It takes a village: Piggy March leaves the arena with husband Tom after taking the Burghley title. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

The Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials‘ core team has seen plenty of changes this year: not only is there a new director in Martyn Johnson, who’s previously been at the helm of Burgham International in Northumberland, there’s also a new course designer — Kentucky’s Derek di Grazia, making his English debut — and, finally, a new showjumping designer in Paul Connor, who had the unenviable job of building a track today that would shake up the standings without punishing tired horses.

Of course, this isn’t Paul’s first rodeo:he took the reins at last year’s Burghley replacement at Bicton, and so was well aware of the interplay between tough terrain tests and athletic ability the following day. Still, though, he took the time to get to know Burghley’s uniquely undulating grass arena, siting his fences amongst its gentles dips and mounds in order to up the ante. And up the ante it did: just seven horse-and-rider combinations of the 28 starters would secure a clear round, and just six would do so without adding time penalties.

“The ground was perfect, and we’ve worked hard on that — but actually, when I walked on it firstly it already felt lovely,” says Paul. “The ground itself is very undulating so it’s a little bit up and a little bit down all the way here and all the way there, which is good, because you can use that to help your distances. The field was very good, with some very scopey horses, and a few unlucky poles — but again, I think that’s where the ground does a little bit and it catches the odd person like that.”

That undulating ground and tricky course meant that just one horse and rider of the eight in the morning session turned in a clear round, and though Andrew James and Celtic Morning Star‘s achievement will have given the afternoon’s top twenty some confidence, the seven other rounds made it achingly clear just how tough the task ahead would be. And just as we always say that the measure of a true Burghley is its ability to propel people up the rankings on Saturday, there’s also much to be said for the influence that a serious final-day track can play as well. Paul Connor’s piece de resistance did exactly the job it was meant to do: by the end of the competition, those scant few clear rounds saw their riders rightfully find themselves in the midst of the very best in the world.

Of course, that made for an afternoon session of showjumping that was very nearly unwatchably tense, particularly as we crept towards the business end of the proceedings. The top three after cross-country — Piggy March and Vanir Kamira, Tim Price and Vitali, and Jonelle Price and Classic Moet — are highly regarded for their many inimitable qualities, but it would be hard to argue that showjumping is high on the list for any, and while Vanir Kamira and Classic Moet alike had both previously managed rare clears under pressure to win Badminton, a smattering of poles between them didn’t feel like an unlikely possibility.

For 19-year-old Classic Moet, jumping in third place, that proved the case. She didn’t have a fence in hand over fourth-placed Tom Jackson and Capels Hollow Drift, who had jumped one of the best rounds of the day, and although the round started well, without the mare’s classic tip-tap skimming technique, they took the airy upright out of the first part of the treble at 8ABC, and then added another rail at ten, handing Tom a podium finish. He would move up one more place after Tim Price and Vitali, who have historically struggled in this phase but had one rail in hand to spare, took out the second fence and then the first and final parts of the treble.

Piggy March and Vanir Kamira. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

And so, as overnight leaders Piggy March and Vanir Kamira cantered into the ring, now with two rails and a touch of time in hand, it was with the grimmest of game faces firmly in place. As the seventeen-year-old mare met each fence, she did so with her feet first, clattering her way around the course but somehow keeping the rails in situ — until she came to the first part of the double at 4, which fell with a thud. Now, she had just one in hand, and a tough time on the clock to keep half an eye on, too — but she would need neither. Pole after pole bounced in its cups, but no more fell, and Piggy March crossed the finish line as the 2022 Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials champion.

“I can’t quite believe it”: Piggy March adds Burghley champion to her resume with Vanir Kamira. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

“I can’t quite believe it, really, but I’m just so relieved,” she says.”I felt like I put more pressure on myself today than I normally do; I’m usually pretty… well, relaxed might be a strong word, but I definitely understand that what will be will be. Today, though, I just felt so much that this little horse deserves it as much as any horse here does. I just didn’t want to let her down. You’ve just got to go and do your thing, but I was just so desperate for her name to be up there on the plaques at Winners’ Avenue. She’s been a Burghley horse through and through — she’s been second twice, fifth, and has now won, and she’s got a total of 4.8 time penalties across all of those runs. It’s the toughest cross-country course in the world to make the time, and she’s a very special horse for that reason.”

Piggy March and Vanir Kamira: Burghley champions at last. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Now, plucky ‘Tillybean’ — the very model of an unconventional champion with an oversized heart — becomes just the third-ever mare to win this event, and the fifteenth horse in history to win both Badminton and Burghley. For Piggy, who recorded her first five-star win with the mare at Badminton in 2019, it feels every inch as surreal to follow it up at the world’s biggest event.

“It’s really what dreams are made of, and without a doubt, this’ll be one of the best days, if not the best day, along with Badminton for me,” says Piggy. “I’m just so proud; it’s a massive, massive achievement, and even out there taking the trophy pictures with the cars, I can look back on all the pictures of Oliver, of Pippa, of William, and everyone you see in the magazines. You think, ‘oh, that just looks amazing — will it ever be me?’ You believe it in your training, and you believe it going, but it can easily not be. We all know that, and it’s the same in every sport — but you just keep trying and keep believing and you just hope that someday, someone’s looking down and it’s your day. We all know that as sports people and horsepeople; you have your moments every now and then, and someone was looking down today to say it was the moment for me.”

Tom Jackson earns a career-best result with the exciting Capels Hollow Drift. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Tom Jackson is no stranger to the topmost level, nor to great success in the saddle: he rode around Badminton and Pau a number of times, with a top-ten finish to his name at the latter with Billy Cuckoo and a wealth of experience gleaned with his former Junior and Young Rider Europeans medallist Waltham Fiddlers Find. But this trip to Burghley was a first for him — and a top ten placing at the level on home soil, too, had eluded him.

He hasn’t quite had a horse like Capels Hollow Drift, though. The eleven-year-old impressed enormously at Badminton, finishing sixteenth and looking for all the world like a win might be in him one day — and when he pulled out a foot-perfect showjumping round today, he was able to rocket himself and his rider up from fourth to second place, having started the week outside the top ten.

“That horse is just class — to go around the cross-country like he did yesterday, and then to go in and jump as well as he did today,” says 29-year-old Tom. “It makes my job so easy knowing that he’s got that capability, and he always wants to do the right thing. I’m over the moon with him. He jumped really well, but not as well as he can do after yesterday’s efforts — so for him to dig as deep as he did is really pleasing.”

Though Tom hasn’t previously ridden at Burghley, his gelding’s progression throughout the season made him quietly confident that a placing could be on the cards if luck was on their side.

“I’d sort of been thinking in the back of my mind that we could be in the top five, but to be second — especially to Piggy! — almost feels like winning. We’re over the moon with how he’s gone, and how he’s come out of Badminton and stepped up this week. He’s obviously very talented, but one of his best assets is that his brain is so good. He always wants to do the right thing, and he’s always with me and concentrating. That makes my life so much easier.”

Still, though, being conscious of the realistic possibility of a great result and actually achieving it are two different things, and for Tom, a result of this magnitude is an emotional moment that heralds the next phase of his exciting career.

“We dreamt of doing this well, but actually come here and do it is something else,” he says. “We’ve been working quite hard for quite a while, and I hope that a lovely horse like him can keep progressing and get us closer to these teams.”

Pippa Funnell meets Tom Jackson at the in-gate after his round. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Tom, who’s based in the Surrey hills just forty minutes from the Billy Stud, was one of a number of riders mentored by Pippa Funnell this week, and she gave him some simple advice ahead of his round: “She said, ‘just concentrate on what you’re doing and ride like you normally do’ — and hopefully, I did that. He jumped so well for me.”

Tim Price and Vitali come up against it once again in the final phase, but slip just one spot. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

It’s hard not to feel frustrated for Tim Price, who has in Vitali an extraordinary horse with one great weakness at the moment. Like a musical theatre actor who can’t get the choreography quite in time, he’s something of a double threat and a promise — and after tipping the second fence and the first and last parts of the treble, slipping from the runner-up position he held through the week to a final third, Tim had to think of the horse’s long-term prospects to avoid the weight of disappointment that comes with another showjumping round gone awry.

“I’ve got to keep it all in perspective,” he says. “It’s easy to get distracted by the fact that you’re in a very good position, and it was a ‘must jump clear’ day to win — but for this horse, it’s his weak phase.”

That weakness has caught them out previously at the Olympics, where they took three rails, and at Luhmühlen CCI5* this summer, where they did the same — but the partnership, which began in 2021 after the horse had had two years out, is a relatively new one, and the talented but inarguably quirky gelding still has plenty of learning and growing to do as an athlete. And at Burghley? Two out of three phases ain’t too shabby, particularly when you still find yourself in a podium position come Sunday evening.

“Overall, he’s been excellent; he put out a really good performance in the dressage to be right up there, and he just excelled yesterday,” says Tim. “He was superb, but that’s bound to take its toll, especially on a horse that’s never been in this position physically before. It’s an unfortunate three rails, but he actually made a lot of very good efforts, too, so we’ll take that away as a positive and look forward to the next one. He’s class, and what he showed me yesterday has definitely got me excited about the future.”

Jonelle Price and Classic Moet: full of gumption in the final phase. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

If there are two things that run deep in the Price family camp, it’s fierce competitiveness — and pragmatism. Jonelle Price knew when she entered the arena that a clear round on Classic Moet wouldn’t come easily — after all, when the mare delivered one in 2018 to win Badminton, it was her first international showjumping clear in four years. Though it didn’t quite happen for her, with rails falling at 8A and 10, the nineteen-year-old mare and her exceptional rider only slipped one place to fourth, which even Jonelle had to concede wasn’t a bad way to finish the competition — and, potentially, the remarkable horse’s career.

“If you’d given me a top five at the start of the week, I’d have been very happy — but of course, when you’re up there in the mix you dream of a clear round and of what could be. But we’re going to have to be happy with third and fourth today,” she says. “It’s been a phenomenal week for her. She showed why she deserves to still be here, and she felt as good as ever today.”

Alice Casburn and Topspin put a long partnership to good use, finishing fifth in their Burghley debut. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

One of the great climbs of the week belonged to 20-year-old Alice Casburn, who was born just a year before Classic Moet and is the real-life embodiment of every pony novel you ever gobbled up as a child. She and Topspin only began eventing a few years ago, and the homebred Thoroughbred is out of a mare her mother, Caroline evented — and that mare, too, is out of one of her former Advanced rides. But although they’ve had an extraordinary year, with 19th place finishes at Pau last year and Badminton this year, plus an individual bronze and team gold medal at the Young Rider European Championships, and although Alice has considerable experience over much bigger showjumping courses and even Puissance classes with the gelding, she still found the nerves nearly unbearable ahead of her round.

“I was really, really nervous going in — I was quite relaxed in the lorry park, and then I came down and saw quite a few people,” says Alice, who nonetheless delivered a sparkling clear to move up to fifth after a starting position of 30th. “I said to myself, ‘you’re not here — you’re just showjumping at home!’ But then I heard the crowds cheering for everyone else and I was like, ‘no, I really am here.’ My heart started going but then I felt him spook at the plant pot going in, in his usual fashion — and that’s when I know that he’s up for it and wants to have a good crack. And that’s exactly how he jumped.”

Alice Casburn and Topspin celebrate a classy clear. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Though cheerful, ineffably cool Alice is outwardly calm — enviably so, in fact, prompting those of us in the mixed zone to discuss whether we’re too old to try to be friends with her — it’s something she’s had to work at. But that work, and an understanding of how her mind works, is what helps her to refocus and get in the zone ahead of pivotal rounds like these.”

“It never came naturally,” she says. “I saw some of my family friends earlier, and they remembered when I was crying my eyes out, refusing to go into the ring for a 70cm round. I think it’s been about blocking out social media and having a nice small bubble, and I’m kind of just in denial that I’m at places when I there. I’m riding around sort of blanking everything out and imagining that I’m at a training show. So no, I never was that brave, and then I hit the hunting field a couple of times and I got more competitive. My competitiveness and my trust in him overpower the fear. I’m still a nervous person, but it’s like my body registers it and my brain doesn’t anymore.”

Alice doesn’t hunt Spin — “I think I’d end up in Yorkshire from Norwich; he’s quite a live wire!” — but instead hunts a former eventer called Ruby, with whom “I can go with my pockets full of sweets and snacks like I’m seven, and just have a nice time.” But really, is there any nicer time than jumping a double clear to finish fifth at your first Burghley?

“I just feel in shock — when I got off I just stood there shaking for a good couple of minutes! I can’t believe it. To finish like this is phenomenal; I’m so grateful, and he’s been absolutely fantastic,” she says, grinning from ear to ear.

Kitty King and Vendredi Biats earn an excellent placing in the face of disappointment. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Kitty King took sixth place with the exceptional Vendredi Biats after a nearly perfect showjumping round that just suffered from one moment of rotten luck — rather like their excellent cross-country round yesterday, which was looking like their best ever until the gelding misread the width of the wide Fairfax and Favor rails at 19a, hitting a pin and costing Kitty her overnight lead. Had you put a gun to this reporter’s head and asked me to make a bet about her result today, I’d have confidently told you she’d jump a clear round, and it certainly looked as though it was going that way — until the very tidy jumper breathed on a rail to add four penalties.

“It’s pretty bloody frustrating and disappointing, and to be honest, I don’t really like Burghley,” says Kitty with a wry laugh. ” At least I’ve completed this time, I suppose. I’d never managed to complete before, and I really thought this was going to be our week after our start in the dressage, but nothing’s really quite gone 100% to plan. It’s disappointing, and I’m a bit fed up with it all.”

Though their week here has 90% shaken off Kitty’s Burghley demons, the disappointment of being so close to a win and then missing out is palpable — particularly on a horse that jumps with the style that ‘Froggy’ does.

“You see others going around by Braille and they don’t have a rail; he doesn’t touch anything, but touches one and it comes down,” muses Kitty. “And on cross-country he’s foot-perfect, with no hairy moments, but makes one mistake and it’s a pin. We just never quite have a bit of luck on our side. It’s not just been with us this week, but I do hope we win one at some point, because he’s more than capable of achieving it, really.”

Richard Jones and Alfies Clover take the right sort of risks to repeat their 2019 seventh place finish. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

“I didn’t think I was going to get down to the first fence,” laughs local rider Richard Jones, who recorded another seventh place finish with Alfies Clover, despite an inauspicious start. After picking up a good canter on the bell, Richard turned to the first fence and his experienced gelding spooked and sucked behind his leg — at which Richard got into the driving seat and found a committed, gusty stride to the jump.

“It was a bit similar to the round we had at Badminton — it was all a bit all over the shop,” laughs Richard, who finished in the same position here in 2019. “But we leave Alfie quite fresh, because he’s fifteen and he knows what he’s doing. He always comes out fresher on the last day, and I don’t know how that works — it takes a fairly special horse to do what he did yesterday and then come out and be bloody fresh today!”

Many riders would have chosen a more conservative canter into the first after feeling that little wobble in the turn, but Richard and Alfie are long-time partners, and he knew that the gelding would be best served by a gutsy ride to get him off the ground.

“I wouldn’t have any fear moving him up,” he explains. “He’s a jumper, foremost in his brain, and while yesterday I’d have liked him to jump a foot lower in the first half of the course so he could be quicker, today I wouldn’t want to be sat on anything else. I’m over the moon with him — to be honest, I’d liked to think I could have finished in the top five, but I was a little bit slow yesterday. When the course is this way around, with the busy bit early, it takes a little bit of time to get him settled, and he jumps a little bit big to start with. But I’m delighted. It means everything to be back at Burghley.”

Pippa Funnell and Billy Walk On earn a second five-star top ten. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Pippa Funnell‘s duo of very different geldings have been playing swapsies on the leaderboard all week: at the end of the first phase, she was eighth with the rangy Billy Walk On and tenth with Mr Consistent Majas Hope, and by the end of yesterday, she’d stepped up to ninth with Majas Hope and down to thirteenth with Billy Walk On. But it was the homebred Billy Walk On who would triumph, jumping out of order as the first of the afternoon session and delivering a sparkling clear that would step him back up to a final eighth place — while Majas Hope took a disappointing four rails to move down to sixteenth.

Tom Crisp and the tiny stylist Liberty and Glory take their second top-ten at five-star. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Just a fortnight ago, part-time firefighter Tom Crisp thought about withdrawing from Burghley, which was to be his first crack at five-star since Badminton in 2019, because a smattering of broken ribs accrued in a cross-country schooling fall at home left him in too much pain to ride as normal. But getting Liberty and Glory back to this level has been a serious labour of love for Tom and his family, who bred the tiny, feisty mare from a former Advanced ride of his wife, Sophie’s — there have been niggling injuries along the way, and false starts, and a pesky little pandemic that have put all those big dreams on hold. Finally, in a fit of hubris and with the memories of their sixth-place finish at Pau in 2018 in his mind, he decided to pack the lorry, and his army of children, and point his horse of a lifetime at her first Burghley.

And what a pay-off the Crisp family has had. Though ‘Lori’ was never going to trouble the leaders in the first phase, she soared up the leaderboard from 39th after dressage to fifteenth after a remarkable cross-country round that saw her add just 10.8 time penalties while pinging every jump like a pony show jumper. Today, she proved that the hard work the family and their home team has put into getting her sound and healthy has been well worthwhile, jumping in fine style — with knees well above nostrils — all the way around Paul’s track, adding nothing and climbing to ninth place.

“You can’t beat a clear round at Burghley on the final day, and to jump as well as she did — she rubbed number two and I thought, ‘oh no, come on!’ and then I don’t think she touched another one,” says a teary-eyed Tom with a smile. “She rose to the occasion and made my job easy; she’s a lovely mare, and she’s had a great event. She’s exceeded expectations; two weeks ago I didn’t even think I was coming, but it’s a magical place and it does wonderful things to you. This week, it was good to us.”

A dream come true: Tom Crisp and Liberty and Glory. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

For Tom, who’s been working away, often out of the spotlight, for many years at five-star, today’s result was an enormous and emotional milestone.

“In my mind, it almost feels like I’ve won it. You ride your own competition, don’t you? For me and her, it felt like a win: I can’t tell you the ups and downs of the last three weeks, of thinking I couldn’t ride and cancelling all my other events. It’s crazy, and to come here and jump a double clear in her first Burghley when she hasn’t had the best time has just been fantastic.”

Though Lori hasn’t always been the most straightforward of partners — a fact that’s sometimes still evident in her dressage tests — Tom knows that the fire in her belly is what makes her so good, in much the same way that the great mares above her on the leaderboard are so good because they’re unconventional.

“You can’t beat a quirky mare,” he says fondly. “When you get them on side, they love their job and they make training them and working with them so interesting and fun. They give a whole lot more, I think, than any other horse. She’s a quirky one, with a heck of a story behind her; she wasn’t easy in the beginning, and used to just lie down in the start box, or wouldn’t go past fence three, and I always said to Sophie, ‘just sell it and get something easier — we’re wasting our time!’ But we stuck with it. She’s always been a talented thing, and she moved and jumped well, but she wasn’t prepared to apply it in the beginning. She’s a crazy thing, but you need a bit of crazy to do this.”

Cornelia Dorr and Daytona Beach 8 excel themselves for top ten at Burghley. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

And speaking of quirky mares, it’s only fitting that the top ten is rounded out by one such oddball, who gained an expansive fan club — certainly among the gathered media — throughout this weekend’s jumping phases.

“There’s no other word for it — she’s just an incredible jumper, and she has such heart,” says US rider Cornelia Dorr, who executed an extraordinary climb throughout the week to move up from first-phase 50th place to a final 10th place with Daytona Beach 8 in their first-ever five-star. Though the mare often looked to have just one (admittedly very high) gear across the country yesterday, she’s extraordinarily quick-footed and catty at the combinations, and she and her 24-year-old rider exhibited such gutsiness and trust in one another that their round was a joy to watch. Today’s showjumping round, which saw them deliver one of those six clears inside the time, was also one of the most enjoyable to watch, as the mare looked to barely touch the ground before clearing each fence by generous inches.

Cornelia Dorr and Daytona Beach 8. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

For Cornelia, a good experience at her five-star debut would have been enough of a reward — but to finish in the top ten at Burghley has bolstered her faith in her system in a way that looks set to skyrocket her career.

“It’s given me so much confidence — it’s been amazing,” says Cornelia, who will now plan for a move back to the US in November after a fruitful year spent in England with Kevin McNab.

It was Kevin who first suggested that Cornelia aim the former Sandra Auffarth ride at Burghley — an idea she wasn’t convinced about at first. And even as the benefits of tackling the biggest course in the world started to take root, would Cornelia have believed it if someone had suggested she might finish in the top ten?

“Never — I’d have told them they were crazy,” she laughs. “But she has my back so much. She gives me an unreal feeling, and even though she’s a little bit tired, she’s still just so self-aware. She’s amazing; you can’t beat these good mares.”

Cornelia tops the bill of US riders, the remaining three of whom finished in the top 25: Emily Hamel and Corvett looked on springs around the tricky track, adding one rail and 1.6 time to take 20th place, while Meghan O’Donoghue and Palm Crescent tipped two and added 1.2 time to take 23rd place.

And that’s all she wrote, folks — for now, anyway. We’ll be looking back at Burghley with our analytical (and emotional) glasses on over the next couple of days, but for now, we’re signing out from what has been an unbelievable week of sport. Burghley: it’s great to have you back. Go Eventing.

The final top ten in the 2022 Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials.

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We’ve waited three years for the return of the Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials, and its cross-country day — complete with input from brand-new course designer Derek di Grazia — has certainly lived up to all our expectations, delivering us wall-to-wall action, a new-look leaderboard, and some of the best ground we’ve seen this year, to boot. Traditionally big, bold, relentless Burghley was traded in for something of a new model, with a high-intensity technical section in the first half that read and rode almost more like a short-format, and then a run down through some of the biggest fences in the world in the back half of the track — a design call that meant that anyone who was overfaced was more likely to end their day early on with harmless penalties or a retirement than with a crashing fall near the end of the track.

The field of 51 starters was narrowed down to 31 by the end of the day, giving Burghley a pretty much bang-on-average completion rate of 61%, while 24 combinations — or 47% of the field — recorded clear rounds. There’s been considerable influence throughout the day at every corner of the leaderboard, too, with 11s, 20s, healthy doses of time, and harmless tumbles making their mark on the competition without any unpleasant incidents — but with no shortage of drama. We’ve seen several top contenders fall by the wayside, including overnight third-placed Sarah Bullimore, who opted to retire Corouet on course after a run-out; Oliver Townend, who had an unprecedented run of bad luck, falling at the penultimate fence with ninth-placed Tregilder and at the Trout Hatchery with fifth-placed Swallow Springs; twelfth-placed Zara Tindall and Class Affair, who faulted at the Leaf Pit and retired; fourteenth-placed Susie Berry and Ringwood LB, who fell at the wide oxers at 19; and the USA’s Woods Baughman, who was sixteenth overnight with C’est La Vie 135 but was eliminated for accumulated refusals in the first part of the course.

Piggy March and Vanir Kamira deliver a showcase of gutsiness around the new-look Burghley track. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

No one had come close to catching the 11:20 optimum time when 2019 Badminton winners Piggy March and Vanir Kamira left the start box, and though they didn’t quite manage it themselves, they made 11:21 look almost laughably easy. But then, that’s true to form for the gusty partnership, who also finished a second over the time at Badminton this spring, where they were fourth: across their four Burghley runs together, they’ve collected just a scant 4.8 time penalties.

“She’s a pleasure and she knows her job, so it’s just about me not doing something stupid, to be honest, and just keep her believing like she does,” says Piggy, who strode straight into a provisional overnight lead after cruising around with the ‘truffle-snuffling’ seventeen-year-old. Part of the trick to getting close to the clock? Understanding where her horse’s particular strengths lay, and using them tactically to make up for time lost early on in the technical section of the course.

“She’s fast when she wants to be, especially coming downhill,” she says. “I’d quite quickly lost ten or twelve seconds around the Trout Hatchery at the beginning. In those couple of minutes she wasn’t getting out of second and a half gear, and every time I kicked, nothing happened, so I just had to let her post along. We’re in their hands a lot; we know they’re fit and well, but it’s also about their minds. She suddenly decides ‘yes, okay, I’m going to go; it’s a downhill’ , and then you’ve got to be brave and let them run down the hills and really freewheel — but without taking liberties. You need to be balanced the whole time.”

Piggy’s relatively early draw — she was 14th out of 51 to start — meant that she had minimal time to watch other riders and glean feedback about the course. But over a track like this, trust, partnership, and an innate understanding between horse and rider — and the unique plan that that generates — tend to be more important anyway.

“I watched a couple before I went, which was Tim [Price on Bango] and Pippa [Funnell on Billy Walk On], who are brilliant riders to watch but couldn’t have been on two more different horses doing totally different things throughout,” she says with a laugh. “So I don’t know whether that was helpful or not, apart from that they got to the finish. But other than that, it’s just trusting your instinct and believing in what you’re sat on — and I’ve got absolutely no reason to ever not believe in her. She’s been a true Burghley horse all her life.”

And, in true Burghley horse fashion, she swept her way into the lead, skipping up from the fourth-place spot she held overnight after delivering her best-ever five-star score of 22.6 on Thursday. That puts her in contention to become just the twelfth horse ever to win both Badminton and Burghley – a distinction that feels a bit like kismet for the mare who has become almost emblematic of eventing, with her unconventional build and enormous well of ‘try’.

“She just runs; she’s got such heart and grit and blood,” says Piggy. “These girls are amazing — they’re freaks in another league. They’re so gritty, to want to get back and put their heads down and keep going, and so the whole time home she just kept making up time. I’ve had my best days on her, and this is definitely one of them that’s up there as one of the best.”

Vanir Kamira, who was a fresh-faced fourteen years old when she won Badminton in 2019, is a true long-format horse — and that meant that the long pandemic, with its scant chances for a competition of this calibre, robbed her of two of her best years. For that reason, Piggy and the mare alike have been making the most of every opportunity to what they love best.

“She warmed up very well, and she rose to the occasion coming to the start box; I could feel she knew why she was here, and what she was about to do, and she was very excited to get on and do it,” says Piggy. “That’s a great feeling for us riders, and it’s just brilliant being back here and to come into the main arena and get cheers from the crowd, and just to have our sport back.”

But, she admits: “I can’t actually remember the round, to be honest — [my husband] Tom always says to me, ‘if you’re having a nice time, you’re not going fast enough!’ It’s actually a pretty horrible time until you get to the end, and without any time to think of anything else apart from ‘just keep going!’ and ‘don’t do anything stupid!'”

Tim Price’s Vitali steps up to the plate and grows in confidence around his first Burghley. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

The only rider in the top ten who didn’t move in any direction was Tim Price, who began the day as pathfinder with the experienced Bango, adding 14.4 time penalties to climb from 16th to 12th, and made a second trip out on course with overnight runner-up Vitali, who made his sophomore start at five star today. Though today’s track was an undeniable step up from Luhmühlen, where he debuted and made a top ten finish earlier this year, he excelled himself, adding just 5.2 time to remain in spitting distance of the win overnight.

“I had a lovely time out there with him,” says Tim. “I didn’t know what to expect — he’s an inexperienced horse at this level, and particularly [at a course like] Burghley. I really wanted it to be an experience that I could take forward into future Burghley’s and future five-star competitions. Around every corner it was unexpected how it was going to go for us, but he kept delivering and kept getting in the air and picking up the distances. I’ve learnt a lot, and I can do things differently in the future with him, in terms of leaving out the odd stride and things. But I think it was the right round for him on his first attempt; you’ve got to do that around here, first and foremost, and set them up for the future.”

By the latter part of the course, where the technicality eased up considerably in favour of big, bold, galloping fences, Tim was able to put more pressure on the horse, who stepped up to the plate with aplomb.

“I’m thrilled with the way he came home,” he says. “We were a lot more down on the clock [earlier in the course] than where we ended up, and I think that’s a credit to both of us, actually: in the first half of the course I just let him settle in and gave him time, and then I was really able to ride him home and he just stayed up in front. I’m pleasantly surprised and excited for the future.”

Though Bango’s round earlier in the day proved a useful fact-finding mission — and a great confidence boost for the rest of the field, who watched it closely from the riders’ tent — it didn’t actually have any effect on the way Tim structured his plan with the very different, considerably lighter-feeling Vitali.

“Bango warmed up my upper body and my forearms for me,” says Tim with a laugh. “And he did give me a feel for the course. The ground was lovely, and the terrain, which I hold in almost the highest regard when it comes to riding around Burghley, so I was lucky to have him to get out there and get ready for my next guy.”

Though twelve-year-old Vitali has a number of impressive cross-country rounds under his belt already — including swift clears at the Tokyo Olympics and Luhmühlen CCI5* and CCI4*-S — the final phase has historically been the trickiest. The pair will go into the final phase just 3.5 penalties behind Piggy and Vanir Kamira, who can certainly be prone to a pole, and with a rail in hand ahead of their next closest competition. They may yet need it — but Tim feels confident that the gelding is going in the right direction.

“The thing is that it’s all about partnership at this level, and we’re not even quite two years into this partnership,” says Tim, whose round today was just his fifth FEI cross-country run with the horse. “I’ve learned a lot through the high-profile events we’ve been through together already, and this is the first time I’ve felt I’ve really had him relaxed and happy and healthy into the competition and through the competition. He’s an athlete, but he’s not the world’s greatest jumper, and he’s not a few things, but he’s a very, very good athlete with a lot of ability. I think tomorrow’s going to be a good day for him, and it could be a nice event for him to take forward into the rest of his five-star career.”

Jonelle Price and Classic Moet deliver the only clear inside the time of the day – despite a significant kit malfunction. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Just one horse and rider made the time today, and you’d win no prizes for guessing that it was Jonelle Price and Classic Moet, who have been dubbed the fastest partnership in the sport over their long, fruitful career together. But while coming back three seconds under the time was enormously impressive in its own right, what makes this such a remarkable accomplishment is that they managed it without a stopwatch.

“I guess flat batteries happen, but you hope they don’t happen when you leave the start box at Burghley,” says Jonelle wryly. “It was a bit of shock horror when I looked at my watch and there was nothing to be seen. It kindly beeped for me for the first three minutes, and then it gave up the ghost completely, so I was running blind — but I guess there’s something to be said for getting up into a true rhythm, trying to stay there, and riding some economical lines. I know she’s a quick horse, but I had absolutely no idea when I crossed the finish whether I’d achieved something or nothing, or what I was in for.”

There’s an awful lot to be said for the power of a long-term partnership — and Jonelle’s partnership with the British-bred 19-year-old spans ten five-stars, over the course of which they’ve accumulated just six time penalties and come home inside the time seven times.

“I’m partnered with one of the best in the business, and if I can’t deliver on her, then it’s all on my shoulders,” she says. The strength of their performance today allowed them to shoot up the leaderboard from overnight 25th place to third. “She lives for the Saturday, really, and the rest is always sort of a necessary evil in her mind. But she showed her class again today. It felt like a tough endurance test today, but then she is getting on in years, and maybe that played a little part for me. But she just kept jumping, and kept fighting, and most of all, she kept galloping. That’s what you really need around a track like Burghley.”

Like Vanir Kamira ahead of her, the 2018 Badminton winner is an inauspicious stamp of a horse to look at — but it’s her brain, her gumption, and her irascible toughness that make her one of the horses that’s defined a generation of eventing.

“She’s nothing special in terms of scope or stride or anything — she’s just all heart and determination, and she looks for those flags. She’s so experienced now, and it really is just a pleasure and an honour to partner her. There’s no one else you’d rather be on,” says Jonelle.

Also like Vanir Kamira ahead of her — and Vitali, too — Classic Moet isn’t necessarily a conventional, or even particularly reliable, show jumper, and memorably tapped her way to her first international clear in four years when winning Badminton.

“I’m not as confident walking into the showjumping arena by any stretch of the imagination, but she’s learnt her craft over the years. She’s pretty unique in the way that she jumps; it’s not particularly conventional, and if you see her standing up she’s sort of upside-down and back-to-front, which isn’t the most conducive to dressage or showjumping. But she comes in with the same attitude, and she tries to give it her best — and I know she’ll do the same tomorrow.”

Tom Jackson and Capels Hollow Drift make a serious move into contention. Photo by Libby Law.

Hard-working Tom Jackson has been waiting in the wings for his chance to step into the spotlight at this level, and it feels as though his moment is coming now that the excellent Capels Hollow Drift has come along. The pair looked exceptional at Badminton this spring, where they ultimately finished sixteenth after picking up a 30.3 dressage score, ten time penalties, and a rail — but this week, we’ve seen him excel himself in every way.

“He was just another level today,” says Tom, who stepped up from thirteenth on a 28.9 to fourth after putting just 3.6 time penalties on the board today. “He came out of Badminton having gained that experience during that trip, and I was hoping that would stand him in good stead for here — and it absolutely did. He came home really strong.”

Though much of their round was smooth sailing, ‘Walshy’ had to take the experience he’d gained at Badminton and use it to dig deep at the tough Trout Hatchery at 10ABCDEF, which was the first water complex on the course.

“I saw quite a moving stride at the Trout Hatchery at the corner at the bottom, which meant that my turn was then quite tight to the second element,” explains Tom. “But he was really good there — he jumped in and got through very nicely.”

The pair were held on course just before the colossal complex of rails midway round at the Maltings, which marked the first time the gelding had been pulled up on course — but it also allowed Tom to rejig one of his original plans and give the gelding the best possible experience around the track.

“I’d liked to think that he’d be quite good in that scenario, and he was, luckily. He’s quite a relaxed, chilled out horse, so it gave him a bit of time to recover; then, as soon as I said ‘go’ again, he was off,” says Tom. “I had planned to the big rails to the corner [at the Maltings], but because he was held, I’d walked the hedge to the corner and thought that might be more sensible to get him going again.”

Ros Canter’s Pencos Crown Jewel overcomes her stage fright to step into the top five. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Ros Canter and the impressive Pencos Crown Jewel stepped up from sixth to fifth place after coming home with twelve time penalties — despite a tricky start to their round. They were held at the start while fence repairs were undertaken on the course, which shook the sensitive mare’s focus and meant that Ros had to take longer settling her into the track.

“That’s not ideal for her, because she really dislikes people and horses — and two people finished while I was waiting,” says Ros. “So she came out of the start box and over fences two and three it felt like she kind of nose-dived. So from that point on I was like, ‘hang on, let’s just quit with the speed for a second and just get her settled.’ I knew she wouldn’t enjoy Defender Valley very much, because it’s so narrow and there’s so many people there, so I was fairly careful there. She was quite nervous, looking left and right, but from that point on, she really got into gear.”

That feeling allowed Ros to take a calculated risk: “I got a great shot over the parallel [at 6], and I’d been 50/50 about whether I was going to even try the straight route at the Leaf Pit, but she was like, ‘hang on tight!’ — and from that point, I was hanging on tight! She was off like a rocket.”

With further experience — and a less fraught start box experience — Ros is confident that ‘Jasmine’ will return as a horse who can fight for a fast finish over even the toughest of tracks.

“Without a shadow of a doubt, she has the speed and the stamina to go inside the time, but she’s bum-high in her confirmation, and she’s a bit like a hare going uphill, which means she’s like a hare going downhill, too. She can lose the balance, and so I feel like I have to be a bit careful, because she would throw herself at anything. But in time, she’ll absolutely go inside the time.”

Kitty King and Vendredi Biats suffer disappointment and elation in one round. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Dressage leaders Kitty King and Vendredi Biats will go into tomorrow’s showjumping in sixth place after arguably the best round we’ve ever seen them deliver — but one that was marred by one costly stumble at the Fairfax & Favor Bootrack rails at 19A. Like several other horses before him, ‘Froggy’ didn’t quite make the full spread of the fence and ultimately touched down on the pinned back rail, picking up 11 penalties.

“I’m gutted and thrilled — confusing emotions, really,” says Kitty. “He was absolutely fantastic and gave me a superb ride, but he just made a mistake at the rails. I’m not sure what he did; I think he just misread the rails, which is very unlike him — he’s an incredibly careful horse. But it’s just one of those things. He didn’t deserve it; he’s kind of been unlucky all the way through, and I really thought it was going to be our time. It just wasn’t to be.”

But Kitty, who heads into the final day on one of the field’s best show jumpers, was somewhat mollified by a reminder that she’s in good company: “I spoke to my mother, and she reminded me of Michael Jung’s pin at Tokyo — it happens to the best of them, and I can’t take anything away from the horse. He was absolutely brilliant.”

And Froggy, who has been consistently competitive for two years now after a stint of occasional naughtiness in his younger years, certainly proved that he’s a top-class bit of kit with a top-class jockey on board today.

“He did everything I asked of him, and he was absolutely foot-perfect at the Leaf Pit, which I was pretty worried about,” Kitty says. “He was making it feel so easy, and I was thinking what a nice ride we were having. I’d spoken to Piggy, and she’d said, ‘it feels horrific the whole time, like you’re in a tumble dryer the whole time!’ — so I was galloping up to the Maltings thinking, ‘I must be going way too slow, because Pig told me it’d feel horrific, and this actually feels really enjoyable!'”

Bubby Upton and Cola chase the clock on the home stretch. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

23-year-old Bubby Upton has had her share of learning experiences at five-star since stepping up at the tail end of 2021, and today, the recent graduate of Edinburgh University showed that she’s an excellent student. She and her Young Riders partner Cola, with whom she’s completed Pau and Badminton, looked a picture around Derek di Grazia’s tough track, adding 10 time penalties to hoist themselves from 11th to seventh place going into the final day.

“What a horse,” says an emotional Bubby, who rode with a maturity well beyond her years while navigating the tough combinations on course. “His stride really is enormous, so I have to be careful of who I watch and how many I watch, because whenever anyone else makes a distance look long or doable, I know that he can actually make it easier than that. Having a horse with that kind of stride around here actually makes it a whole lot easier.”

Like many of the younger riders in the field, Bubby sought out advice from one of her fellow competitors, which allowed her to analyse her horse’s performance throughout the round and make decisions accordingly. That meant that Cola crossed the finish line full of running, and visibly recovered in just minutes as we watched on from the mixed media zone.

“I was surprised, because he felt pretty tired coming out of the Trout Hatchery and up that hill,” says Bubby, “but I spoke to Piggy about it and she said that Vanir Kamira wasn’t taking the bridle there, either. So I just thought, ‘I’ll bear with it’, and then he jumped the boot [at 12] and picked up steam to the rails and corner up at the top. He’s only 40% blood, and he’s only 16.1hh, but he’s got a heart of gold, and that’s all that matters.”

Alice Casburn and Topspin add another excellent round to their resume at five-star. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

20-year-old Alice Casburn was born just one year before overnight third-placed Classic Moet, which is a fact we don’t recommend thinking about for too long if you don’t want to feel 180 years old, but she gave us all a chance to feel young again as we cheered her and her homebred, Topspin, around a track she’d been quietly sick on just days before. She needn’t have worried, really; on their five-star debut at Pau last year (when she was just nineteen, and the rest of us were already drowning ourselves in eye creams), they jumped an excellent clear to finish nineteenth, and at Badminton this spring, they did the same to finish in exactly the same position. Today, though, Alice knew that the technical intensity of the first part of the track wouldn’t necessarily suit her big, strong Thoroughbred particularly well.

“He came out a little bit stronger than I would have liked,” says Alice. “At Blair, for example, you’ve got a big hill at the start, and because he’s quite blood, I like to take the edge off him. So I found the first bit quite difficult, but I’m lucky with him that he’s so honest. Some people say they run themselves into trouble, but you don’t mind it if they jump themselves out of it. Once we’d got up the hill after Defender Valley, he was absolutely phenomenal.”

From then on, Alice and the gelding, who only began eventing three years ago, slipped into their familiar rhythms, looking after one another when they needed to.

“I jumped a little bit big into the Trout Hatchery, and I came straight around the corner like, ‘oh, sorry!’ and growling a little bit, but he just popped in and made the distance lovely,” she says. “He’s a serious class of horse, and he’s got the heart as well. I did stick to plan A [all the way around], but I wouldn’t say I sticked to plan A on all the strides I would have quite liked! But he was amazing — I’m so lucky that when I came around the corner and there wasn’t really a stride or a line, he was like ‘hold my beer!’ He took me straight through it, and even at the end, everyone said you’ve got to see if they’ve got that extra bit of run in them, and he really took me.”

Their 6.8 time penalties rocketed them up the leaderboard from 30th to eighth place, and came after a significant five-star personal best of 33.6 in the first phase. Those are hardly Alice’s first major accomplishments of the year: after that excellent Badminton finish, which earned Alice the Glentrool trophy for the highest climb and the under-25 prize, too, she and Topspin headed to the Young Rider European Championships, where they earned team gold and individual bronze.

“I said to mum, ‘I feel like I’m overdue a bad run!’,” she laughs. “I know that sounds awful, but that’s the reality of riding — and so to have a year like this on him, with three five-stars in nine months, is quite something. I’m forever grateful to him, and I can’t quite believe I’m here. I still look back at those weeks and think, ‘that wasn’t me!’ I watch the videos, but it’s like I’m watching someone else in my head.”

But Alice’s run of great results comes after a battle with nerves that she’s learned to accept and work with — with the occasional help and advice of the elder statesmen of the sport.

“It doesn’t get any easier, and I spoke to Pippa earlier and she told me it never gets any easier. But that makes you feel better because sometimes I worry that I’m more uptight than I should be. I was nervous, but it seemed to pay off,” she says. “I’ve had to work quite hard on it. I went through a time in 2019 where I wasn’t quite having the results I wanted, and that was mainly because I came out of the startbox cold, if that makes sense. I’d come out slow and nervous, and then I’d get halfway around and be fine, but obviously the start was never great. So I just sort of found something that worked for me, whether that’s listening to music or having a quiet time, and ever since then, I stick to it and it normally works.”

Pippa Funnell jumps the last with Majas Hope. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Pippa Funnell herself had two excellent rounds, first with the rangy, occasionally shy Billy Walk On, who was second out of the box and slipped just out of the top ten after adding 19.6 time penalties, and then with stalwart campaigner Majas Hope, who stepped up from tenth to ninth with 12.8 time penalties.

“If Piggy was on top, or Tom, or one of those young ones, he’d have made the time, I’m sure,” says Pippa with a grin. “I hold up my hand: I think that’s where experience now means that in those places where I balance, I probably take a little bit of speed away, and the one extra bit of balance coming down to the pardubice or the big box before the last water are the little things that add up.”

But, she concedes, those little things are also part of what ensures she can get two horses safely home around Burghley with clear rounds under their belts.

“It’s exactly that, and I feel desperately sorry for Oliver, because I saw his fall [on Tregilder] and he did nothing wrong — it’s just that he was riding to the clock. I saw that, and it reminded me not to do that.”

Wills Oakden and Oughterard Cooley through the Lion Bridge. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Wills Oakden and Oughterard Cooley made fine work of their Burghley debut, delivering a fast — occasionally blisteringly so — round for ten time penalties, boosting them from 26th place to overnight tenth.

“It was hard work, but bless him, he just kept gritting his teeth and kept trying as hard as he possibly could, and we’re so proud of him for it,” says Wills, who travelled down from Scotland to debut the gelding at his first five-star. “He kept giving his all. He’s normally very quick, and what helped me, probably, is that I was out of control for three minutes! He was going — and he just kept going. Fair play to him, because that was a long way, and a lot of big fences.”

Cornelia Dorr and Daytona Beach 8 impress in their first five-star. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

There’s nothing that says Burghley more than a Saturday climbing session, and US five-star debutante Cornelia Dorr certainly made sure she packed her ascenders and carabiners for her round with Daytona Beach 8. Though a disappointing dressage mark of 39 had put them out of the hunt in 50th place, their quick, committed round and 8.4 time penalties allowed them to scurry straight up the cliff face into 16th.

“I’m pretty elated — it was really fun. She just did everything so well that I think I smiled the whole way around,” says Cornelia, who sourced the former Sandra Auffarth ride through Dirk Schrade, and has since made her US team debut with the mare at Houghton Hall this spring. But although that was valuable experience — and an enormous milestone for Cornelia — it wasn’t the main aim of this year’s stint in the UK, where she’s been based with Australia’s Kevin McNab: “I came over in January with the goal of doing a five-star, and Kevin was always making an argument for Burghley, and I was like, ‘oh, we’ll see!’ I made him walk it with me like, six times!”

Though Daytona Beach often looked to have just one gear — sixth — around the course, her fast footwork, quick thinking, and gutsy, clever riding from Cornelia meant that they pulled it off through even the toughest combinations. And even in the exhausting latter stages of the course, the mare kept on running with her ears pricked.

“The Trout Hatchery was chaotic, but she just got it. All the riders that have ridden here said the horses tire around the Maltings, but they pick up a second wind after that, and she really did. She was definitely more tired than I’ve felt her, but she was pretty spritely [at the finish] even still.”

Cornelia, like her American compatriots, is familiar with Derek di Grazia’s course design, and that helped her to make a plan for how best to tackle his first Burghley track.

“Derek sets the course so that if you hit your minutes, you know that you’re in a proper canter for the course — so I just kept it in mind a little bit. But I think I was behind on my minutes for most of the way around, and I guess she had a really good pace. It didn’t feel easy, but what a partner: she picked up where I didn’t and we just had each other’s backs. It’s really surreal — the experience she just gave me was the experience of a lifetime. It was incredible.”

Emily Hamel and Corvett nail a year-end goal with a clear at Burghley. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Emily Hamel and Corvett were able to leap from 41st to 23rd place after picking up 30.4 time penalties — but upon arriving through the finish flags Emily, who’s been based in the UK with Canada’s Mike and Emma Winter this year, wasn’t sure whether to celebrate or not. She was initially awarded 20 penalties at the Trout Hatchery after making a last minute call to go the long route at the B element when ‘Barry’ delivered one of his characteristic big jumps in, ballooning Emily nearly out of the tack and making the straight route a near impossibility.

“He just jumped into the water funny, and then I pulled out to do the B option,” she says, but: “he was so good — he just kept going and trying, and I’m so glad I’m here with that horse.”

Emily came over to the UK in the spring to tackle Badminton, which she and Barry completed with a 20. Their summer has been spent training and competing in the heart of the sport, which prepared them well to come tackle the biggest challenge of their careers.

“It was tough, and I would say that’s the most tired I’ve been after a cross-country course, but it was really cool to go through the finish flags,” she says. Comforting, too, was the fact that Derek di Grazia had built the course — and Emily and her scopey gelding had previously had success over his five-star track at Kentucky. “It’s very similar — he rewards positive, forward riding, although this was a whole different level of difficulty. It was a real test, but Corvett’s so quick-footed that he just figured it all out — and he tried his heart out.”

Meghan O’Donoghue and Palm Crescent make easy work of much of Derek di Grazia’s track. Photo by Libby Law.

Meghan O’Donoghue picked up a frustrating 20 penalties at the Maltings complex after her ex-racehorse, Palm Crescent, jumped her out of the tack over the wide oxer at 14A, making the line to the open corner at B unjumpable. They slipped down ten places to 25th after adding a further 35.6 time penalties in a round that looked otherwise full of positives.

“I got jumped out of the tack over the oxer, and I wanted to get my head up and make it happen and pull off something incredible, but it wasn’t going to happen,” says Meghan. “He was absolutely incredible, though. The beginning comes up at you really quickly, and it’s a bit relentless, honestly — the horses really have to be on your side from the beginning, and there weren’t any places where you were going to make them into a five-star horse that day. That was probably Derek’s point — he didn’t want it to go any other way. Palmer was fighting for me from the beginning, and I’m thrilled to have had this experience. Hopefully I’ll be a better rider from it, and show up a little better from it.”

Tomorrow sees the final horse inspection start an exciting day of action from 9.30 a.m. BST/4.30 a.m. EST. We’ll bring you all the updates you need to know, plus full reports from the showjumping finale, right here on EN. Go Eventing.

The top ten after an exciting, influential day of cross-country at Burghley.

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Tim Price and Vitali soar into the lead on Friday morning. Photo by Libby Law.

When a rather gammy-kneed Sarah Bullimore posted a 22.5 with her tiny homebred Corouet yesterday afternoon, she threw down a gauntlet that could well have been unsurpassable — but today’s dressage got started with a serious bang as Tim Price, the first rider of the day, stormed straight into the lead with his Tokyo mount, Vitali. Their score of 21.3 becomes the third test this week to go into the top five all-time tests at this venue — but although the elegant gelding is always a serious contender on the flat, a great performance in an atmosphere as close and intense as Burghley’s isn’t always guaranteed with this horse. Today, though, he met the crowds confidently, delivering some of the best work we’ve seen from him, and earning Tim his best-ever five-star score in the process.

“He was great — he was very rideable in there,” says Tim. “To be fair to him, he’s a funny horse: when he goes into black horse mode, which is when he sort of loses focus, it’s there right through the session with him, and right through the warm-up. But normally, when he warms up like [he did today], he goes in and delivers, so I’m glad he did that here with such a big stage to put him off his game, but it didn’t. He stayed with me and was on his game, and it was good fun.”

Oliver Townend’s Tregilder rewards his owners’ dedication. Photo by Libby Law.

Much of the top ten remained unchanged this morning, with second, third, and fourth places currently held by yesterday’s one-two-three of Sarah, Piggy March and Vanir Kamira, and Pippa Funnell and Billy Walk On, respectively. But a sweet test from Oliver Townend‘s first ride, the twelve-year-old Tregilder, earned them a 27.5 that allowed them to slide into provisional fifth place. For Oliver, who debuted Tregilder at the level in last year’s Bicton replacement for Burghley, it’s a particularly good pay-off for the horse’s owners, who have been among his most stalwart supporters.

“I’m very proud to have him here,” says Oliver. “He’s been with us since he was four years old, so we’ve been through a lot together, and I’m happy to have him here for the Hazeldene family, who’ve been with me for over fifteen years. It’s been a long road of very loyal support by them to get the horse to this level, so it’s special.”

Oliver, who has previously won Burghley on two occasions, has always been a vocal supporter of Kentucky’s CCI5* and its designer, Derek di Grazia, who takes the reins here for the first time with a new-look, technical track — and one that Oliver himself is excited to get stuck into with his two rides.

“It’s obviously still got the undulations, and I’m a huge fan of Derek di Grazia — I’ve had plenty of nice experience around his courses in Kentucky,” he says. “I have 100% trust in him as a designer; there’s no tricks or hidden agendas, it’s there to be jumped. It’s a very fair course, but it is huge, and it’s a seriously technical test — plus the undulations, plus you’re against the clock. It’s going to be tough.”

Bubby Upton learns to embrace the heat with Cola. Photo by Libby Law.

23-year-old Bubby Upton has had a few real ‘nearly’ moments at this level this year, including leading the dressage at Luhmühlen with Cannavaro, but her first Burghley with Cola — and her second CCI5* since graduating from Edinburgh University — has got off to an exciting start, with a 28.3 on the board and a provisional sixth-place standing.

“I wanted to be sub-30, and he was, so I’m really pleased with him,” says Bubby. “There’s still so much more to come, which is so exciting. Like, the right to left flying change is still iffy, but he’s got so much potential. That sounds strange to say about a twelve-year-old, that there’s more to come, but hopefully next year, we’ll see the best of him!”

We last saw Cola, with whom Bubby twice rode at the Young Rider European Championships, at this level back in May, when he contested Badminton — but there, he went flat in the ring, scoring an uncharacteristically high 36 as a result. Today, Bubby opted to shave her warm-up right down, hoping that a soupçon of freshness might solve the issue.

“I think we hit the nail on the head [today], to be honest. He did a really good test at the start of the year at Oasby, and I haven’t been able to get that since; I overworked him at Badminton, because I thought he’d go in and the crowds would lift him, but he couldn’t give a flying monkey’s about the crowds. So today, I said to my trainer, Amy Woodhead, that we were going to have to risk it. We did fifteen minutes in here and then went in, and he was spot on.”

It’s partly due to dressage rider Amy’s influence that Bubby has been able to revolutionise her approach to this phase, particularly after logging some serious miles in the saddle of several of the rider’s upper-level dressage horses.

“Amy’s been great and has really taken me under her wing and let me ride some amazing horses,” says Bubby. “It just makes a huge difference riding those dressage horses, because it makes you realise how much work you’ve got to do to get [the eventers] to that place. I’ve been able to play around with four, three, and two-time changes, and her horses are just so sharp off  your aids that you then get on your own horse and expect the same.”

That’s paid dividends, particularly with Cola, who isn’t necessarily built to find this phase easy.

“It’s helped me to get him way more in front of the leg, because actually, he can only really give a maximum of like, twenty minutes,” says Bubby. “He gets really tired, because he’s actually a really long horse — although he doesn’t really look it because most people only see him when he looks pretty in the ring! But he does find it hard to stay short and compact, so it’s made me get him way more fired up. I’ve learned not to be afraid of them being hot. I’m learning to like that.”

Ireland’s Susie Berry demonstrates why she’s the next Piggy March with Ringwood LB. Photo by Libby Law.

It’s been a good day to be a young up-and-coming superstar, and Bubby was joined in the top ten by Ireland’s excellent Susie Berry, who posted a 29.3 for eighth with the former Jonty Evans ride Ringwood LB.

“I’m over the moon with him, to be honest,” she says. “There’s way more to come; he’s a really flash horse and so naturally, out of any of my string, he’d be the one that would find dressage the easiest, but sometimes it takes a bit of persuasion.”

That mixture of a tendency towards laziness and the occasional bolt of sharpness makes ‘Alby’ much less straightforward to ride than he might appear from the outset — but he comes into his own in long-format events, particularly when there’s a buzz about the place.

“He was actually spooking a bit at the clapping and everything, but as soon as I have him into canter and concentrating he really does [cope well]. He’s done a lot of four-stars, so he’s seen a lot of atmosphere, and I do think he grows with the atmosphere. Doing one-day events with him is sometimes a bit of a pain, to be honest — I have to do a lot of kicking and flapping to stay on track! But a little bit of a crowd and atmosphere brings him to life.”

Susie, who made her five-star debut at Badminton this year with John the Bull, and who’ll ride Monbeg by Design at next month’s World Championships, has found her first experiences of Burghley slightly daunting so far.

“The first time I walked [the course] I was like, ‘no, I’m just going to go home; this is ridiculous!’ But when I walked it yesterday with a clear mind, I thought we could give it a good go. But it’s definitely very different than any course I’ve done before,” she says.

We’ve got one session of dressage left to go, with thirteen combinations lined up to try to usurp those at the top end of the board from 13.45 p.m. BST/8.45 a.m. EST. Want to try to catch the highlights? Here are our picks of the bunch:

• Kitty King and Vendredi Biats – 14.25 p.m. BST/9.25 a.m. EST
• Ros Canter and Pencos Crown Jewel – 15.05 p.m. BST/10.05 a.m. EST
• Tom McEwen and CHF Cooliser – 15.29 p.m. BST/10.29 a.m. EST
• Tim Price and Polystar I – 15.37 p.m. BST/10.37 a.m. EST
• Oliver Townend and Swallow Springs – 15.45 p.m. BST/10.45 a.m. EST

We’ll be back with a full end-of-day report — plus, an in-depth look at tomorrow’s cross-country challenge. Until then: Go Eventing!

The top ten at the midway point of day two at Burghley.

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Sarah Bullimore’s 15.2hh homebred Corouet swaps cockiness for responsibility in a stellar test. Photo by Libby Law.

This morning’s first session of dressage brought us plenty to get excited about, with three tests sneaking below the 30 barrier and a barrage of talent to come — but it’s been the afternoon session that’s really kicked Burghley up a notch. Most thrillingly of all, we were treated to two tests that made it into the top five all-time best Burghley tests — and though they initially tied for top spot, a slight revision in the scores pushed Sarah Bullimore and her diminutive homebred Corouet into the top spot on a 22.5, just a tenth of a penalty ahead of Piggy March and her 2019 Badminton champion Vanir Kamira.

“He was amazing — he actually really listened to me and was on side,” says Sarah, who is battling through a period of unsoundness herself after a fall at Wellington Horse Trials earlier in the week saw her take a stud to the knee. “He actually looked after me. I’ve not come here in the best state to perform, but he was great in there — that’s probably the best test we’ve performed all year. Last year our confidence was on a high and he was pulling it out of the bag, but this year, he came out very cocky and arrogant, and he’s just felt like he thought I was a hindrance to him. And perhaps I was enough of a hindrance to him that he felt he ought to carry me today because I was injured — I don’t know.”

Sarah Bullimore and Corouet. Photo by Libby Law.

Last year’s season of highs saw Corouet, who Sarah bred from her 2015 European Championships ride Lilly Corinne, go sub-20 in a CCI4*-S at Burgham and, most notably, take individual bronze at the Europeans, but this year, he’s had rather more of an educational season. That was compounded in his five-star debut at Kentucky earlier this year, where he sat second going into cross-country but began to go into orbit over the solid fences, eventually picking up a 20 after running out of room in a combination. The precocious gelding has no shortage of talent, though, and it’s not hard to imagine that the experience may have helped to temper and shape his unique case of Small Man Syndrome. For Sarah, who has a wealth of mileage at this level, most prolifically accrued with Reve du Rouet — who shares a sire with Corouet — it’s particularly special to have her homebred at an event like this, particularly because he is so different to his half-brother.

“He knows he’s special, and he just goes in there and says, ‘watch me, everybody!’ He loves the crowd, and he doesn’t actually want to come back out of the main arena — he’s so laid back in there, which is very different from his big brother, who does his test and can’t wait to get out! Corouet has such belief in himself, but he’s always right,” she says. “It’s amazing — I’ve known him since he was born, and that makes it so special. He’s such a huge, massive character, and he doesn’t realise he’s quite small, so he doesn’t feel small when you ride him. He has a huge stride, and so you forget [he’s small] until you leap off and hit the ground sooner than you expect to!”

Now, Sarah is planning to spend her Friday nursing her injured knee, which is getting incrementally better by the hour despite being packed full of iodine-soaked dressing to mitigate any risk of infection.

“Yesterday I couldn’t walk up and down stairs or do rising trot — but fortunately, you don’t have to do that in this test,” she laughs. “It wasn’t the best preparation, but to be fair, I’ve been quite lucky as to where it is — I could easily have fractured something, but there’s luck and then there’s luck, isn’t there? It’s quite stiff and sore at the moment, and very bruised; it looks quite a pretty picture, but it is getting better daily, and we’re just going to keep on icing it and seeing the physio.”

Piggy March and Vanir Kamira hit the first of their goals for the week with a five-star personal best. Photo by Libby Law.

Piggy March came to Burghley with every intention of delivering a big test with her Badminton winner, seventeen-year-old Vanir Kamira, but a five-star personal best of 22.6 was probably beyond the realm of even her own imagination.

“As we came out of the arena I gave her a big hug and a kiss — I just couldn’t really believe it, bless her little heart,” says Piggy. “There’s plenty of pressure that I put on myself for this week, and I was hoping and praying that she’d get a PB because she’s felt great this year. Badminton was one of our best tests and she’s just felt good; she looks amazing, she’s strong, and she’s been working so well that I thought she really deserved it.”

Although ‘Tillybean’ is looking at her very best this season, much rides on the strength of the warm-up — and her preparation for her test today didn’t fill Piggy with confidence.

“Just before I went in, I felt that I hadn’t got her totally where I wanted to,” she says. “She felt quite hot, and she was sneezing quite a lot. She suddenly gets in quite a sweat, even though everyone from the outside would think she looked very calm and nice. But she’s been in these main arenas now a few times for laps of on our and things like that, and it doesn’t take much for them to know it’s an occasion.”

Piggy March and Vanir Kamira. Photo by Libby Law.

After the first movement in the test, though, Piggy and Tillybean rallied — though Piggy confesses that producing the goods today took some seriously hard graft.

“I didn’t love my first centreline; it was straight, but she just went to pull herself up and halt early. That’s something I’ve struggled with all her life, because she’s a mare that half-halts herself and goes a bit swishy and croup-high in every transition, and it takes a lot of attention to detail to stop her doing it. So I thought, ‘oh, balls, I’ve not got her on the button today.’ There’s always such a fine line with her, and I thought I was on the wrong side of that. But then I just thought, ‘get on with it and believe — ears up, sit down, hands together, breathe, ride it, just go through it.’ And she kept on the right side of the line — but for me, personally, it felt like the hardest test I’ve ever ridden on her, because it felt like I was on the edge. Whether that was just a mental thing, because I was so desperate for it to go as well as it can today… I’m not one that normally minds pressure, but she’s getting to the end of her days, so I really was desperate for it to be good.”

Piggy often fondly describes the mare as ‘a pain in the ass 362 days of the year’ or ‘a scopeless yak’, variously, but the gutsy mare is a classic long-format horse: when it really counts, she’s able to overcome her physical hindrances and get the job done, with a little help from her friend.

“She’s got a neck and a backside on her, and as a six-year-old, she couldn’t go on the bit for more than two minutes because of how she’s built. So trying to get her to lift her ears and come up in front, well, you can only manufacture that for so long. It’s just taken that much time and consistent training, but it’s bloody hard. They start to go on their head, and then you start to hold them, and then they’re like, ‘hold me more!’ and then you hold more — my brain’s going overtime the whole time; I felt like I was about to explode, and then I was like, ‘thank fuck that’s over!’ She felt hot enough, but that probably made the changes a bit more expressive, and she kept her rhythm in the medium trots, and it was just good. For Tillybean, a 22 at this level! That could easily be even better, but I don’t care — I’m just so proud.”

Zara Tindall’s Class Affair becomes a man in Burghley’s main arena. Photo by Libby Law.

Zara Tindall‘s sometimes tempestuous Class Affair stepped up to the plate in a major way today, delivering a five-star personal best of 28.4 to take overnight fourth, 2.2 penalties behind third-placed Pippa Funnell and Billy Walk On.

“He’s always had the potential, but sometimes his brain takes over a bit — and it did, a little bit, in a couple of the movements [today], but he came back and was much calmer than he’s ever been in there,” she says. “I’m just delighted to be under 30!”

Class Affair comes forward for his third crack at five-star this week after debuting here in 2019 — but ending his day at the Leaf Pit — and then travelling to Maryland last year, where he completed with 20 penalties. There have been hints throughout his career that a very good test might be simmering away under the surface, and it’s now, as a thirteen-year-old, that he seems to be coming into his zenith.

“The last time I came here he was a ten-year-old, so he was very green. We’ve spent a long time with him — he’s pretty crazy in the brain, so he’s quite tricky. He can be really towing you and then just suddenly drop behind your leg, so that’s quite difficult, but he’s been going really well. We’ve just been truing to keep him comfortable, because he gets quite tense, and trying to be consistent with him.”

Zara credits dressage riders Carl Hester and Amy Woodhead with helping her to get the best out of the gelding: “I actually send my horses to Amy in the winter like, ‘please can you get them on the bit?!’,” she laughs. “Amy’s been based with Carl, so she trains how he would, and she’s brilliant. Both of them just make it fun, so it’s not like, ‘oh god, I’ve got to go for dressage lessons.’ They also understand the difference between their horses and event horses — they know that our horses might not be quite as capable, but actually, they can do what they want us to do.”

Meghan O’Donoghue and Palm Crescent fly the flag for ex-racehorses with a sparkling personal best. Photo by Libby Law.

There are few horses who so wholly represent the classic American Thoroughbred as well as gutsy, tenacious Palm Crescent, who raced on the flat more than 20 times before starting his second career with the USA’s Meghan O’Donoghue – but his undeniable reliability across the country hasn’t always been matched by a natural inclination to perform on the flat. That all changed today, though, when the pair slipped sub-30 for the first time at this level, producing a sweet, smart test that earned them a 29.6 and put them into fifth place overnight.

“I’m ecstatic with him,” says Meghan. “He was absolutely phenomenal. He’s a performer, so he knows when we’re at a big competition, and we’ve been ticking away at this phase because this would be the hardest bit for him.”

Like many Thoroughbreds, with their busy, clever brains and endless well of effort to give, Palmer is at his best when he’s able to set up shop at a competition for the week, rather than chasing the quick thrills of a short-format: “I think that he’s at a point in his career where he really thrives from the set-up of a big three-day — he comes here, he has his groom, he’s all she thinks about, and he gets all of his things and rises to the occasion.”

Meghan O’Donoghue and Palm Crescent. Photo by Libby Law.

Meghan, who made her team debut — and enjoyed her first experience of eventing abroad since her travels with old friend Pirate back in 2013 and 2014 — at CHIO Aachen in July, has stayed put in the UK since in order to prepare for her second crack at Burghley (she started the event in 2014 with Pirate but ended her weekend early on cross country).

“We’ve had an amazing support crew over here; after Aachen, I was able to stay over here at Rebecca Howard’s place near Marlborough [Wiltshire],” she says. While she’s been there, she’s focused on the marginal gains that would steer her sixteen-year-old partner to his best-ever performance on the flat.

“It’s mostly been about the suppleness and where he is in his head, and that would kind of be the case for Thoroughbred horses that have had a relentless beginning. You can’t really blame him for it, because he’s not really built to do it, either,” she explains. Now, with an excellent starting score on the board, she can focus completely on Saturday’s tough cross-country course, on which she hopes to replicate the speedy clears they’ve delivered in all three of their previous five-star runs. This time, she’ll have the added challenge of Burghley’s unique, relentless terrain — but there’s nothing she’d rather be sitting on than a Thoroughbred full of gumption.

“I got to have a run at Hartpury in the four short as his last prep for this, and so I’ve had a little taste of the terrain over here,” she says. “He went super well there, and I have no reason to doubt him — he’s showed up for me every day that I’ve asked him to, so I’ll just do the best piloting job that I can and look after him.”

Tom Rowland’s ‘cobby’ Possible Mission delivers his best to sit in the top ten. Photo by Libby Law.

Tests from this morning’s competitors make up much of the lower half of the top ten: pathfinders Tim Price and Bango and the USA’s Woods Baughman and C’est la Vie 135 sit in equal sixth on 29.8, while France’s Rodolphe Scherer and Song du Magay hold eighth on 30.4. 25-year-old Harry Mutch and HD Bronze are ninth overnight on 30.8, while Great Britain’s Tom Rowland rounds out the top ten after delivering a five-star personal best of 31.2 with his longtime partner Possible Mission, who’s the sort of horse who wouldn’t look out of place in the hunting field — but nevertheless has jumped clear around both Badminton and Burghley previously. His experience, and his workmanlike nature, meant that he was able to make the best of Burghley’s curious, close atmosphere today.

“He’s fifteen now, and he’s a bit stuck in his ways, but I think we might have got a few more of the flying changes this time than we normally do,” laughs Tom. “But he’s nice to ride in there, because you sort of forget how it goes from being really loud to suddenly really, really quiet. You think, ‘oh, god!’ but actually, he rises to that occasion.”

There’s an old saying in the theatre world that a bad dress rehearsal ensures a good opening night, and that adage certainly proved true for Tom, who took Possible Mission out for a final test earlier in the week that didn’t go wholly to plan.

“I took him to Wellington on Monday to do the Advanced and he did the most horrendous dressage test. He’s a bit of a head shaker, and the arena is down by the trees there,” he explains. “He wasn’t even on the bit — he just threw his head around everywhere, but I thought, ‘no, this is a good thing. He’s got it out of the way.’ And actually, he’s felt really good this week, so I haven’t given him very much work.”

Emily Hamel and Corvett survive some exuberant moments in their test. Photo by Libby Law.

“I wish he’d have been a little more submissive in the ring, but at least we had pretty good trot work,” laughs US representative Emily Hamel, whose test aboard Corvett upped the comedy ante when the expressive gelding turned one of the flying changes into a colossal series of bucks. They’ll head into Saturday’s cross-country on a score of 37.3, which puts them in 21st overnight. “I always want a little bit better, but overall, I’m really happy with him. He’s going to eat up the course here — I just have to make sure I keep myself in the tack!”

Emily has been busy training with Angela Tucker for this phase — “I’m kind of sad I couldn’t show off our dressage a bit more,” she says — and New Zealand’s Grant Wilson in the showjumping, and comes to Burghley feeling on top form after tackling Badminton this spring just weeks after a serious knee injury.

“I feel more prepared than I did for Badminton, so hopefully that’ll show,” she says. “It’s been a busy summer, and I’ve had a good time, just seeing different events and taking lessons. It’s a cool atmosphere over here.”

To check out the full scores, and times for tomorrow’s test, click here — or, if you want to try to catch the highlights of the day tomorrow, here are some of the biggest tests yet to come:

• Tim Price and Vitali — 10.00 a.m. BST/5.00 a.m. EST
• Susie Berry and Ringwood LB – 10.40 a.m. BST/5.40 a.m. EST
• William Fox-Pitt and Oratorio – 11.31 a.m. BST/6.31 a.m. EST
• Bubby Upton and Cola III – 11.39 a.m. BST/6.39 a.m. EST
• Kitty King and Vendredi Biats – 14.25 p.m. BST/9.25 a.m. EST
• Ros Canter and Pencos Crown Jewel – 15.05 p.m. BST/10.05 a.m. EST
• Tom McEwen and CHF Cooliser – 15.29 p.m. BST/10.29 a.m. EST
• Tim Price and Polystar I – 15.37 p.m. BST/10.37 a.m. EST
• Oliver Townend and Swallow Springs – 15.45 p.m. BST/10.45 a.m. EST

The top ten at the end of day one of dressage.

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2019 champion Pippa Funnell takes an early lead with the first of her two rides, Billy Walk On. Photo by Libby Law.

Oh, what a beautiful morning; oh, what a beautiful day – and is there anywhere in the world we’d rather be right now than ringside at the Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials? We think not, particularly after an exciting morning of dressage action.

Reigning champion Pippa Funnell, who won here in 2019 aboard MGH Grafton Street, sits atop the leaderboard at this early juncture after a smart test aboard Billy Walk On. The lanky thirteen-year-old gelding, who led the first phase at last year’s Bicton ‘pop-up’ CCI5*, didn’t quite catch that week’s exceptional 23.9, but his 26.2 today does better this spring’s Badminton mark of 28.5. But for Pippa, the final score wasn’t reflective of the quality of his work in the ring.

“I was delighted with him, but if I’m honest, I’m gutted by one of the judge’s marks being five or six percent out from the other two,” she says, referring to Judy Hancock at E, who awarded her with 70.56%, in contrast to Andrew Bennie’s 76.48% at C and Katrin Eichinger-Kniely’s 74.44% at M. “That, to me, was very disappointing, because I’ve done a lot of tests over the years and I thought it was as nice a test as he’s done at this level. I think I nailed the clear round and yes, he might not be the most elegant of movers, but I absolutely felt he deserved the marks the other judges gave him.”

Coming back to Burghley to defend a title could be something of a stressful situation for a less experienced competitor, but Pippa — who became the first-ever winner of the Rolex Grand Slam when she took the final leg here in 2003 aboard Primmore’s Pride – is wholly pragmatic about the prospect.

“I don’t really feel the pressure, because it’s still got to be jumped,” she says sagely. “I’ve been in the position of going back to Badminton after winning, and when you’ve been in the game as long as I have, you realise that yes, while both horses are scopey and have plenty of ability, it’s also not been the easiest of summers. The ground’s been hard, and it’s been about trying to keep them fresh coming into here while minimising their runs. It’s a balancing act to try to get here in the best shape possible, with the I’s dotted and the T’s crossed.”

Pippa is taking on double duty this week, not just as a two-horse competitor in her own right, but as a coach and mentor: two of the riders who are currently part of the Wesko Equestrian Foundation programme that she leads are tackling their first Burghley this week and one of them, Harry Mutch, also finds himself in the top five at the halfway point of day one. That division of interests, too, is a balancing act.

“I’ve got three riders who I help here, but really, it’s not that tough, because I’ve told them all that actually, this week has to be about me, with having two horses. I’ve got to concentrate on that,” she says.

Tim Price and the experienced Bango sit equal second at the halfway point of day one. Photo by Libby Law.

First in the ring today was New Zealand’s Tim Price, who is the busiest rider of the week with three horses in this year’s field. He set an excellent standard from the get-go, though, putting a 29.8 on the board with the experienced sixteen-year-old Bango, which sees the pair sit equal second at the lunch break. Bango, who has previously finished fifth here in 2019 and tenth in 2018, is perhaps Tim’s most under-the-radar upper-level horse – but he represents part of a strong three-way bid for another crack at the Burghley title, which Tim won in 2018 with the great Ringwood Sky Boy.

Woods Baughman and C’est La Vie 135 overcome a tough journey to England to take an early second place on the leaderboard. Photo by Libby Law.

To call Woods Baughman‘s journey from the USA stressful might be the understatement of the century – “[C’est La Vie 135‘s] flight was cancelled five times, and mine was cancelled twice,” he says with a faintly traumatised laugh – but there’s no doubt that the high he’s riding right now will be working wonders to ease his pain. He sits in equal second with Tim and Bango on a 29.8 after delivering a sparkling, expressive test with his fourteen-year-old Contendro I son in their second CCI5* — and already, they’re blowing their Kentucky debut this spring out of the water.

“We did our first five-star this spring, and he got very wound up with all the atmosphere,” says Woods, who scored a 39.5 that day. “So I was a little worried about today, and it’s probably lucky that I had a morning draw for him [when it’s quieter]. He’s such a fantastic horse in the first phase that it’s a shame when he does get worked up, because he can pull in really high marks — but when he’s gone tight, he’s lucky to stay in the ring.”

Unlike Kentucky and even Badminton, where the dressage arena can feel like an oasis in an amphitheatre, Burghley’s arena is situated much closer to the grandstand, giving a fishbowl effect that can cow even the boldest of horses. But although a touch of flamboyance crept in and nearly led to a mistake, Woods was able to nurture the horse to a clear round performance.

“He was very, very good the whole way around, but I got a little excited — I started the strike off for the extended trot, and it was really good, so I asked for a bit more and he took one little step and almost broke to canter before I thought, ‘whoops, too much!’ and reined it back in,” explains the Virginia-based rider, who trains with Sharon White. “The rest was clean and good, and definitely much better than our last five-star test.”

Any moments of additional sparkle, though, were welcomed by Woods, who had to carefully manage ‘Contendro’s’ energy levels after his gruelling journey.

“He got here four days later than he was supposed to, because our flights are a little messed up right now. He’s on good form now, but it was a little bit iffy, because he was so flat — he’d travelled for three days, and I felt really bad for him. I couldn’t do much with him at all and it was like, ‘well, great — he’s not working and he’s got to compete next week!’ So I just hacked him twice a day and stretched him out and made sure he felt good while I waited for the energy to come back. And then on Sunday afternoon I let him have a little jump and he bolted with me! After that, he didn’t want to hack anymore.”

France’s Rodolphe Scherer strides into the top five with Song du Magay. Photo by Libby Law.

France’s Rodolphe Scherer got off to an exciting start in his first CCI5* since 2016, when he finished sixteenth here with former championship mount Makara de Montiege. This time around, his ride is the oversized Song du Magay, who competed up to five-star with Rodolphe’s student, South African Olympian Victoria Scott-Legendre, before Rodolphe took the reins in late 2020.

Their 30.4, which puts them in provisional fourth, doesn’t come as a huge surprise after the gelding posted a sub-30 score in his final prep run, but what was particularly interesting was his warm-up: rather than schooling any of the movements in the test or riding in a competition outline, Rodolphe instead trotted the gelding around the outside of the warm-up arena with one hand on the buckle of the reins, letting him stretch his nose down to the ground and stretch over his back. That focus on relaxation was evident as the pair entered the competition arena.

“He’s a good horse with a nice head — he’s very relaxed,” says Rodolphe, who was recently appointed as cross-country trainer for the German team. “It was a little bit of a disappointing intro, though, because I think in the second 10m circle he just touched himself for a moment, and then he had one or two irregular strides, so I lost some points there — but then he did very, very well in the canter.”

A 30.4 puts him in an excellent position to plan for a climb on Saturday, though, and Rodolphe thinks Derek di Grazia’s new look Burghley track will play to his horse’s strengths.

“He’s a cross-country machine,” he says, “and this is a tough course. The beginning is twisty, with many combinations. It’s very tough; the rest of the course is tough, too, but in the beginning, there are so many combinations manifesting so closely that it’s almost like a short-format in its intensity. After that, if you don’t lose too much energy there, you can go into sixth gear.”

Harry Mutch and HD Bronze deliver the personal best in the ring at Burghley. Photo by Libby Law.

25-year-old Harry Mutch rounds out the top five at the lunch break after delivering one of his best-ever tests — and his five-star personal best — with stalwart partner HD Bronze, earning a 30.8. Their recent ascent into the business end of the leaderboard in this phase comes as the result of months spent training with Pippa Funnell as part of the Wesko Equestrian Foundation — a mentorship that’s gone so well that Harry has temporarily relocated from Newcastle to the Funnells’ Surrey base.

“The canter work is probably the best he’s ever given me,” says Harry, who used to lose marks in his canter centrelines when the previously weak, lanky gelding would throw in lead changes — an issue that’s been well and truly nixed after rebuilding the foundations with Pippa. “The trot work got a little bit stuck, so I was a bit like, ‘come on, please pick up again!’, but he just kept it together and was fantastic. I’m thrilled with him.”

Though two pandemic seasons were hardly ideal for horses at this level, Harry, who only began riding at the age of thirteen and made it to Badminton at 21, used the situation to his advantage.

“That sort of put us on hold for two years, but he’s actually matured so much in that time,” he says. “So for me, it wasn’t all that bad! He’s come out of it a much better horse.”

Cornelia Dorr delivers a masterclass in tactful riding with Daytona Beach 8. Photo by Libby Law.

Our second US competitor of the morning, Cornelia Dorr, knew she’d have a job on her hands in this phase: her expressive mare Daytona Beach 8, who, like her rider, makes her five-star debut this week, is notoriously hot and tricky between the boards, despite her abundance of talent. But although their final score of 39 keeps them out of the hunt for now, the work that the former Sandra Auffarth mount delivered in the ring was actually peppered with some of her nicest moments so far this season.

“I’m really happy with her — she tried really hard to stay with me and listen to me,” says Cornelia, who temporarily relocated to England in January to base with Australia’s Kevin and Emma McNab. “Kevin’s helped me get her so much better in the contact, and I can actually put my leg on and ride her now, and she finds comfort in it. That’s been a really big step. It’s pretty ballsy, but I actually just get on her like, ten minutes before my tests and saunter in, because we’ve learned that she has a time limit — after that, she’s like a cat on hot bricks! But today, she kept a lid on it until the crowd clapped at the end, so I couldn’t really ask much more from her. She runs on adrenaline, but she did a really good job.”

For Cornelia, even just riding into the main arena here is a huge milestone. “It’s pretty surreal, and I think I got a little emotional for a second when they rang the bell,” she laughs. “I was like, ‘wow, this is pretty cool!’ I’m just so happy to be here — and with this horse, what makes her difficult in the dressage ring is what makes her amazing out on cross-country.”

We’ll be back this afternoon with a full report from the second session of dressage. Until then: Go Eventing!

The top five at the Thursday lunch break at Burghley.

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