Luhmühlen double clear, but we took a couple of long routes because he went a bit green and he was a bit careful and went high. So I just wanted to have a more confident run cross country here, which I think is why I was wondering whether I should run – because it was so wet and I didn’t want him to go high and scared,” she explains. “But he was just a legend. He was so straight, and he’s so quick – he’s 80% blood – and he flew through the mud. He didn’t care at all. I had no expectations [coming into the week], I just wanted another 5* under my belt.”

It doesn’t get much more ‘under the belt’ than winning – and as Caroline rode back into the chute after her round, she disappeared into a sea of fellow competitors, who battled amongst themselves to be first in line to scoop her up in a hug. She may not – until now – have been a name known amongst casual fans of the sport, but one thing is very clear: Caroline Harris is a rider who all the other riders, including the ones you all know very well, have been expecting this result from for a long time. 

“I’ve dreamt about this, but I never thought it would ever happen in my entire life; you’re up against the amazing Tom and Ros, and I’m not even anywhere near them, and to come home having beaten them is quite unbelievable,” she says smiling through teary eyes. 

Ros Canter and Izilot DHI. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Pau’s showjumping track is notoriously tough: it’s big, it’s square, it’s full of distances and turns that feel more like a pure showjumping course, and the influence it exerts on the final leaderboard always reflects that. But on paper, today seemed like a slightly less influential day – though the course still walked, and looked, as big and tough as ever. 21 of the 55 starters jumped clear rounds; just one of those added time penalties while doing so. Was the course simply built in a more forgiving manner this year, or did the shortened cross-country track, and the great condition of the horses today, contribute to fresher, tidier efforts in the ring? It’s anyone’s guess, and likely, the answer sits somewhere in between the two – but what this less influential final day meant was that we finished with many of the same tight margins we started with. 

The tightest of them all? The 0.3 penalties separating Caroline and D.Day from last year’s winners, Ros Canter and Izilot DHI.

“I think we always feel when we walk the course here, that it’s very big. It’s probably one of the biggest courses we ever have to tackle. But I think also that the horses really enjoy jumping off the surface, and I think as much of the ground conditions weren’t easy yesterday, the horses have all come out of it, feeling very well this morning,” she says. “So they were able to tackle such an up to height and technical track all quite well.”

Izilot jumped a grown-up, neat clear to take second place, but before doing so, Ros headed back out on course to revisit what they’d encountered yesterday.

“I actually took some of the kids out for a bit of a bike ride this morning, and we stopped and had a look at the ground where you came back from the race course to the log on the mound [at 21],  and they all sunk and got stuck. So that’s what the ground was like, and it’s amazing the job that everybody did to keep it going. So we’re all very grateful for that. This is a very happy event for me – I absolutely love coming here. My horses always seem to enjoy it, and it’s a great event for my family, too.”

Ros Canter and Izilot DHI. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Izilot’s performances through the week have looked as confident and steady as we’ve seen him – an effort that’s been ongoing for much longer than just this year, but in the 2024 season alone, has seen his rider try plenty of creative ways to work through his inherent spookiness. Earlier this year, it was all about hacking out at home and travelling away from home if she wanted to school him, so he could get used to working sensibly in new environments; as the year went on, she went back to adding in work at home, and jumped on the chance to give him some incidental ‘exposure therapy’ when she could. Most recently, that happened at Burghley, where the gelding led the dressage and began cross-country well, but then had an early run-out. On Sunday, he was spared from competitive duties, but got to spend plenty of time absorbing the hubbub of the main arena anyway: he was William Fox-Pitt’s ride for his retirement ceremony, and then happily carried Harry Meade around the prizegiving. All of it gave him valuable experience, and looked very intentional – but actually, Ros admits, it was just a happy bit of chance that she’s been able to benefit from since. 

“I think they really couldn’t find another horse they could use,” she laughs. “But I was very happy for him to do that. He can be sharp and spooky, but he’s actually quite a quiet-natured horse and quite a sensible horse. Most of my horses I would have said no, because a prizegiving does buzz them up. But I think  he’s got a very level head, so I was very happy for him to go and soak up the atmosphere at Burghley and have to canter past the flower pots and things that sometimes catch us out. So it wasn’t in the plan, but I was very happy for him to be borrowed for that.”

Now, it’s time for both the creative training and the happy competitive outings to hit pause for a little while, and give both horse and rider a bit of downtime.

“He will have a very well deserved holiday. He’s been up and running for a long time this year, so I’m very much looking forward to him getting home and having some time in the field,” Ros says. “Sometimes he makes me a little nervous riding him at home, so I’m quite looking forward to having a break from him too!”

Tom McEwen and Brookfield Quality. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Tom McEwen secured third place with fifteen-year-old Brookfield Quality in the horse’s second five-star start – a happy finish after a tricky Luhmühlen debut, wherein the horse performed excellently but was struck by the worst of the cross-country day storm, and subsequently suffered a bad nosebleed. This week, though, he’s been able to show off what he couldn’t on that occasion, and has proven himself as a much tougher, grittier five-star horse than many would have expected. His clear round this afternoon earned him third place, to the collective delight of Tom, the Brookfield team, and formed rider Piggy March. 

“Norris has been amazing,” says Tom. “He’s an awesome little horse with a huge amount of character. It’s taken a bit of time to get to know one another, but he is amazing. So on, the cards will be hopefully a well deserved break and then hopefully some more 5*s next year.”

Alex Hua Tian and Chicko. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

China’s Alex Hua Tian doesn’t often get to make five-star bids, as championships have to remain at the forefront of his country’s developing eventing system. But in Chicko, the former ride of Polly Stockton, he’s long suspected he may have a horse for the very top of the sport – a suspicion that proved true this week. The pair started their week on a 28.9 for 13th place, and climbed to fifth with one of the fastest rounds of the day yesterday. Today, the debutant horse came out as fresh as a daisy to deliver a clear round and step up one place into the spot previously occupied by Piggy March and Halo, who tipped just one rail en route to a top ten finish. Another spot was also opened up in the top ten by Oliver Townend and Cooley Rosalent, who dropped from eighth to 16th after a shock two rails. 

“He’s so nifty. The faster you go, the more he scurries, and the higher he goes in the air,” says Alex. “He got a little low towards the end, and had a good rattle at the second last, but once he had that rattle, I knew I could trust him down to the last. I’m so happy for his owners, Kate and Pete Willis. He’s a horse that actually was produced for many years by Polly, so I’ve only had the ride on him the last couple of years.  He’s just so cool to ride – she’s done such a tremendous job.”

“I’m just delighted,” he continues. “I have a huge amount of faith in the horse, and I knew he had a good chance of being competitive here, just the type of horse he is, what his advantages and disadvantages, and I felt everything here at Pau was going to suit him, and also give us a bit of an indication of what we might do next year.”

Now, with this behind him, next year could see some very exciting entries indeed. 

“I think Badminton is a very different kind of test – yes, more difficult, but also very different,” muses Alex. “So whether or not he would be quite as competitive in that field or with that kind of test, I don’t know. But, he’s a horse that, even though he’s 14, every three months he just seems to improve again. You just think that you’ve hit that limit in terms of improvement, and he just surprises you every time.”

Boyd Martin and Fedarman B. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Boyd Martin soldiered through the last day of a tough week to take fifth place with the indomitable Fedarman B, who’s been the best possible partner for his battered and bruised rider after a tough stint in the office at Maryland last week. 

“It was a bit of a rough week for me,” admits Boyd, who thinned his obligations by one yesterday when opting to withdraw debutant Miss Lulu Herself from the tough conditions. “This time last week I was getting out of hospital, and it’s tricky mentally,  wondering if you should or shouldn’t come, and then you get the horses here and you get here, and it’s horrific conditions. But I kept telling myself I had a champion horse in Bruno, and to finish fifth in such a large field is something to be very proud of.”

Bruno, he continues, was able to step up and help his rider out en route to taking another top-ten placing at this level. 

“I definitely wasn’t 100%. I think Bruno covered for me a bit this weekend, but he’s still got plenty left in the tank, and I feel like we’ve got a handle on his dressage now,” says Boyd, who started his week in 16th place on a 29.5. “I think there’s a lot to be excited for Bruno’s future, and I’m very, very grateful that the Annie Goodman syndicate got behind me and allowed me to do a second trip to France this year. The sky’s the limit with him.”

Bruno has become one of the most competitive horses in Boyd’s string: he’s previously finished in eighth place here and at Luhmühlen, and was tenth at the Olympics this summer – but Boyd, who rides the gelding in honour of the late Annie Goodwin, admits that he’s not necessarily a horse he’d have talent-spotted as a youngster.

“I’d never buy him as a young horse. He doesn’t have enough blood – but he has just got so much heart. He’s gutsy. He never says no, and even when the chips are down, he grits his teeth and jumps clear or fights his way through the flags at the end of the course when he’s knackered, and he lifts a gear in the dressage, and it’s a real privilege to be able to ride a horse of that calibre,” he says with a grin.

Lea Siegl and DSP Fighting Line. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Austria’s Lea Siegl and DSP Fighting Line also battled through a tough week en route to an excellent finish, but for slightly different reasons. This time last year, they suffered a hugely uncharacteristic crashing fall on cross-country, leaving Lea to recover from a facial injury, and when the season was set to begin again this spring, she was once again sidelined with a badly broken leg. She had to spend eight weeks keeping her leg elevated to help it recover from a complex operation and the addition of a metal plate, and that left her almost no time to secure her qualification for Paris. But she did, clinching a win in the CCI4*-L at Baborowko after just a few rides back, and she and Fighty headed to Versailles – only to be spun at the first horse inspection. And so the goals for the latter half of the season shifted, and the focus moved back to Pau – an event that Lea wanted to rewrite for herself. 

She and Fighty have, bit by bit, done just that this week, starting with a 29.5 on the flat for 16th place, and climbing after a gritty ride through the slop yesterday to seventh place. Their clear today pushed them one spot up the leaderboard, and allows them to close the book on 2024 with a smile on their faces and higher hopes for next year. 

“He was amazing. I think the whole week, he’s felt really good,” says 26-year-old Lea. “I know he’s a good jumper, but after this shit ground yesterday, it was not so easy for the horses. I was still hoping that he was quite fit today, and this morning at the trot up, he was already a bit too motivated! So he was feeling really well today, and he did a nice job. I’m  also happy because last year was shit here and now to come back and have this result feels good.”

The relief of it all, she says, has her dreaming again.

“I was already thinking about it: if it’s good in Pau, if everything goes well, my childhood dream was always to compete at Badminton. He’s turning 18 next year, but he’s still feeling quite fit,  he’s not feeling like he’s 18,” she says. “He’s getting better and better as he’s getting older. So we will see. He gets a winter break now, and if next year he feels as this year and he is fit and motivated, I might give him another season and maybe go to Badminton, because I think he’s the horse you can ride at a 5* like Badminton. I think not every horse is born to be a Badminton or Burghley horse or a 5* horse, in general, but I think he is so, if he feels good, we have a plan.”

Piggy March and Halo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

What a difference two days make: after her dressage test on Friday, Piggy March wasn’t at all sure that she’d run her five-star debutant, the little stallion Halo, on cross-country, and after talking to her about it, I was nearly sure she wouldn’t. But her mid-field draw proved fortuitous: she was able to watch enough horses happily return home that she figured she might as well give it a shot. The pair ended up delivering one of the day’s speedier rounds, thrusting them from tenth to fourth place, and though they had a rail today, Piggy couldn’t be more pleased with Jayne McGivern’s tiny horse’s seventh place finish. 

“He’s amazing – I’m so proud of the little chap,” she beams. “I’m just glad I wasn’t first out yesterday, because I probably wouldn’t have run. It was nice to see [pathfinder] Oliver [Townend] do such a great first round, his horse just looked so happy, and like he went through the mud. It’s unknown ground here when it’s wet, because you’re normally on top of it. I was definitely conscious of where the horse is at and his stage in his career, and what’s the right thing for him. I was probably being a big fanny! But he was as good as I know that he is. He pricked his ears and he actually loved it, and he gave me some feel. He’s a gorgeous little horse – I’m so excited. He wasn’t scared at all. He didn’t give a monkeys’!”

Now that Piggy’s running a smaller string than before – by choice – she’s more protective than ever of the horses she runs. But now, she feels like she might be ready to take Baby out of the corner. 

“He’s a stallion but he’s so brave – he’s super brave. But I protect him. He’s a lovely horse, and he’s a little unicorn, so I sort of think, ‘oh, I just want to make sure he’s okay’ – and today, he felt fantastic,” she says. “I obviously will go around in circles [about that pole], but I don’t think there was anything that I could do if I jumped it another million times! It was by the gateway; I think  maybe he looked into the gate rather than totally at the fence. But such is life! He gave a super feel and jumped a lovely round.”

Like Lea, Piggy has been hoping for a happy ending to a tough year, and a bit of better luck to herald in a positive start to next season – and in this result, she’s got it. 

“It’s been a hard work year. It’s been a big emotional roller coaster of a year, for lots of different reasons, obviously,” says Piggy. “But we know that – it’s riding the wave of life, or sport or horses, and sometimes, you just think everything you touch goes to shit. You keep trying to bounce up and you don’t want to be negative, and you keep trying to be like, ‘Let’s go again. Let’s go again. Let’s go again.’ You keep getting smacked back down. I’m not getting the violin out, but there’s just times it’s like, ‘this is really difficult’ – but we’re also very fortunate. So I shut up and get on with it! We’ve got another night here; we don’t go back to tomorrow night. So we’re going to go and drink French wine and enjoy it.”

After the very long drive home, Piggy’s focus will shift from competition to something equally major: a 1,100km cycle from Scotland to London next month, which she’s undertaking with husband Tom and a variety of fellow riders and friends in order to raise money for the British Eventing Support Trust and Spinal Research in memory of her sister-in-law, Caroline March, who opted to medically end her own life earlier this year after a long stint spent rebuilding her life following a spinal injury sustained in a cross-country accident.

“I get off the last event, and I think, ‘shit, I’ve really got to make sure I get fit this week because then I want to back off the next before going’ – it’s awful,” laughs Piggy, who’s been cycling fairly unfathomable distances most days in training. “But it’s good. It’s such a good cause, and I just really hope every rider or lover of the sport, I really, really hope anyone involved, just puts their fiver in the pot. We’re doing this for our community, and trying to keep it all positive, but we just know through this year that it can very quickly go wrong. If it does, there’s a point for everybody to just help. It’s not negativity, it’s trying to remain positive of our great sport, our great, great community that we do have, but it would just make such a difference. You never know when it’s you [who’ll need help]. I’ve spent my life worrying about having a pesky show jump down like today, thinking, ‘Bloody hell. I’ll kill myself for three days if it happens’. But really, that’s not a bad day in the grand scheme of things, and when you’ve suddenly had real bad days, weeks, months, years, and terrible outcomes, it puts it into perspective. It’s not a bad day. It’s very easy for things to be a bad day, and it really affects people’s life. That might not be you, but it might be your mate or your mate’s mate. Somewhere along the line of our little bubble that we’re in, it does affect people, and we all just need someone that you can pick up the phone any time to just be like, ‘help, this has gone wrong.’”

Will Coleman and Off The Record. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Swedish Olympians Frida Andersen and Box Leo put a pin in another exceptional week this season by jumping a classy clear round to secure eighth place – a three-phase climb from 32nd – and cement their place as ones to watch in the seasons to come, while ninth place went the way of Tim Price and his smart first-timer Jarillo, who also jumped a fresh, tidy clear round. The top ten was rounded out by the hugely consistent Yasmin Ingham and Rehy DJ, who added no faults and now have three five-star placings to their name. Will Coleman and Off The Record climbed another five places to finish in 24th after a one-rail round.

That’s all for us – for now – from Pau, and the final event of the season, on this side of the pond, anyway. We’ll be back with lots more eventing news and views tomorrow, and when I finally make my way back to England and sleep off seven months of accumulated Big Tired, I’ll also be back with lots of opinions and thoughts and retrospectives on this and the rest of the events I’ve been fortunate enough to cover this year. Until then, thank you for always coming along on this wild ride with me. Go Eventing (and, in my case, gratefully, Go To Bed). 

Les 5 Etoiles de Pau: [Website] [Entries] [Timing & Scoring] [Live Stream] [EN’s Coverage]

Yeah, no, we don’t know either. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

There’s no point in mincing our words: yesterday’s cross-country day at Les 5 Etoiles de Pau, the final CCI5* of 2024, was rough. It went on for hours and soggy hours; the whole course, which was ten fences shorter than expected and lost over two minutes of time as a result, felt like one big water jump. To pass from one fence to the next on foot, you’d simply have to accept that the sluice of sadness would make its way, en masse, from the floor and into your socks. A bit like that part in Titanic when the captain locks himself in his little captain-ing room and lets the Atlantic Ocean break through the windows, you know? Very that. Except that by about 4p.m., my heart definitely stopped wanting to go on.

But the mud we saw on site yesterday wasn’t the same as the mud we saw at, say, Badminton last year, or the European Championships in Haras du Pin. That was a deep, sticky, holding mud, that started out thick and gloopy and became more and more gluey as it dried in the sun – and that’s the kind of mud that’s seriously hard work for horses, because they have to expend extra energy pulling their hooves out of the muck with each stride.

Arthur Marx demonstrates how I looked when I took my boots off and saw the state of my socks last night. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Yesterday’s mud, though, had such a high water content that it was basically – sorry – toilet water, and thatkind of mud is significantly less taxing, because horses are able to find some purchase on a lower level of ground and move through the mud, which splashes out around their footsteps rather than sucking them down into the mire. It’s still trickier than riding on the top of good going, and there’s still some amount of drag to keep in mind, just as when riding through a water jump, but largely, it has a significantly less punishing effect on horses who are happy to get a bit dirty.

The results of this were writ large at this morning’s horse inspection, which was jam-packed with remarkably fresh horses standing on their back legs and behaving, generally, incredibly badly. I never envy the grooms and riders who have to try to maintain some semblance of control in those situations, but I do love to see horses with a fistful of joie de vivre on a Sunday morning, because it’s not always the case.

There are a few things that contributed, in tandem, to all this fizziness: the ‘easier’ kind of mud, the shortened course, the smart, sensible, empathetic and sympathetic horsemanship we saw across the board yesterday – I didn’t hear a single watch beep out a minute marker all day – and, happily, the odd Pau tradition of holding the horse inspection very nearly in the afternoon. Today, it began at 11.45 a.m., after a rousing morning of horseball in the main arena (yes, really), and because the clocks went back last night, that meant that the horses had a huge amount of time to rest and recover – in some cases, a solid 24 hours. Maybe they also really liked that Linkin Park was being loudly and inexplicably blared through the speakers, too, and just fancied starting a mosh pit.

Great Britain’s Storm Straker and Fever Pitch. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

As at the first inspection, the ground jury did exercise an abundance of caution in monitoring the competing horses, which is a heartening move as we continue to centre horse welfare. Five, in total, were redirected to the holding box by James Rooney (IRL), Emmanuelle Olier (FRA), and Katarzyna Konarska (POL): these were Katie Magee’s Treworra, 18^th after cross-country; Storm Straker’s Fever Pitch, 17^th, Tom Rowland’s KND Steel Pulse, 56^th, Dominic Furnell’s Bellscross Guy, 55^th, and Joseph Murphy’s Belline Fighting Spirit, 32^nd.

All but one would ultimately be accepted into the competition. That was Ireland’s Dominic Furnell and Bellscross Guy, who had completed yesterday’s cross-country with 20 jumping penalties and 52.8 time penalties.

Caroline Harris and D.Day — our overnight leaders, and also our pick of the best-dressed at the final trot-up. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

That means our final field for this afternoon’s showjumping sits at 55 competitors, as nobody withdrew overnight. Our overnight leaders, Caroline Harris and D. Day, sit on a score of 40.3, while second-placed Ros Canter and Izilot DHI – our 2023 champions – are a breath behind them on 40.6. Tom McEwen and Brookfield Quality sit third on a 43, while fourth-placed Piggy March and Halo are a rail and change off the win on a 45. The margins continue to remain tight throughout the leaderboard, and that’s significant: the showjumping here is the most influential of any five-star, with big, square fences, true showjumper-y distances, tough turns, and an arena surface that can be quite dead underfoot and doesn’t have the same ‘spring’ to it that Luhmühlen’s does.

“Hey, lady, you wanna buy a TV?” Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Showjumping will begin at 3.00 p.m. local time (2.00 p.m. British time/10.00 a.m. EST), and can be streamed, as usual, via Pau TV. We’ll be back with the full story on how the final day has played out once it wraps. For now, if you need us, you can find us crying into a plastic cup of rosé in the scrap of sunshine we’ve provisionally been gifted. Allez! Allez. Allez.

Les 5 Etoiles de Pau: [Website] [Entries] [Timing & Scoring] [Live Stream] [EN’s Coverage]

When we packed up and left the media centre last night at Les Etoiles de Pau, the final CCI5* of the 2024 season, we did so in a tiny window of opportunity: the day’s heavy rain had become a torrential downpour, and in that moment, it had all but ceased for a few minutes. But the damage had been done, and the decision had been made to remove three fences: an angled trakehner at 17, an oxer at 28, and the first element of 29ABCD, a three-part combination comprised of a brush-topped rolltop at the peak of a mound and two skinnies on a bending line at the bottom of it. 

It was no more or less than we expected, really – we knew there was deep ground on site already even before the rain, and we knew, too, that although Pau is generally a very flat course, its selection of man-made mounds would become oil slicks if too much rain fell. Those adjustments, and a couple of changes made to the routes between fences, to allow horses to avoid boggier ground, felt like a reassuring step. 

And then the rain kept coming and didn’t stop coming. This morning, when we reappeared a few hours ahead of the start of the cross-country, we were immediately greeted with a totally new-look cross-country course – one that had a total of ten fences, and eleven jumping efforts, removed from it. Added to last night’s removals were fences 4 through 6, 16, 17, and 19AB, and 31 – a change that meant that Pau’s typically relentless twists and turns, which can make it feel like two CCI4*-S courses smashed together, actually had quite a lot of open galloping stretches. 

Not, of course, that there would be much high-speed action. The previously deep going had turned into a bottomless soup; huge swathes of standing water rendered much of the venue impassable and the scant proportion of the ordinarily huge and enthusiastic crowd that braved the conditions had to slog their way through ankle-deep slop in pursuit of a bit of sport. It wasn’t to be a day for catching the time; it wasn’t even, really, to be a day for bothering with a watch at all. Instead, it was a day for riding every step with a conscientious awareness of the feeling beneath you and making decisions accordingly. 

Nice for them, I guess.

Before the sport started, I’ll admit I wasn’t thrilled. It was all rather Jurassic Park – the organisers had been so preoccupied on whether they could, that they didn’t stop to think if they should. Was it a step too far? Was it going to be a case of human arrogance and hubris, trying to put on an event even in these conditions? “If this was Germany or Britain, it’d have been canceled already,” sniffed one owner in disbelief as we discussed the carnage we felt sure was about to unfold. At best, I feared that this would make us look, as an industry collectively, like we don’t really care about our horses’ limits; at worst, I suspected a catastrophic injury could be on the cards. It was with a heavy enough heart that I headed out on course and into the muck, and not just because my boots had already sprung a leak (although, look, that did play a big part in it). 

Happily, though, it turns out I’m just a bit doom-and-gloom at the end of a season that’s made me think, at least once per month, that I’m existing through the longest day of my life thus far. This was absolutely one of those days. But it wasn’t the catastrophe it could have been: there were just two withdrawals midway through the day (Boyd Martin with his second ride, debutant Miss Lulu Herself, and seventh-placed Samantha Lissington and Lord Seekonig, for what it’s worth) rather than the ten or fifteen or twenty I’d expected before the start of the day’s competition. And while there absolutely were problems out on course, they really weren’t any more prevalent than in any five-star competition – of the 71 starters, 56 completed, making a 79% completion rate (higher than Burghley last month, which was a 66.2% completion rate), and 41% jumped clear for a clear round rate of 58% (Burghley, again, boasted a clear rate of 49% with a similar number of runners). What was very different, though, was how swift they could stand to be. Nobody would come close to the optimum time today; across the field of 56 finishers, the average time penalties were 29.3, or a minute and 13 seconds over the optimum time. 

The ground didn’t allow for quick riding, snappy getaways, or economical inside lines – the only lines to ride were whichever ones looked least sloppy – but the incredibly high moisture content actually ended up being something of a godsend. There was no part of the going that could have been reasonably described as holding, and instead, horses were able to travel through the soup, getting purchase on a lower, firmer level. Nor was it as slippery as it could have been, though those prospective slips were largely mitigated by careful riding. When they did happen, as in the case of New Zealand’s Clarke Johnstone and Menlo Park, fifth after dressage, who lost purchase behind as they took off for a wide table early in the course, and were lucky not to fall, they were breath-stopping – but we weren’t at all plagued with falls on the flat or horrifying skids in the way I’d expected we might be, and the loss of nearly all the mounds from the course certainly looked a wise move indeed when considering this. 

Caroline Harris and D. Day. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Speed might not have been the name of the game, but an early-ish swift round – and ultimately, the fastest of the day with 10 time penalties for coming home 25 seconds over the time – actually changed the shape of the competition entirely. That was executed by Great Britain’s Caroline Harris and her ten-year-old British-bred D. Day (Billy Mexico x Dillus, by Dilum XX), who she rides for a tribe of owners in Lucy Matthews, breeder Fiona Olivier, Marie Anne Richardson, and Heather Royle. That round – which never looked rushed, and was arguably the effort that looked the easiest of the day, even in some of the worst rain – immediately propelled the pair to the top of the leaderboard, from where it was assumed they’d be pushed back down as the day progressed. But nobody – not even the two five-star-winning horses in the field – could come close to catching the pair, and now, they finish the day as the leaders in the clubhouse, having climbed and climbed and climbed from overnight 22nd place on their dressage score of 30.3. 

“If I’m honest, I didn’t really want to run, because I was a bit scared about the ground, but I know the horse loves the mud,” admits Caroline. “He ran very well at Lignières in the mud recently [where he won the CCI4*-S], so some friends of mine gave me a kick up the arse to make me actually go – and he was phenomenal, foot-perfect from the start to the finish.”

Caroline Harris and D. Day. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Nowhere along the way, though, was the 35-year-old focusing on the time – instead, she let her exciting young horse, who also finished twelfth at Luhmühlen on his debut this year, find his own rhythm. 

“If I’m honest, I have no idea [how we were so fast!] I don’t know where the minute markers or anything were – I just let him run and jump,” she says. “He’s quite small and nippy, so he doesn’t struggle with the mud at all, and he finished full of running – he could have gone for two more minutes. So I’m not sure how it happened! He just kept galloping and jumping.”

It’s a red letter day for a horse who’s quietly, and in quite an under-the-radar sort of way, been marking himself out as one of British eventing’s next big stars with his talented rider – but even more exciting is the fact that he goes into tomorrow’s final day with eight consecutive clear FEI showjumping rounds behind him. On a score of 40.3, and with just 0.3 between him and second place, that’s the kind of form he’ll need – especially with Pau’s notoriously big, square, difficult showjumping tracks. 

Ros Canter and Izilot DHI. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

But the partnership just behind them in second place know all too well that the story isn’t over until the final chapter is fully written. Last year’s champions, Ros Canter and Izilot DHI, looked set to win Luhmühlen this year, too – but on the final day, ‘Isaac’ had his first rails in five years, and they had to settle for a still very respectable fourth place finish. When Ros went on to win Burghley last month with her Olympic partner, Lordships Graffalo, she admitted how much that loss had actually hurt – and that, no doubt, will fuel her to coax another characteristic clear out of her quirky comrade tomorrow and try to regain the top spot again. 

For now, though?

“I’m going to enjoy tonight, first and foremost, and try not to think too hard about the show jumping until tomorrow,” laughs the diminutive rider, who added 21.6 time penalties in a confident, polished round to Isaac’s first-phase score of 19. “From last year’s experience, the party is very good here, so we’ll be heading there a bit later. My mum says she’s going to babysit, so that’ll be nice! Tomorrow, we’ll make a plan, once we get through the trot up and see how the horse feels. My horse is a very good jumper, but it’ll be probably down to me to give him a good ride. So I’ll have to make sure I don’t drink too many drinks tonight!”

Her round on Isaac was at the tail end of the day and in the most deteriorated ground – but that didn’t put Isaac off one bit. 

“It was definitely worse in places, and I think the difference this time is that there was no option to find any fresh ground at all,” she says. “So I ended up, with Izilot, taking lines that were very wide or slightly different to what I walked, that I probably added that little bit of time on. But I think, considering the conditions that the organizers have had to face, the ground has held up. It doesn’t look good, but the horses haven’t had a bad experience today.”

“He’s got the most enormous stride, it’s an absolutely incredible feeling,” she continues. “Sometimes slightly trickier to ride because you can’t just keep on kicking all the time, which is what makes you fast. But I couldn’t be prouder of him today. He isn’t a natural galloper for  long distances, and I was pleasantly surprised by how he came through the finish.”

Ros Canter and MHS Seventeen. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Nor did the conditions earlier in the day for her debutant ride, MHS Seventeen, who jumped clear with 20.8 time penalties to move up from 31st to 14th.

“I felt that both my horses kept their ears pricked the whole way around today,” she says. “Despite the challenging conditions, the mud was so wet that, although it slowed them down, I didn’t feel that it sucked them and delayed their jump or anything like that. So I think they came out having had a really positive experience.”

Tom McEwen with Brookfield Quality. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Tom McEwen left the startbox very early in the day with Brookfield Quality, who had made his debut at the level at Luhmühlen this year, but was retired late on course after a freak patch of inclement weather brought on a severe nosebleed. And so for many people, the memory of that blood and that storm and the chaos of it all cast a huge, floating question mark over the fifteen-year-old gelding – one that he happily dispelled out on course today. 

“I felt like a Pony Club kid back out hunting again out there,” laughs Tom. “I was loving it – and so was Norris, thankfully. But it’s really hard work out there. There’s patches that are really deep, and it’s only going to get worse in this continuous rain, so I’m happy to have gone early and laid down what I think is quite a good benchmark.”

Because he went so early, he continues, “it was hard to gauge how it was riding. But I was one of the few people that really did want to run this morning when it was still raining and you could  hear it on the lorry roof. So I was delighted! I actually think it created an incredible spectacle for the whole day. People rode brilliantly, so it’s been a great day for the sport, even though it’s rained more than England. So that’s one good thing! But Norris is awesome. I could let him go in his own rhythm. There’s a few things that I wanted to do, and I should have ridden on my distances rather than riding from what I’d seen before. But like Caroline was saying, we went out with no minute markers, and you ride off a feeling, and try to get round.”

He and Norris added a reasonably scant 17.2 time penalties to their first-phase score of 25.8 to climb one place, from fourth to overnight third. 

Piggy March and Halo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

While Tom was sitting in his lorry in the downpour, happily counting down the minutes ‘til he could get out and go puddle-jumping, his friend and Norris’s former pilot, Piggy March, was no doubt having a very different experience in her own. She’d spent the last twenty-four hours or so wavering back and forth over whether to run Halo, her five-star debutant and the diminutive stallion who now helms her cut-back string of horses. 

“I didn’t know if this was the right thing for him or not, and then I watched the horses go round, and they looked like happy horses,” she says. “It’s muddy, it’s incredibly wet, but they were smiling, and they were still jumping to the end, and I just didn’t want to give him a bad experience. But then I’m not very good at going out very slowly, and just wanting to get round. I’m competitive, and I like to try and do well. So I thought, ‘I’ll just set off and give it a good go’. So I rang the girls an hour before and went, ‘yeah, chuck some tack on. Let’s go!’” 

That decision paid off. Other than one little moment of gritty five-star riding, when the stallion twisted over the corner at 15B and both horse and rider found a combined equilibrium from who knows where, the round was smooth, packed with gumption, and – yes – happy. They picked up 17.6 time penalties along the way and will go into the final day in fourth place, up from first-phase 10th. 

“I’m just so proud of him. He’s 11, which isn’t that young, but he’s not done masses, and he’s certainly done nothing in the mud,” she says. “He doesn’t like the puddles, and he doesn’t like getting his toenails dirty – but he really dug deep for me. He ran incredibly well; he just got a bit tired in literally the last minute. But up until then, he was like, ‘Yeah, I’ve got the mud. This is fine!’ I kept thinking, ‘good boy, you’re doing really well!’ It’s hard work out there. It’s not ideal conditions at all. But he was happy enough, and he’s finished.”

Alex Hua Tian and Chicko. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

China’s Alex Hua Tian also had an excellent day on a level debutant in Chicko, and enjoyed his own return to the level after having focused so much of his time, energy, and horsepower on championships. 

“I don’t run 5* very often. As a Chinese rider, we focus on championships – Olympics, World Championships, and so 5* is not normally what we focus on,” he says. “But this horse is very special; he’s a cross country machine. He has a huge heart. His owners, Kate and Pete Willis,  they adore the horse so much, and at his age – 14 – I felt he deserved to come here and have a real go. It’s a real shame it’s rained so much, as we were hoping for top of the ground conditions, and I think he’d have been really quick, but I think he dug deep today. He was absolutely brilliant.”

Despite not having the conditions that Chicko most enjoys, the pair delivered one of the rounds of the day, climbing from thirteenth to fifth after picking up 16.8 time penalties for one of the swiftest efforts on the leaderboard. 

“I’m so proud of this horse – I have huge faith in him,” says Alex. “It’s his first 5* but I knew he’d dig deep. He’s Irish, he likes the mud, he’s a good jumper. He’s always very positive; he’s always got his ears forward. So I loved it out there, it was great. First thing this morning, I thought the ground was going to be horrendous – and watching the first half, actually, they were traveling quite well. I think by the time the last of us were going, it was starting to get quite heavy going, and it’s quite hard to find a good footing in between. I just had to say, ‘Chico, come on. We’ve got to ignore it. Just  push on’, and he just kept going – so I’m very, very very proud.”

Boyd Martin and Fedarman B. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Boyd Martin pushed on through the residual aches and pains of his tough Maryland to log an occasionally agricultural but undoubtedly confident and effective early round with Fedarman B, who has previously finished in the top ten here. Though he decided not to run his later ride, debutant Miss Lulu Herself, his midday efforts were well worthwhile: he and Bruno go into the final day in sixth place, with 17.6 time penalties on their tally. 

“I was thrilled with him,” he says. “He once again proved he is one of the best cross country horses I’ve ever sat on. That was horrendous conditions and he dug deep and just gave me everything around a very challenging course. I had a rough weekend last weekend so I wasn’t sort of bursting with confidence but I’m very, very grateful that Bruno is such a champion in the cross country. The last 48 hours they’ve been taking out jumps, cutting out loops and it wasn’t till about 30 minutes before I started that I really had a clear idea of what the course is gonna be and the officials made some excellent decisions in taking out some parts of the course.

“My cross country/jumping coach Peter Wylde and I really analyzed the course and there was just a number of combinations that we had a plan on how many strides to go in and a few those numbers changed just because the ground was so boggy. But Bruno is such an adjustable horse and just fought very hard just to clear through the flags. With going early, obviously I don’t get the luxury of watching how things are riding but I’ve got so much faith in this horse and it just gives me so much confidence.”

Of Lulu, he says, “she’s a very careful, green horse at this level and we were to go right at the end of the day and in the most treacherous conditions. I just didn’t have a good feeling about it and so I promised myself that I wouldn’t be stupid and trying to have any ego about it. I talked to my family and the owners and thought we [would save her for another day]. It’s tough when you’ve gone to this huge expense and traveled a long, long way to get here, but there is always another day. Deep down, I think it was the right thing to do.”

Lea Siegl and DSP Fighting Line. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Austria’s Lea Siegl and her Olympic partner, DSP Fighting Line, came to Pau with one goal in mind: to dispel the demons left behind from their debut here last year, which ended in a shock fall and a smattering of facial injuries. 

They may have been chasing a positive completion – and a happy end to an up-and-down season, which started with a broken leg for Lea – but they got much more than that. They climbed from 16th to seventh after adding 18 time penalties to their first-phase score of 29.5. 

“It feels good. After all the shit in Paris [where Fighty was eliminated at the first horse inspection]  and last year here in Pau, I’m even more happy that today, everything went smooth,” she says. “It was quite fun to ride – the ground was not easy, but it is like it is, we can’t change the weather. It’s something we can’t do. But they tried their best in front of the jumps, putting all the sand. So I’m quite happy that they really tried hard and it was rideable. He’s a nice galloper, and I knew that the weather, it doesn’t suit him, but he runs better on this ground than other horses because he’s so light and easy galloping, so it felt good with him. It didn’t feel too hard.”

Oliver Townend and Cooley Rosalent. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

The last competitors out on course, Oliver Townend and Cooley Rosalent, had the chance to take the lead: Ros and Isaac had already finished with their time penalties, and Emily King and Valmy Biats, with whom they’d been equal second after dressage, had slipped to 23rd after knocking a frangible device in their otherwise excellent round. 

But it wasn’t to be today – though for Oliver, three confident clears across three young horses, two of whom are five-star debutants, is a happy enough day in the office. He’ll head into the final day in 25th place with Crazy Du Loir, 20th with pathfinder En Taro Des Vernier, and eighth with Kentucky champion Cooley Rosalent, with whom he added 23.2 time penalties.

“She definitely had the worst of the ground,” he says. “I couldn’t really find any new ground, and when I did, I was 12 or 14 feet away from where I should be. But I just tried to be as quick as I could, and also look after and give her a good experience, because I think she’s going to be very, very good. I went as fast as I could, but all three horses were incredibly fit, and all three have finished very fresh – they’re a huge credit to the team at home.”

Ninth place is held overnight by Sweden’s Frida Andersen and her Olympic ride Box Leo, who added just 17.6 time penalties and climbed from 32nd place, while the top ten is rounded out by Tim Price and five-star first-timer Jarillo, who looked a picture en route to collecting 22.4 time penalties, just dropping one place on the board in the process. 

Will Coleman and Off The Record. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Will Coleman and Off The Record climbed ten places, from 39th to 29th, after picking up 26.4 time penalties – but, Will admits, this just hasn’t felt like their week. 

“All I can say is when we decided to target Pau we sort of planned on a typical year here — firm ground and fast going and technical twisty track and instead we got a 9.5 minute five-star in a foot of mud,” he says. “It was a bog the whole way around by the time I went, conditions that just don’t suit my horse particularly well and he really dug deep for me. We had time, like everybody did. The horse came home and is well and we look forward to tomorrow and then call it a wrap on 2024.”

“There were a couple places where I thought you might get an extra stride here or there. To be honest, by the time I went, the conditions had deteriorated so much that my only plan became to keep my horse as balanced and [keep the impulsion] as I could, not worry too much about numbers and how you were going to do it, just make quick, clear decisions. It was a really physical effort for both of us. To my horse’s credit, he’s such a willing fighter of a character and I’m really proud of him. It’s not the result we came here for and that’s just kind of how it’s gone this year and that’s ok.”

In any case, he continues, horsemanship was at the fore of today’s competition — a happy result by any metric.

“I think they did what they could [in making changes to the course]. You want to preserve the integrity of the competition without putting anyone in jeopardy, and they did that, but really the responsibility was on the riders to make good decisions and I think you saw a lot of people put their hand up when it wasn’t going to be their day, and that’s sort of what we have to do. It was really challenging for all involved, but I’m glad the day is done and we can look forward tomorrow now. Today was pretty tough out there.”

56 pairs are eligible to come forward for tomorrow’s final horse inspection, which begins at the extraordinarily reasonable time of 11.45 a.m. (10.45 a.m. BST/6.45 a.m. EST, because tonight, the clocks go back here and in the UK, but not in the States, and I’m really sorry, but this nonsense makes my brain turn to mush every single year). Then, the showjumping will begin at 15.00 local (14.00 BST/10.00 a.m. EST), and the prizegiving will happen sometime as the sun goes down, because why not, hey? Why. Not.

For now, though, wash the mud out of your eyelashes, go dance on some tables with Ros, and enjoy that extra hour of sleep when you get around to it (if you’re on this side of the pond, anyway). We’ll see you tomorrow for lots more Pau action – and in the meantime, if you’re still hungry for a dirty great big day of cross-country excitement, head on over to Cheg’s live updates thread to recap every single ride in nitty gritty detail. Go Eventing!

Les 5 Etoiles de Pau: [Website] [Entries] [Timing & Scoring] [Live Stream] [EN’s Coverage]

Ros Canter and Izilot DHI. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

This time twelve months ago, Ros Canter and Izilot DHI cantered into the main arena at Pau – and then ceased motion abruptly when the young, notoriously spooky horse caught sight of the livestream cameraman on the long side of the ring. First, he darted backwards, and then sideways, head and long, long neck held sky high as his tiny rider tried to steady him and regain some semblance of the work she’d established in the warm-up moments earlier. The more she tried, the more Izilot – or Isaac, as he’s known at home – resisted her request to move past the offending camera. The murmurings around the arena increased: it looked very much as though it was about to be a seriously painful test to watch. Would they even make it into the ring? When they got there, would Ros stand any chance at all of navigating the test, or would they end up eliminated for resistance? 

 The bell rang, Ros turned Isaac away from the cameraman – who, unabashed and unaware, continued changing his jacket and adjusting his focal point – and headed down to A. They entered, the board was closed behind them – and then, inexplicably, Isaac got to work. It was as though the camera wasn’t even there. They ended the first phase on a score of 24.3 – good enough for second at the time – and went on to win the competition. 

This year, it was a very different Isaac who entered the arena. He might still be a spooky horse at heart – although Ros’s season-long efforts, including only schooling him away from home, and letting him live out 24/7, have helped – but now, he’s also a horse who really wants to do his job right. That much was evident as Ros cantered him confidently down the chute from the warm-up ring, and when he strode into the arena, he didn’t bat an eyelid at the crowd, the big screen, the flowers, the decorative hedges and cross-country fences – or the cameraman, who was even scarier today in head-to-toe rain gear and a bright red coat. He didn’t even spook at the arena soundtrack, which got odder and odder as the day progressed, and meant that Ros did her test to something that sounded a bit like Enya, if Enya was mad about it. 

Ros Canter and Izilot DHI. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Instead, his entrance was notable for only the positives: push, power, and fluidity, which continued on apace throughout their test and saw them finish the day on an excellent 19. That’s Ros’s best-ever five-star score (she and Isaac also put a 19.9 on the board at Burghley, which does raise some concerns that they might post the 14.3 they were trending at in their trotwork today in twelve months’ time), and it’s also enough to give the pair a 5.6 penalty margin as they begin their campaign to defend their title.

But did the test feel as straightforward as it looked?

“It’s never easy with Isaac – it’s always a challenge!” laughs Ros. “It’s like, ‘did I do enough? Did I do too much [in the warm-up]?’ And actually, today I thought we’d done a bit too much, because he was a little bit heavy on the reins out there. But he really lifted when he came into the arena and heard the clapping for Boyd Martin, and then he was really, really lovely to ride.”

During that entrance, we certainly weren’t the only ones thinking back to last year.

“What I’m really delighted about is that last year, he came in here and found the camera quite spooky, but today, I went in and he just went straight past it,” says Ros. “It shows how much he’s come on in a year.”

Ros Canter and Izilot DHI. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

That progression over the last twelve months means, she continues, that “I suppose I’m starting to get confidence, in a way, in riding him a bit more [elastic]. And so today, I was really pleased with his balance in the medium and extended trot, because he’s got quite a narrow wheel base, and so sometimes he can feel a little bit young and wobbly in those. But today, he felt really stable in it, and that was lovely.” 

Coming in as the reigning champion is always an interesting additional pressure, but for Ros, she knows that it’s best not to think too many steps ahead with Isaac – “it’s all still a fact-finding mission, in a way,” she says. “He’s desperate to jump between the flags these days, he really is, but it’s just all about if something else takes his eye and stops him from seeing the fence or takes him off his line. I know he wants to do the job for me, although the ground conditions would put a question mark in my mind – last year he was held, and we were on the top of the ground, so I was able to run him fast at the end. It’ll be interesting to see how he copes tomorrow. Sometimes we have good days; sometimes, we don’t, so we’ll just enjoy today.”

Ros Canter and Izilot DHI. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Their run here is a reroute from a Burghley that ended early at the Defender Valley, where Isaac ran out at an angled hedge that caused several issues through the day. But, says Ros, the experience wasn’t a bad one – it was just a reminder that nothing’s ever to be taken for granted with Isaac. 

“I was actually really happy with Burghley, on the whole – how he came out of the startbox, how he went through the main arena. He felt as settled and confident as he’s ever felt” she says. “I was happy with the way he took off over the ditch [before the hedge]. He just happened to jink sideways, and at five-star, you can’t afford to do that. You never really know with him – I predicted he’d spook at the stones on the left, and he spooked at the flowerpot on the right! I think my job as a rider has to just be to ride him like he’s not going to spook, and if he does and I can deal with it, great. If I can’t, well, I can’t change his personality, and I can’t change who he is, so I have to just go in with the confidence that he’ll stay on his line. It’s really a split second thing with him.”

Emily King and Valmy Biats. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Also rerouting from Burghley, and starting her campaign very happily, is Emily King and her French-bred partner Valmy Biats, who sit equal second with Oliver Townend and his Kentucky winner Cooley Rosalent on a score of 24.6. 

“I’ve had him for a while now, and he just keeps getting better and better,” says Emily (who did her test to ‘Bet On It’ from High School Musical 2, if the day’s weird music is what you’re here for). “He knows everything in the test now. He’s so sensitive and such an overthinker that when he was a young horse and still learning stuff, he’d go in and just get tense and strong because he tried so hard. Now, I think he’s getting relaxed, and because he knows everything, I’ve got the confidence to just go in and breathe and show him off, softly, without having to override him, and without him getting strong and jeopardising the movement.”

Like Ros and Isaac, Emily was able to eke another 5% out of Valmy simply by making use of Pau’s buzzy atmosphere.

“He felt awesome in the warm-up, and when he went in the ring, the cameras and the crowd really lifted his frame without making him go hot,” she says. “I’d say it was the best feeling I’ve ever had in a test with him, and there were no big mistakes, so it was so nice to be rewarded with a good mark. I’m just so pleased with him.”

Emily King and Valmy Biats. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Pleased, too, no doubt, are brand new owners Paula and David Evans, who are an enormously welcome addition to Emily’s team. Not only have the couple, best known for owning Andrew Hoy’s Vassily de Lassos, taken the reins (so to speak, anyway) on Valmy, they’ve also provided a new ride for Emily in Creevagh Cooley, who was previously campaigned by Andrew.

“They’re absolutely lovely new owners who were really keen on the idea of having a five star horse, and it’s just lovely for them,” says Emily. “This is their first show owning him, so I really want to get off on the right foot. We’ve done the first phase, and now we’ve just got to try and see it through – but I’m really excited for them, and I hope that Val can give them some great years of fun.”

Though most competitors are looking ahead to tomorrow’s tough conditions with grim resignation, Emily is, perhaps, the most fortuitously mounted rider in the field: not only has Valmy got form in the mud, winning Thoresby’s CCI4*-S two years running in questionable ground, but he also lives out in it year-round, merrily mooching around on his own patch of hill in the Cheshire countryside, which lends him an innate sure-footedness no matter what sort of going he encounters. 

“Val loves the mud, he lives in the mud, he is mud,” laughs Emily. “But I’ll still really have to ride how he’s feeling. It’s not a Burghley or Badminton track out there but there are serious accuracy and precision question, which will be really tough if it’s deep and the going is getting turfed up while you’re trying to stick to your lines. It’ll be a proper course and I’ll just ride what I’m feeling underneath me.”

Oliver Townend and Cooley Rosalent. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

That’s much the name of the game, too, for Oliver and Rosie, who sit on the same score – though, Oliver says wryly, “we’ll probably still see some mad Frenchman having a go at turning a three-and-a-half strides into three!”

But for Rosie, and his two other rides, debutants En Taro Des Vernier (15th on 29.4) and Crazy Du Loir (57th on 36.3), he’s keeping their inexperience at the forefront of his planning – which might sound slightly odd, considering that the Irish-bred mare is already a five-star winner. But she’s also only a ten-year-old, and Oliver hopes to keep her coming out at the top for many seasons yet. 

“She’s not actually seen as much as most of the field, but she’s top, top class, and she’s not a foreign horse, so hopefully that’ll work in our favour tomorrow,” he says. “She’s still green and a baby – I know she’s a Kentucky winner, but normally, when they’ve had a result like that, they need time to recover mentally. But I think she’s very good in the brain, and taking it all in her stride.”

Her lineage, he continues, is another asset in her pocket – even if it means that this phase has taken a little bit of time to come together. 

“Her mother was a Scottish Grand National winner, so she’s 70% Thoroughbred. She’s not bred to do a dressage test, but she’s getting stronger all the time, and she’s getting more confident,” he says. “She’s very, very sensitive, and you’ve got to work around her, but at the same time, she’s definitely one that’s worth working around.”

Yasmin Ingham and Rehy DJ. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Day one leaders Tom McEwen and Brookfield Quality sit fourth overnight on their 25.8, while yesterday’s runners-up, New Zealand’s Clarke Johnstone and his Paris mount Menlo Park, are fifth on 26.3. World Champion Yasmin Ingham moves into sixth place with her two-time Luhmühlen podium-placer Rehy DJ, who delivered a charismatic test with one jolly, celebratory explosion after his final halt to score a 26.5 – “I gave him a fun jump this morning to put him in the right frame of mind for today, and I’m really happy with how well he held it together in there,” she laughs – while New Zealand’s Sam Lissington takes provisional seventh on a 26.7 with Lord Seekonig. 

Samantha Lissington and Lord Seekonig. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

“I was a bit playing catch-up, because the first centerline was lovely, and it was a lovely halt, but then I struck off in a muddle,” says Sam. “So I was having to claw back the rest of the test, but I think the score is pretty good considering that. But he was really good, and stayed with me the whole way. He’s quite a shy person, so it’s nice for him to be brave and show off.”

Selina Milnes and Cooley Snapchat. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Eighth place overnight is held by Britain’s Selina Milnes and Cooley Snapchat on a score of 27.1. 

“He’s usually quite consistent with me on the flat,” says Selina, who handed the reins to Tom McEwen for the trot up as she continues to recover from a skiing injury sustained last winter. “At home he’s been diving – and he was doing it here as well – in his first half pass to his change on the straight line, so from left to right. He’s been diving left and just anticipating it, so I’ve done nothing [in the schooling ring] with it at all, and then he was on the aids in there.”

Tim Price and Jarillo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Tim Price debuted smart youngster Jarillo at the level today, and was happy to wrap up his test on a score of 27.2, which is good enough for ninth overnight – and earlier marks, which nearly put the pair in the lead overnight, show just how much promise the ten-year-old has for the future. 

The busy nature of this particular five-star test, and of the step up in complexity on the flat generally, suit Jarillo’s quick, similarly busy brain, says Tim.

“It’s quite good for him – he’s sharp and he looks at things, so it always gives him something to think about. You have to have your leg on around every corner and constantly be positioning him to go. I quite like this test for a youngster, actually.”

Piggy March and Halo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Piggy March and the young stallion Halo round out the top ten on their score of 27.4, and while Piggy was thrilled with her former Blenheim champion’s performance, she was frustrated by some of the broad margins between judges at various points in the test. 

“I can’t figure it out. As a rider, we train, we do analyze test results and the same thing happened at Blenheim [with the judge at B not liking it],” she says with a sigh. “I thought maybe at Blenheim, I had him too up and out. So this time, I thought I’d keep him a bit more round at the base of the neck, and he was very in front of my leg. He was very on the buttons. I don’t know whether I’m just getting something wrong, but I’m not understanding it at the minute. We’re meant to be top athletes, we’re meant to analyze things, and you think, ‘Well, what’s right, what’s wrong?’ I know it’s personal opinions, but it’s nearly a 10% difference. So I’ve come out actually a little bit lost about what I have to do. I’m not being a dick here, but I’m not coming out going, ‘Oh, thank God, I got a good mark.’ I don’t care about the rest of the competition, it’s a complete other thing. It’s going to piss with rain. It’s going to be horrendous! It’s his first 5*. It’s irrelevant! But he’s a lovely little horse and he felt like he gave it all, so what’s my problem? We’re fine tuning the whole time. It’s like, a bit more nose, a bit more pace, a bit more…?”

Her remarks raise a good point about the clarity with which marks are given – after all, the name of the game is constant education and progression, and for a seasoned professional to be left flummoxed about how to move forward shows that there’s work that can be done all around to make sure that that transparency is readily available within the constraints of time and manpower that prevail at events. But scoring aside, Piggy was thrilled with the feeling she got in the ring. 

“I’m delighted. Oh my God, he was amazing. His brain was incredible. So rideable! He wasn’t dropping me at all. He stayed with me like, ‘I’m here to show myself off,’” she beams.

Boyd Martin and Miss Lulu Herself. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Boyd Martin came forward with his second ride of the week – and another application of concealer – to score a 30.1 with Miss Lulu Herself, putting her into 21st position after the first phase of her five-star debut. He also sits sixteenth overnight with yesterday’s ride, Fedarman B, on a score of 29.5. 

Will Coleman and Off The Record. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

It was a tougher day in the office for Will Coleman and the ordinarily very consistent Off The Record, who broke to canter in the medium trot and then continued on into a test that was peppered with small mistakes. They ultimately earned a 33.2 for 39th, which might feel rather off the boil at this stage, but come tomorrow, it’ll see them well in the hunt. Yesterday’s glorious sunshine didn’t do much to firm up the already deep footing, and today, we’ve been heaped upon by the rain, which is set to continue through the night and into tomorrow, and has already prompted several changes to the tough, twisty, achingly precise course designed by Pierre Michelet. We’ve got more insights into the challenge to come ahead of tomorrow’s sport beginning at 11.30 a.m. local time (10.30 a.m. BST/5.30 a.m. EST) here – but for now, suffice it to say that tomorrow’s leaderboard will be like today’s, if today’s got stuck in a tumble dryer for a couple of hours and then spilled out onto the kitchen floor, probably into a puddle of leakage. Nice stuff! Delightful! Weird sport, this! 

The top ten at the end of dressage at Pau.

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