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Ros Canter Heads CCI4*-S on “Weird” But Talented Potential Paris Mount

By on Aug 27, 2021 4:26 pm -

Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo maintain an early lead to sit in top spot as the jumping phases dawn. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

There’s been a distinctive buzz of excitement rippling through the grounds of Blair Castle today as the hotly anticipated British team was announced for next month’s European Championships — and rather fittingly, the top spot in the first phase of the CCI4*-S has been snatched up by one of the exciting young horses who features on the list.

Nine-year-old Lordships Graffalo is listed as Ros Canter‘s direct reserve for Avenches, but although he’s second in command to World Champion Allstar B in that respect, he’s certainly not been languishing in his stablemate’s shadow over the last year: he finished second in the eight- and nine-year-old CCI4*-S temporarily hosted by Burnham Market last autumn, and won the inaugural CCI4*-S at Aston-le-Walls on his dressage score. Even more excitingly? Ros reckons he’s still on the up and up.

“He always gets marked very well, but I was in the lorry watching my test back from Aston, where he was joint first on a 21.8. The strength over the last few months has got better again ,” says Ros, who posted a 25.2 with the gelding today. “It’s exciting, because he enjoys the job and doesn’t need drilling beforehand. He’s got a good temperament for it and hopefully, I think there’s a lot more to come. It’s all going in the right direction.”

Though ‘Walter’, who’s owned by Michele Saul and was briefly campaigned by Tom McEwen during Ros’s pregnancy, is a consummate professional under saddle, he’s not quite as straightforward of a character on the ground.

“He has a very weird personality,” laughs Ros. “He’s a funny character; his tolerance of things sometimes isn’t great. Earlier in the year at Burnham Market, he decided he didn’t like a stable he couldn’t see out of, and he was a nightmare. He threw his toys out of the pram completely: he tried to dig out, he tried to rear out, and he tried to run out — pretty successfully! — the whole week. But what’s amazing about him is that he can be horrific in the stable, but the second you get on him he performs like he hasn’t been upset. He’s quite high-maintenance on the ground and has been known to gallop off around the lorry park because he buggers off with his grooms fairly regularly; he’s a character, but to work with, he thrives. I think it’s his brain — it’s a little busy, so he needs to be given something to work with.”

Yasmin Ingham and her 2020 eight- and nine-year-old champion Banzai du Loir move into second going into tomorrow’s jumping phases. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Another hot favourite for the Paris Olympics is Yasmin Ingham‘s Banzai du Loir, who won last year’s eight- and nine-year-old CCI4*-S ahead of Lordships Graffalo, but finds himself just behind on a 27.6 today.

“Banzai was very, very good — I actually thought it was his best test he’s done to date,” says Yasmin, who has made her name in the sport by winning each of Britain’s national age titles from under-16 through under-25 and taking double European gold at the Pony level. Now 24, she’s making a serious mark on the Senior rankings with her string of horses, including the flashy French Banzai. He’s logged some exceptional results since joining Yas’s string in late 2019, including a win in Aston’s under-25 Advanced, third place in his CCI4*-L debut in the under-25 class at Bicton, and fifth at Burgham last month. But today was the first time that the pair have faced an arena with this much action: much of their partnership has unfolded during the pandemic, and so the sensitive, clever Selle Français had plenty to try to cope with when faced with the multiple rings, vibrant crowds and numerous marquees of Scotland’s premier event.

“This is probably the most atmospheric arena that he’s ever been in; I completely underestimated how big this event was. and when I saw the main arena I thought, ‘oh my god, he’s going to go in there and prance about with his tail in the air like an idiot!’,” says Yas. “But he had plenty of work earlier, and then he went in and did his best test he’s done — both the changes were clean and his shoulder-ins and half-passes were lovely. Something we’ve been working really hard on is just getting both the changes in the right place at the right time, because sometimes he does them a little bit involuntary or he does them in the wrong place — like up the centre line, where we’re not supposed to be doing changes! He’s just very keen and eager to please. I really like that about him — his attitude is amazing — but sometimes his brain just works a bit too quickly for whatever’s going on!”

Hyper-focused Yas is quick to celebrate her young horse’s wins in the ring, but just as diligent about spotting the areas she wants to work on for the future, which include the walk work and the subsequent transition to canter — a segment of the test that has been the undoing of many horses’ marks.

“He just gets a bit bored in the walk; he’s a bit of a busybody and I think he’s almost just waiting for that canter transition, so he just gets a bit fidgety. I just need to work on relaxing him a bit more in the walk,” she explains. Now, with a super mark on the board and in an enviable position on the leaderboard, she’s looking forward to making the most of Blair’s spoils.

“It’s our first trip up here, and the sun is shining, which makes such a difference. I don’t think there’s anything more stunning than the castle and the grounds. The ground feels great underfoot and the course looks good — it’s big and bold, so it’ll take some forward riding. Hopefully I’m not going to get carted off with down a hill, but we’ll think about that tomorrow!”

Selina Milnes and Iron IV. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Though much of the upper echelons of this leaderboard showcases up-and-coming young horses, third place is held overnight by the established partnership of Selina Milnes and Iron IV, who produced a 28.2 to slot into the tightly packed top-five. William Rucker’s Belgian-bred gelding first stepped into the spotlight back in 2018, when he finished fourth in the CCI4*-L at Blenheim, and since then, he’s been on the fringes of a major result: he’s finished tenth at Barbury, fourth at Burgham, and an achingly close second at Houghton this season. He’s easily the most experienced horse in the top five of this section, and will be perfectly primed to put the pressure on the young guns tomorrow.

Nicola Wilson and Coolparks Sarco. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

CCI4*-L leader Nicola Wilson strutted her way straight into another leaderboard, this time with the former Andrew Nicholson ride Coolparks Sarco. Owned by James and Jo Lambert, the nine-year-old Irish Sport Horse joined Nicola’s string just this year, but the partnership is already looking impressively well-established; they finished eleventh in the horse’s first four-star at Burgham last month, and though they couldn’t match the 24.8 they scored there today, their 28.3 puts them well in the hunt in what is shaping up to be a serious battleground for the country’s young up-and-comers.

Izzy Taylor and Monkeying Around move into the top five despite some unplanned extra moves. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

It’s a testament to the quality of 10-year-old Monkeying Around‘s flatwork that despite a choice bit of lunacy in the first flying change, which earned him a 1 from the judge at C and gave us all an up-close-and-personal look at the soles of his feet, he and Izzy Taylor still finish the day in fifth place out of 42 competitors. Their 28.9 is something of a departure from the low-20s scores we’ve seen the dressage-bred Hanoverian produce (in fact, the last time he scored above a 26 was two years ago), but still keeps them within a rail of the lead — and Monkeying Around has only had one pole down in an international over the last two years. Could this be another podium finish for the gelding, who hasn’t finished lower than third in any international in 2020 or 2021? It’s not unlikely — but with today’s announcement that he’ll be heading to Avenches for his British team debut next month, it must all feel little more than a formality at this point.

2019 winners Astier Nicolas and Babylon de Gamma return to defend their title. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

The pandemic has put paid to international competitors crossing the Channel for a long time, and so it feels doubly special to welcome the reigning champion of this class back. French Olympian Astier Nicolas rode the extravagant Babylon de Gamma, who won the CCI4*-S here in 2019 as just an eight-year-old debutant, to a 30.9 and overnight 11th — “I was pleased with my horse, but not so much so with the mark,” he says with a particularly Gallic shrug — and also makes an appearance in the top ten, sitting eighth overnight with the former Seven-Year-Old World Champion Alertamalib’Or on a 29.6. Now eleven, the gelding is actually lower in mileage than his younger stablemate; after winning Le Lion d’Angers in 2017, he made his four-star debut in 2018 with great success and plenty of promise for the future, but was then sidelined until the end of last year with a tendon injury. Time is a great healer, and Astier gave him plenty of that — and now, after two successful three-star runs, including a win at Avenches CCI3*-L back in June, he makes his long-awaited four-star debut this week. Astier’s goals for the horses are different: “I’m not going to run [Alertamalib’Or] fast,” he says, explaining that this is just a milestone in the horse’s education, while Babylon de Gamma is using the run as preparation for something even bigger.

“I won’t be on the team [at the European Championships] for personal reasons, and so I plan to take him to his first five-star,” he says. “We will go to Maryland or to Pau — but really, my first choice is Maryland. I don’t know how hard it will be to get there, because I’ve never ridden over there at Kentucky or anything, but that’s our hope for him.”

The CCI4*-S competitors will have a busy day on their hands tomorrow: they head into showjumping from 8:30 a.m., and then on to cross-country from 4:50 p.m. (and, presumably, straight into the bar after that). The CCI4*-L entrants, for their part, will focus their attentions on Blair’s mountainous cross-country course from 12:30 p.m. We’ll be bringing you a closer look at all the questions ahead of them soon — but for now, you can preview both tracks (plus all the other national and international ones!) via the CrossCountry App.

The top ten in the CCI4*-S at the conclusion of dressage.

Land Rover Blair Castle International Horse Trials: Website, Entries, Times and Live Scores, EN’s Coverage, EN’s Twitter, EN’s Instagram 

She’s At It Again: Nicola Wilson and Erano M Take Blair CCI4*-L Dressage Lead

By on Aug 26, 2021 5:00 pm -

Nicola Wilson’s Erano M strides into the lead in Blair’s CCI4*-L at the conclusion of the first phase. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Britain’s eventing circuit is so ludicrously well-stocked with horses and riders at the upper levels that it sometimes feels like a bit of a treat to focus one’s attentions on a slightly smaller field of entries — and Scotland’s much-loved Land Rover Blair Castle Horse Trials is always rather a perfect foil for the triple-digit entries we often see at the other four-stars beginning with B in this country. Because of the distance (it’s tucked into the Scottish Highlands, a place so far-flung that even a Glaswegian will let out a long, low whistle and remark that ‘that’s a wee bit far, lassie,’ if you mention where you’re heading), and because of the specificity of the course (quite literally on the side of the mountain, so more fool you if you opted to skip any steps in you or your horse’s fitness routine), and because of its spot in the calendar (nestled amidst an embarrassment of riches where top-level long format events are concerned), Blair’s CCI4*-L field can ordinarily be described as something along the lines of ‘small but perfectly formed’. This week, we’ve got 21 combinations entered — rather a beefy year, comparatively speaking — and this gives us the chance to focus on some exciting, inexperienced horses and some unfamiliar faces among the riders, too.

This afternoon, all 21 came forward for the first phase, but you’d be hard-pressed to call the overnight leader an unfamiliar face. British team stalwart Nicola Wilson has been on exceptional form this year with her Bicton CCI4*-L and Hartpury CCI4*-S winner JL Dublin, but this week, ‘Dubs’ has stayed at home to prepare for another party. In his place, it’s twelve-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding Erano M‘s time to shine — and he’s set the tone from the get-go by taking the first-phase lead on 29.4, the only sub-30 score of the class.

“He’s quite light on his feet and he’s quite expressive. I was pleased with his test — there were a few little things that can be improved upon, but no major whoopsies,” says Nicola, who rides the charismatic gelding for owners Rosemary Search and Lady Milnes Coates. “His changes felt lovely — very clean and expressive — and overall, I was very pleased with his attitude in there. He coped very well and was very rideable.”

This is a second CCI4*-L for Erano M, or Arnie, who stepped up to CCI4*-S at Burgham last summer, finishing fifteenth. Since then, he’s completed two further short-fours, with marks dipping down towards the mid-20s, but today’s performance is a considerable improvement on the 33.7 he scored in his four-long debut back in June. That was at Bicton, widely considered the toughest competition in Britain since 2019, but he tackled it with considerable enthusiasm, boldly executing a clear across the country to finish just outside the top twenty. The experience — and that infamous terrain — will have set the gelding up well to tackle Blair’s hills — particularly as the son of Canturano out of a Flemmingh mare only has around 40% Thoroughbred blood in his pedigree.

“[Bicton] was a big ask, but he was fantastic there,” says Nicola, who’s produced him through from Novice level. “He’s relatively inexperienced at this level, so he’s here to do as well as he can. He isn’t very blood, but he’s quite catlike and he’s light on his feet.”

Like her compatriots in the lorry park, Nicola’s mostly just happy to be back at Blair, which sat out 2020 due to pandemic restrictions.

“We love Blair, and his owners love Blair, so we just like to come and support these three-day events in the north,” smiles Nicola, glancing around her at the sunlit hills and vistas of the dramatic Scottish landscape, once again blissfully filled with people and horses.

Lauren Innes and her “horse of a lifetime” Global Fision M. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Sitting in second as we look toward’s Saturday’s cross-country phase is Lauren Innes, who balances competing eleven-year-old Global Fision M with her busy role as a chartered accountant. Although the KWPN-registered gelding has proven he’s capable of scores even lower than today’s 30.5, he hasn’t always been the easiest ride in this phase.

“I’m really pleased with him — he hasn’t done any dressage on grass at all since May,” she says. “He can get really hot, and when he gets hot, he kind of loses it. But today, he stayed really calm — I couldn’t ask for anything more! He’s by Flipper d’Elle and he’s very French, in his brain. He’s the most confident horse to jump thing; nothing is too big, and he has the utmost belief in his ability. I don’t think he’s ever lost his confidence. But that confidence gets him a bit hot in the dressage sometimes, so he’s had to work a lot on it by going out and doing British Dressage [shows].  I was out the weekend before we came here, and I do six or seven shows before I even start the season so he can learn to do a test and not blow up. So that’s been a challenge, but we’re finally getting it! There’s definitely still more to come, and I know that I can start asking more and more in the arena now.”

Though the pair started their 2021 season with a 43.5 in Burnham Market’s CCI4*-S, they’ve since produced five very respectable international tests, slipping into the 20s on three occasions this year. That’s partly due to a creative warm-up routine that Lauren has devised to avoid any anticipation of the atmosphere to come.

“I go from the stables straight in [to the ring],” she explains. “I don’t do anything — I warm up like, an hour [before the test], put him back in the stable, let him go to sleep, and then I can just get on and go when it’s time.”

Today, that meant that the gelding was able to settle into the test and focus, despite the buzz of a busy ring packed with three arenas, constant noise from the tannoys, and a throng of spectators.

“His canter work was really good; I felt like he was very balanced, the changes happened and the half-passes flowed really well out of them,” says Lauren, who scored consistently around the 7 mark throughout the test.

This will be a fourth CCI4*-L for Lauren and Global Fision M, who finished eleventh at Bicton in June — an extraordinary result for a rider who has only ever ridden at the upper levels on one self-produced horse, and who does all the manual labour herself around her full-time job. But while all this might sound like a collection of tough hurdles to overcome, Lauren’s unconventional path to this point is actually what led her to the gelding.

“I bought him through [Irish event rider and co-director of Global Event Horses] Brian Morrison, who I’ve known for years,” she says. “He was like, ‘come over and see some horses’ — they hadn’t bought him, but they knew of him. He was a five-year-old, and hadn’t done anything, but he’d be my horse of a lifetime.”

Lauren’s friendship with Brian began when she was studying Biological Sciences at Oxford. While she hadn’t been a part of Britain’s bustling Young Rider circuit and teams, she was able to pursue her passion for competing through student riding, helmed by the World University Equestrian Federation. The set-up of the federation means that no competitor is required to have their own horse; instead, students go head to head in heats, each riding the same horse to determine who has exhibited the best horsemanship. Success at student riding competitions can lead to opportunities such as the Student Riding Nations Cups, which give riders from universities around the world the chance to compete together. The system has produced an impressive array of riders on the cusp of the big leagues: Lauren has since ridden for Britain at the CCI3*-S European Cup; Brian was long-listed for the Irish Olympic team; Spanish team rider Esteban Benitez Valle has ridden at the European Championships and, excelling in a rather different avenue in the industry, 2018 Equestrian Journalist of the Year Lucy Elder is one of the media’s foremost reporters.

“Through doing the Nations Cups you meet so many riders from different countries, and you just never know when it’ll lead you to find a horse like him,” she says fondly.

Holly Richardson and Caraghs Buffet sit third on their CCI4*-L debut. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Holly Richardson might have stumbled quite accidentally into being a professional event rider — “and I don’t really think of myself as a professional, I just have a few horses to ride now!” — but she’s making a very competitive mark indeed on her debut CCI4*-L. She sits third going into cross-country with Caraghs Buffet after putting a 30.6 on the board. Though Holly doesn’t consider this phase her horse’s strongest, she piloted the Irish Sport Horse gelding to a real clear-round result, remaining accurate and correct to never slip below 6.

“He’s definitely not good at dressage, so I don’t know how that happened,” she says with a laugh. “He’s built completely the wrong way; he’s really downhill and has really short front legs. But he tries really hard and he’s so obedient — he was really calm today, but he isn’t always. He’s usually quite hot in the ring, and at Aston-le-Walls [CCI4*-S] he just bucked and bucked and bucked!”

Yorkshire-based Holly, who studied Biomedical Sciences at university before pursuing a Masters in Equestrian Performance, never intended to ride full-time — but she also didn’t intend to hang on to Caraghs Buffet for this long, either.

“I got him when he was five as a project, and he was really cheap — about three grand,” she says. “I was like, ‘oh, I’m just going to produce him a bit and sell him on — and then I accidentally kept him.”

Best laid plans, eh? After focusing her academic attentions on the science of racehorse fitness, she made her way to Australia to work with some of the industry’s newest technology, which measures fitness using heart rate monitors and stride length analysis among a range of indicators to give an accurate reading of a horse’s current fitness levels and its potential to improve. Though her intended career has deviated somewhat as she’s picked up more rides on her return to the UK, she continues to do some work with the Australian company and hopes to see performance analysis of this kind implemented more widely into eventing.

“It’s amazing to put it on two horses who you think are about the same level of fitness, but then the difference in the recovery is huge,” she says. “I’ve been able to put it on younger horses and say, ‘okay, well, I don’t think this is going to be able to go on.'”

Though a debut CCI4*-L is a major milestone for any rider, Holly is taking her own brand of pragmatism — and a whole lot of science — out of the start box with her as she makes her mark on Blair this week.

Simon Grieve and Drumbilla Metro. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Simon Grieve and Drumbilla Metro are probably the most experienced pair in the field this year, with four CCI5* starts under their belt as a partnership, including a top-30 finish at Badminton in 2018. This is a first trip to Blair for the 14-year-old British-bred (that’s Drumbilla Metro, not Simon), and comes as they enjoy a significant upswing in their dressage results. We saw them end last year in the low-4os at Little Downham CCI4*-S, and though they’ve been consistently in the 30s this season, they’ve erred towards the other end of the scale. Today’s test, though, was polished and professional without a hint of a mistake from beginning to end. Simon’s been waiting for his big week for a while — and this could be the first step towards something very exciting over the course of the weekend for the prolific competitor.

Ali Wilkes and Social Butterfly. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Rounding out the top five is Ali Wilkes, who made a long journey from the other end of the country worthwhile with a respectable 31.4. She rides eleven-year-old Hanoverian mare Social Butterfly, who makes her sophomore appearance at CCI4*-L this week after an educational debut at Bicton earlier in the summer. There, the pair posted a 44.8 — so whatever Ali’s been feeding Social Butterfly in the meantime, we’d like to buy some.

Tomorrow turns our focus to the 42-strong CCI4*-S section, plus we’ll be taking you on a tour of the cross-country challenge (and we might even take you to the tartan shop, if you’re very lucky). Until next time, folks, Go Eventing!

The top ten going into cross-country in Blair’s CCI4*-L class.

Land Rover Blair Castle International Horse Trials: Website, Entries, Times and Live Scores, EN’s Coverage, EN’s Twitter, EN’s Instagram 

All Pass Blair Castle CCI4*-L First Horse Inspection

By on Aug 25, 2021 2:56 pm -

Philippa Cross and Scoop de Ferbet. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

It might be British eventing’s most far-flung FEI competition, but there’s something about the Land Rover Blair Castle International Horse Trials that keeps it well up the list of mustn’t-miss competitions. This week, the crown jewel of Scotland returns after sitting 2020 out, and it brings with it five exciting international classes and a whole host of grassroots competition besides.

At the forefront of it all is the feature CCI4*-L class. We’re used to seeing relatively small fields for this section, and though this year is no exception, it’s rather a beefier line-up than usual with 21 combinations entered. (In comparison, the CCI4*-S boasts 42, the CCI2*-L has 95 and the CCI1* will see a whopping 120 competitors go head to head — but we’ve also seen fields of half this size in this class, partly because of its far-flung location but more pertinently because of its unique terrain, which requires a very fit, very specific kind of horse, and preferably one with some percentage of mountain goat in its pedigree.) This afternoon, all three long-format classes headed into their first horse inspections, and each of the 21 horses in the CCI4*-L was accepted without issue by the ground jury, made up of president Judy Hancock (GBR), Faith Ponsonby (IRL), and Janet Surr (GBR).

One of the great joys of a competition like Blair, with its smaller field and tough, influential track, is that it gives us all the chance to focus on some of the circuit’s lesser-known horses and riders. For example, fresh off their gold medal success in Tokyo, heavy hitters Oliver Townend and Tom McEwen each come forward for a crack at the title, but their horses — Arklow Puissance and Dream Big, respectively, are both ten years old making their CCI4*-L debut. Alongside them, some of Britain’s up-and-coming riders will try for a top placing for their record — but first, they’ll need to tackle the uniquely mountainous cross-country track that’s previously been the site of arguably the soggiest European Championships on record. So far, so good: the sun is out in force, bewildering the residents of nearby Pitlochry, a town that sells, well, knitwear and not an awful lot else. We reckon a sporran could be crafted into something rather like a bikini if necessary, but we may have to report back to you on that one.

Tomorrow afternoon will see both the long and short four-star classes embark on their first sessions of dressage from 1.00 p.m. and 4.20 p.m. respectively, and there’s lots to be excited about in both classes — including the return of Astier Nicolas‘s exceptional ten-year-old Babylon de Gamma, who will try to defend the CCI4*-S title he won here in 2019 as an eight-year-old. Unfortunately, there’s no live stream this year — but keep it locked on to EN for all the news, views, updates, and plenty more reasons to get your kilt in a flutter as we dive into the very best of wild and woolly Scotland this week.

Until then: Go Eventing!

Land Rover Blair Castle International Horse Trials: Website, Entries, Times and Live Scores, EN’s Coverage, EN’s Twitter, EN’s Instagram 

Eventing Stallion Party Trick Among Four Horses Killed in Lorry Accident

By on Aug 25, 2021 9:00 am -

British eventer Nick Gauntlett‘s young stallion Party Trick, plus three horses belonging to British-based US rider Sophie Hulme (Ice Cool Cooley, Charisma TH, and Fairytale Cooley) died on Tuesday afternoon (August 24) in a lorry accident on Scotland’s A9, less than an hour from their intended destination of Blair Castle Horse Trials. Nick took to Facebook to confirm the news, sharing that his horsebox had broken down and was struck by another lorry.

Nick’s post reads:

“Tough day… maybe an understatement! My amazing family are fine & that is definitely the main thing, but today we lost Party Trick & 3 of Sophie Hulme’s horses. Having broken down just 30 [minutes] from Land Rover Blair Castle International Horse Trials we sat on the grass verge & watched a lorry (whose driver we think may have been on his phone) plough into our truck. You don’t need the details but we lost all 4 horses on board. We are obviously all heart broken. Lucy Morgan & Asha Riches-Wood, the emergency services, vets and people generally were amazing. Thank you everyone for your words of support and offers of help. The Eventing world yet again proving what at an amazing family it is.”

Nine-year-old Party Trick, by Badminton winner Chilli Morning and out of a Tolan R mare, had been making a splash in the eventing world, both as a sire and as a competitor in his own right, and had stepped up to four-star this season with success.

We are additionally devastated for American rider Sophie Hulme, who hails originally from California and has written for EN in the past (including this piece spotlighting Party Trick). Each of Sophie’s string of horses was entered for this week’s CCI2*-L; Ice Cool Cooley had jumped well around Haras du Pin and Gatcombe previously with Sophie, while Cairnside Sir Alex competed to four-star with Nick in the irons, notching up an impressive top-ten placing at Tattersalls in 2015 before Sophie took the reins in 2019. This week would have marked their first international run together after a top twenty finish at Burgham last month. It was also to be an international debut for Charisma TH, who joined Sophie’s string earlier this summer.

No further information on the accident has been released, as yet, by the Scottish police, though a local news report confirmed that an air ambulance had attended the scene. There have been at least eleven accidents on the A9 since the beginning of June, with several fatalities in that time period and a number of incidents involving freight lorries, making this Scotland’s most notorious road and one, perhaps, in need of more stringent policing.

There are no words to convey the sheer horror and heartbreak of today’s accident. Our most heartfelt sympathies go to Nick and Amanda Gauntlett, Sophie Hulme, and all those connected with these wonderful horses.

Tuesday News and Notes from Legends Horse Feeds

By on Aug 24, 2021 5:30 am -

Nothing has made me laugh more this week than the FDA’s new, no-sh*ts-given approach to social media. Step away from the Ivermectin, buckaroo, unless you’ve got worms — and even then, it’s probably best to go have a nice chat with your doctor instead.

National Holiday: It’s National Waffle Day. We won’t judge you if you have them for all three meals today.

Events Opening Today: Radnor Hunt H.T., Morven Park Fall International CCI4*-L,CCI3*/2*YH-S, CCI4/3*/2*-S & HT, Heritage Park H.T., WindRidge Farm Fall H.T., Hitching Post Farm H.T., Central FEH Championships at Haras Hacienda, St. Johns H.T.

Events Closing Today: CDCTA Fall H.T., Flora Lea Fall H.T., Chardon Valley H.T., Tryon Fall Horse Trials, Copper Meadows Eventing, LLC H.T.

News and Notes from Around the World:

A working group has been formed to address modern pentathlon’s showjumping issues. Comprised of a number of successful Olympians, and in conjunction with the FEI, it aims to improve the lot of both horses and athletes in the sport. [British former Olympic champion joins pentathlon group to help tackle riding concerns]

Riding is as much a mental game as it is a physical one. Sometimes, self-belief can be one of the most powerful training techniques at your disposal — and psychologist April Clay wants to help you harness it. [Building a More Confident Rider Through “Self-Efficacy”]

Hitting the deck is never fun, and in some cases, the aftereffects can be serious — even if you feel mostly okay. Now, US researchers are working on new ways to ease post-concussion headaches, which can linger on like a bad date waiting for a snog, in our experience. [US researchers seek best way to tackle post-concussion headaches]

Speaking of serious studies and things, did you know that your USEA membership dues help to fund equine medical research? Check out what got the money this year. [Funding Approved by USEA Board of Governors for Equine Medical Research]

Listen: Get to know Karla Parsons, the amateur eventer and bonkers babe behind Muddy Mayhem, your new favourite TikTok account and webcomic.

Watch: Jump around Ocala II with Elisa Wallace and Riot Gear.

Monday News & Notes from FutureTrack

By on Aug 23, 2021 7:21 am -

The Compton Cowboys do all sorts of incredible things from their inner-city stables in Los Angeles — but it’s their Junior posse that really melts my heart time and time again, particularly when their tiniest members get involved. Look, it’s a Monday, and Mondays can be a little bit rough — so just give yourself a moment to take in baby My’s really big helmet and really teeny boots, and let the world feel okay again. You’ve got this.

National Holiday: Apparently it’s Cheap Flight Day, so I guess I really ought to sit down and book all my travel for EN’s European extravaganza over the next couple of months!

US Weekend Action:

MARS Great Meadow International: Website, Results, EN’s Coverage

Caber Farm H.T. (Onalaska, Wa.): [Website] [Results]

The Event at Archer (Cheyenne, Wy.): [Website] [Results]

Full Gallop Farm H.T. (Aiken, Sc.): [Website] [Results]

Genesee Valley Riding & Driving Club H.T. (Geneseo, Ny.): [Website] [Results]

Huntington Farm H.T. (South Strafford, Vt.): [Website] [Results]

Metamora Hunt II Pony Club H.T. (Metamora, Mi.): [Website] [Results]

Ocala Summer II H.T. (Ocala, Fl.): [Website] [Results]

UK Weekend Action:

Baileys Horse Feeds Somerford Park International (2): [Results]

Borde Hill (2): [Results]

Solihull (2): [Results]

Northallerton (2): [Results]

Global Eventing Roundup:

It’s been a jam-packed weekend, with a whopping nine FEI events taking place around the world. Chief among those in Europe were Belgium’s Arville Horse Trials, which hosted the latest leg of the FEI Nations Cup alongside classes up to CCI4*-S, and Poland’s Strzegom Summer Tour, which also hosted up to CCI4*-S.

It was a groundbreaking weekend for the home nation at Arville as Belgium took top honours in the Nations Cup — the first time the country has ever won a leg of this prestigious series. The team, made up of Lara de Liedekerke-Meier and Ducati d’Arville, Karin Donckers and Leipheimer van’t Verahof, Kris Vervaecke and Guantanamo van Alsingen, and Manon Minner and Cool Dancer beat second-placed Sweden, third-placed Germany, fourth-placed Austria and fifth-placed Italy to earn valuable series points, putting them in equal secondon the series leaderboard. Sweden remains out in front on 240 as they chase another series victory, with just the Bromont leg in September and the series finale at Boekelo in October yet to come.

Meanwhile, Germany’s Ingrid Klimke and SAP Hale Bob OLD returned to competition, and wasted no time at all in showing everyone how it’s done. They finished on their dressage score of 23.9 to take the win in the CCIO4*-S, followed by fellow countrymen Dirk Schrade and Casino 80, nearly four marks behind. Third place went to Lara de Liedekerke-Meier and Ducati d’Arville, which secured Lara the title of Belgian National Champion for the fifth consecutive time. The influential track played a major part in this star-studded field, with 24 non-completions across the country — and those included the likes of Michael Jung and fischerWild Wave and Christoph Wahler and Carjatan S. This event served as the final selection trial for the European Championships, and we’ll be waiting with bated breath to see the part it played on the shape of the team as we’ve known them thus far. Check out the full results from Arville here.

Over in Strzegom, Germany’s Nicolai Aldinger topped the CCI4*-S class with his stalwart partner Timmo, while Japan’s Yoshiaki Oiwa finished second aboard Tullyoran Cruise JRA, his original intended Tokyo mount. Rounding out the top three was Dutch National Champion Merel Blom, riding Crossborder Radar Love. She finished ahead of the highest-placed Polish rider, Mateusz Kiempa, who piloted Lassban Radovix to fourth place. Poland’s Julia Gillmaier took top honours in the CCI3*-S with Red Dream Princes, while Yoshiaki Oiwa won the CCI2*-S with Olympic ride Calle 44.

Your Monday Reading List:

When it comes to riding effectively, there’s so much advice out there that it can often feel like you’re meant to do 10,000 things at once. But when you try, your horse just becomes more confused and frustrated, and then it seems as though your schooling session just unravels around you. The secret? Simplification — and Jimmy Wofford is on hand to show you how. [Simplify Your Riding]

Amateur eventer and small animal oncologist Erin Roof-Wages knows a great support system is key to getting it all done. And that’s just what she did when she won the CCI2*-S at River Glen Horse Trials — her first international in two decades — aboard Semisonic Rembrandt. [Amateur Showcase: Roof-Wages Relies On Her Village To Compete The Colorful Semisonic Rembrandt]

B Walt Lando Z’s story is far from a conventional one: it includes the tragic death of his young rider and major health setbacks from kissing spines and a tendon injury, for a start. But now he’s back out and winning on the British eventing circuit with a new rider — and he’s helping a recovering addict along the way, too. [Horse overcomes kissing spines to make winning return to eventing five years after young owner’s death]

A British photographer has spent the last decade summering at a Wyoming dude ranch. Her images might just inspire you to swap over to the dark side for a little while. [Scenes From a Dude Ranch on the High Plains]

The FutureTrack Follow:

If you’re not following Dressage Queen of Memes yet, who are you?

Morning Viewing:

Want an exciting, influential cross-country session to stick on in the background while you work this morning? Relive the Arville CCIO4*-S in its entirety here:

Friday Video from SmartPak: Winning Warm-Up Techniques

By on Aug 20, 2021 6:11 pm -

One of my favourite spots to lurk when I’m out and about reporting for EN is the dressage collecting ring. You can learn more there than almost anywhere else, and if you pick your vantage point carefully, you can eavesdrop on some of the world’s best coaches putting the world’s best riders through their paces. Half my notebooks — and at least two-thirds of my brain — end up full of the tips and advice Ian Woodhead has given the likes of Piggy March, for example — but when it comes to navigating my own dressage warm-up, I have to confess that I’m about as useful as a soggy dishcloth. I tend to go in without much of a plan, find that nothing feels particularly nice, and quite immediately, switch to a ‘get it over and done with’ mindset that helps absolutely no one, least of all my long-suffering horse. So I’m making a mission of taking the first-phase warm-up as seriously as I take my cross-country warm-up, so that I can begin to get the scores I know my horse is capable of. Step one? Getting myself motivated with this super masterclass from Irish eventer Fred Scala, in which he demonstrates and explains some of his tried-and-tested techniques for preparing for a winning test.

Wednesday Video from Kentucky Performance Products: From Wild to Wonderful

By on Aug 18, 2021 5:55 pm -

Elisa Wallace believes one thing wholeheartedly: that any horse, no matter their background, deserves a chance to shine. We’ve seen her succeed with all sorts of horses, from purpose-bred sport horses to OTTBs and, of course, wild mustangs. Now, she’s producing a series of YouTube videos showing the process of working with a mustang from beginning to best friend. Catch up with her progress so far as she aims for the 2021 Mustang TIP Challenge with new partner Luxe. Whether you’re hoping to work with a mustang of your own one day, want to pick up some super training tips that’ll work with any horse, or simply want a jolly good watch and a new horse crush, Elisa’s got the goods.

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‘There’s More Terrain Than Any 5* in the World’: Take a Tour of Bicton’s One-Off Track with Captain Mark Phillips

By on Aug 18, 2021 1:00 pm -

Captain Mark Phillips, British Eventing CEO Helen West and Bicton organiser Andrew Fell peer over the first element of question 19, the Burghley Brushes. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

We’re now just a scant fortnight away from the start of the Chedington Bicton International CCI5* (2-5 September), and already, the event has made history: it’s the only one-off five-star that’s ever been held. That also makes it one of the few positive legacies left by the pandemic, which has forced the hand of many established events and put them on the shelf until normalcy is returned. After the sad cancellation of both Badminton and Burghley for the second consecutive year, Britain faced the unwelcome prospect of an achingly long 32-month stretch without a five-star on home turf — but Bicton Arena’s forward-thinking team, helmed by new British Eventing CEO Helen West, had other ideas. They’d already managed to turn their popular venue, which is based on the Devon coast and hosts competitions across the disciplines, into a CCI4*-L so they could step in to fill the void left by Bramham back in June. Taking the next step would take significant resources — as well as some seriously savvy use of the space available — but they were determined to get the job done.

“We’ve always wanted to run at the highest level, and the opportunity came around this year,” says Event Director Andrew Fell. “We did think, ‘should we? Can we?’ but we decided you know what, we need to do it. If you don’t go and try, you never know if you can do it. And we proved it by putting the four-star in seven weeks — and the five star, we’ll be doing it in 11 weeks. Most people have 11 months to do it.”

For the Bicton team, running a five-star isn’t just the fulfilment of a long-time dream — it’s also a chance to give Britain’s eventing scene a necessary push in the right direction, something that Andrew sees as particularly important after the British team’s recent success at Tokyo.

“The last five star was in 2019. I mean, to be honest, we need to turn around and actually produce it because if we don’t have the big competition, we won’t be challenging the riders, and then we won’t be on the podiums. The only way of going out and winning is if you’re competing against the best, week in, week out. And that’s why they do have the great advantage in this country: we’ve got so many riders who are based here from so many different countries. We have great competitions, but we need to have the highest level, not only for the competitors, but also to keep interest in this sport from the spectators and sponsors, the owners, everyone like that.”

It’s a big job, but it’s clear they’re tackling it with aplomb. We headed down to Devon on Monday for the official unveiling of the new CCI5* course, and as we toured its expanse of hills and questions with course designer Captain Mark Phillips, we were surrounded by a buzz of activity: tractors circled us, tending to the ground and the grass, and small teams were hard at work applying first coats of paint to the fences. What we were able to see was something of a skeleton version of the challenge to come: there are plentiful fence decorations and dressings to be added, and many of the brush fences will look dimensionally different at the event itself, but by touring the course as a whole, we were able to get a sense of the challenge to come.

Most notably? As we saw in June’s CCI4*-L and CCI4*-S, the hills are Bicton’s crown jewel. There are long, upward pulls and shorter, intense bursts to and fro, but what makes them so influential is their consistency. Unlike Burghley, which is a comparatively flatter stamina challenge with long galloping stretches and the upward pull of Winners’ Avenue, or mountainous Blair, which feels as though it takes you straight up and then right back down again, Bicton will require regular readjustments to even the most balanced horse as they navigate the undulating terrain. There’s only one truly flat part of the course, and that’s a short — though intense — skip through the main arena. Everywhere else, horses and riders will be travelling uphill, downhill, or on a camber, which adds a unique challenge to the track. To compensate, some of the fences around the course seem almost — dare we say it? — welcoming.

“There is more terrain on this five-star course than any other in the world, therefore some of the let-up fences are more forgiving and there is less intensity than say Badminton or Burghley,” says the Captain, who was due to step down as long-time Burghley course designer last season.

Captain Mark Phillips and his assistant.

This means that many of the single fences, be they tables or timber questions, don’t look quite as dimensionally jaw-dropping as, for example, Burghley’s Collyweston Slate Mine with its nearly 2m spread. Instead, they’re slightly smaller, with slightly more forgiving profiles, and designed with the intention of truly allowing horses to cruise over them without expending unnecessary physical or mental effort.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that Bicton will be an easy or unspectacular track, though. We saw its CCI4*-L counterpart earlier in the summer exert extraordinary influence over the competition, with just over a third of the starters finishing the course without jumping penalties, and nearly 40% failing to complete at all. The course was widely praised in the aftermath for providing the first real test since the 2019 season, though Phillips and the team have worked hard to take all feedback in their stride and use it to inform their five-star design.

The first major change is the direction: this time, the course will run the opposite way around, which means that the tough uphill slog that came from around the seventh minute marker in June will feature in the early stages of the course instead, and in reverse, which should ease some of the pressure on horses.

The course map for Bicton’s CCI5*.

Fences one through four shouldn’t cause any issues: they’re simply designed to give horses and riders a chance to get in the air and fine-tune their communication before they reach the first combination, the EHOA Dewpond at 5AB, which features two brush elements on an angle with water between them. Then it’s onwards to the Chedington Oxers and Triple Bar at 6ABC: “the first five-star question on the course,” Phillips tells us. Made of imposing rails painted stark white, it’s rather reminiscent of Burghley’s famously wide Maltings oxers. The first element — a 2m wide oxer — is followed by a curving, forward four-stride line to another oxer. After that, they’ll bowl on down in three strides to a skinny triple bar.

“It’s a five-star question, but not overly difficult for this level. The triple bar is a little bit difficult to get back to, so there’s an alternative [if needed],” explains Phillips. The approach to the question will help competitors, too — after a reasonably long gallop from 5, they’ll ride quite a tight turn into the first element, which will help to balance horses and get them off their forehands if they’ve become heavy in the hand.

There are two further single fences after this question, though they come up in quick succession and the effort over 7, the Voltaire Brush, will affect the jump made at 8, the Berenberg Cabin. The Voltaire Brush will look colossal at 1.40m, but the ability to brush through it will make it a reasonably forgiving fence — but riders will need to ensure their horses are attacking and bold, rather than cowed by the dimensions, so they can land on a suitable line to get to the bright cabin. They can’t freewheel here, as the landing side of the cabin takes them directly downhill, so they’ll need to ensure their horses are jumping slightly out of their hand so they can regroup and make a tidy effort of the getaway.

Why’s that downhill so steep? Because now, we’re entering the arena — and to do so, you have to navigate the derby bank. Don’t get carried away, mind you — it’s nothing on Hickstead’s famous bank, but it will be easy to careen down the slope if a horse is particularly fresh and strong. If that’s the case, riders will find it quite hard to regroup in time for the first part of 9AB, the TopSpec Brush Corners, with their relatively narrow jumpable area. These can be tackled on a forward four strides or a conservative, curving five, but the first element is a left corner and the second is a right-handed one, which means that this is the first real test of rideability. We’ll see some early frustration here, as the door is wide open for run-outs and some riders may even need to circle for control before coming to the first element, which will waste valuable time.

The Chedington Arena Table at 10.

After that, though, horses and riders alike will get a reward for their hard work with a couple of straightforward single fences, which will give them a chance to make up some ground and find their rhythm again. They’ll pop the expansive Chedington Arena Table at 10, with its large groundline, and then the Bicton College Monkey Puzzle at 11, followed by two further tables at 12 and 13 — the furthest stretch of the course.

“You have a very intense minute from the white oxers [at 6ABC] through the corners [at 9AB], and then you’ve got an easy minute after that,” says Phillips, pointing out that riders who intend to be competitive will need to make best use of those ‘easy minutes’ to catch up with the clock.

The A and B elements of fence 14ABC, as seen from the landing side.

The easy minute ends as riders reapproach the main arena for their second loop through. 14ABC, the Clinton Devon Estates Cliffhanger, looks every inch a top-level question, and we predict more than a few firmly clenched buttocks as horses and riders tackle an upright rail followed by a huge drop to a brush arrowhead. With just one stride between the rail and the drop, the quality of the approach will be key — and those who get it wrong will risk picking up 11 penalties, over the A element.

“If they come too quick and leave the hind legs, it’ll break the frangible,” says Phillips, who is replacing the current MIMclip configuration with a frangible pin for the event. “The clip breaks very easily with horizontal pressure, whereas the pin doesn’t — so I think the pin will be fairer for the horses and riders at this particular fence on the course. But after going flat chap for a minute, they do need to come back to 350, or maximum 400 meters per minute, or they will hit this and get the 11 penalties.”

Looking through all three elements of 14ABC from the take-off side of the initial rails.

How horses land from the drop will help to dictate whether they tackle the triple brush on three or four strides. This question will be a familiar one to anyone who followed — or rode around — Bicton’s four-star; the crucial difference is that on that occasion, there was just a drop to a triple brush. This time, there’s that pesky rail — and the triple brush has grown, too.

“That’s a Burghley triple brush,” says Mark with a grin, pointing at the former brush over to the side, where it acts as a black flag alternative, so we can marvel at the size comparison. It’s true: the Burghley brush is as beefy a thing as you’d care to imagine, though by this stage of the course, horses who aren’t eating up big, bold fences probably aren’t ready to be running a five-star.

“This is,” concedes Phillips, “a serious question.”

The Burghley Table at 15A.

 

The low rails at 15B.

The final arena question is 15ab, the familiar Burghley Table followed, upon landing, by a right-handed turn to a low set of rails that will take horses and riders out of the ring and back into Bicton’s parkland.

The Ariat Challenge at 16ABC, with short white poles marking the future placement of flowerbeds to funnel horses to the take-off point.

Prior to the running of Bicton’s CCI4*-L, the most contentious fence on course was the coffin question at 15ABCD. Then named the Course Designer’s Conundrum as a cheeky nod to the hubbub surrounding it, it featured an airy rail on a bounce stride to a ditch, followed by a one-stride line to an achingly narrow jumpable window through an angled hedge. But for all the discussion about it, it jumped remarkably well through the day, and was only the fifth most influential combination on course with just eight faulters. Now, it’s back as 16ABC, renamed the Ariat Challenge, and featuring a minor change to the final element, which will now require horses to jump the arrowhead section of the hedge instead of its furthest arm. Small flowerbeds will be placed between the ditch and the hedge to stop riders from veering left or right and attempting to jump on the half-stride.

Like the rails at 14, the first element here will be pinned, rather than clipped, and Phillips has offered up options to anyone who runs into trouble at some point in the combination: the white flag for the ditch element is generously placed well to the left, so if a horse stops at the ditch, the rider will be able to turn and get a sensible approach to the left-hand side, which snakes back around the rails, and then they can go on to jump the angled hedge at its leftmost arm, rather than trying to find their way to the arrowhead.

“Jumping into the arena with the step down is a little bit of a set-up for this,” says Phillips, explaining that they’ll need to moderate their canter just as significantly on the approach. Only once they’ve cleared it can they begin to think about making up the time lost in the previous slow minute.

“No one’s won the competition until they’ve jumped the coffin,” he says.

The Tall N Narrow at 18 looks innocuous now, but will be dressed with brush for the event itself and will be 1.45m (4’9) tall.

After leaving the coffin, we enter a segment of the course characterised by its long galloping segments between questions, and sure enough, there’s a big one before we reach fence 17, the W.H. Bond Sawbench. Though the fence is a simple let-up fence, every stride before and after it will count, because they’ll all need to be used to catch up on the clock. After another, shorter gallop, we come to the Western Counties Tall N Narrow at 18, which gives the slower option of a trakehner and then a second element on a turning line, or a single element, which is a very narrow six-foot wide upright over a nine-foot ditch, designed to mimic the iconic Cottesmore Leap but with something of an accuracy question included.

“This question is a little bit more interesting,” says Phillips. “The [Cottesmore Leap] at Burghley has a [nearly 10-foot] base spread but it’s considerably wider up top. The tests whether they’re brave enough to come down at 600mpm and jump the skinny, or whether they’d rather take one of the trakehners and then jump the gate. They need to decide if they have their big person pants on.”

Looking down the line from element A of question 19ABCDE, the Burghley Brushes.

“They won’t have seen anything like this before,” says Phillips with a grin as we approach 19ABCDE, the Burghley brushes. The direct route is formidable: the four skinnies are set over a 100m line, with variable speeds required between each. A to B is set on five strides, while B to CD is a forward three. CD to E is technically an unrelated distance so some variation will be seen in the striding. Horses are unlikely to get above 450mpm here, making this a slow, technical stretch. If they opt to go long, they’ll need to jump an extra element, though the route itself isn’t circuitous and may be a safer option for some tiring, inexperienced horses.

The oxer-to-corner question at 20AB.

After completing that major question, horses and riders will bowl on into a busy segment of the course: running parallel to their question at 20AB is the NFU Water at 22ABCD, and just beyond that, the start and finish of the course. But by this point, horses should be totally focused on the task at hand, and that task is the yawning open Vardag Oxer to a corner made from a tree offcut. This can be ridden on a straight four strides or a more curving five strides, which Phillips anticipates as being the more popular option at this stage.

“It’s not easy,” he says. “When you look at the line from [the take-off side of the oxer], it looks almost impossible — so you have to jump it left of centre. If you’re going on four, you need a right good shot at this one, so I think most people will be more conservative, and stay out for the five. It’s definitely a five-star question, not a four-star one.”

There’s a long stretch out to one of the furthest points on course after that, and when they reach the end of it, competitors will tackle the HTSG Wilma and Crumble Stumps at 21AB on their way back around the tight bend to gallop back to 22. Named for Phillips’s dogs, including the late Crumble, it’s made up of two big, skinny tree stumps on a curving left-handed line with a moderate quarry between them. It doesn’t look like one of the most intense five-star questions we’ve seen, but coming at this late stage in the course, and given that horses have had to leave the sight of the finish to come tackle it, we could see a few errors at this point.

The NFU Water at 22ABCD. The A element is out of shot, but you can see the A element of 20AB to the left, which gives some sense of how closely-packed this field is — truly the best part of the course for spectators to congregate.

The final water — the NFU Water at 22ABCD — was the most influential part of the CCI4*-L course, though it looks quite different now without its double of angled hedges, which claimed 21 faulters despite each element being separately numbered. This time, it’s made up of a left-handed angled brush as the A element, followed by a brush-topped 1.8m drop into the water. Then, there’s a left-handed curving line out over a triple brush, which will deposit horses and riders back on dry land and point them towards a final left-handed angled brush.

The real question here is in the line. The first element encourages an angled approach to the drop in, but jumping the B element even slightly from right to left will make the line to the final two elements almost impossible to negotiate. Instead, riders will have to make a plan to land from the A element and find themselves coming into the drop in perfectly straight. Fortunately, there’s enough space between each element to really plan those turns and square them off for maximum straightness, though the safer the route, the slower it’ll prove. There’s also an alternative route that they can use as a back-up plan if they land in a heap from the B element and need to regroup.

With the water behind them, our competitors will make their way to the final combination on course, the Fisher German Mounds at 23AB. Once again, Phillips makes use of a bending line to diffuse some pressure, but these tall brushes still need respect as they’re not small — and the question comes after a long uphill pull. Then it’s downhill to fence 24 — the St James Place Double Brush — uphill to another brush at fence 25, and finally, just the NAF Finale at fence 26 to pop. With 6,350 meters and 45 jumping efforts in the rearview, competitors will be glad to see this final jump.

For Captain Mark Phillips, designing this one-off course has been a unique experience, and one that’s been defined by learning the lay of the land as he’s tackled it.

“I’ve done Burghley for 25, 30 years, so there’s not much I don’t know,” he says. “Here, we learned a lot about the ground and the effects of the terrain back in June. We had a hot day, and I think we had some horses that were underprepared, but I think that everyone who came here in June now realises that we’ve got a big terrain, and the effects of that. So hopefully, they’ll come in better prepared, and I’ve learned a lot about the terrain and the effect of the hills, so I’ve given horses more of a chance to catch their breath at the top of the hills before asking questions and maybe made some of the questions a bit more sympathetic. But I do think riders will have to take their brains with them when they leave the start box.”

Chedington Bicton CCI5*: [Website] [Box Office] [Entries] [EN’s Coverage] [EN’s Instagram] [EN’s Twitter]

Who Jumped It Best: Hartpury’s Birketts Bunker

By on Aug 17, 2021 3:00 pm -

Who Jumped It Best?

EN’s Hartpury coverage is brought to you by Trefonas Law, an immigration law firm located in Jackson, WY. 

Trefonas Law features experienced U.S. visa and immigration law practitioners working with the equestrian industry. We can provide advice and assistance with P1 and 01 athlete visas, short-term work visas, as well as general immigration services. Contact us to see how we can find the right visa for you!

It’s been a real treat to return to the NAF Five Star Hartpury International Horse Trials in Gloucestershire, which made its return to the calendar last week after sitting out the 2019 season. The best bit? Getting to photograph the iconique Birketts Bunker once again. This colossal timber oxer over a sprawling ditch is one of Britain’s great ‘photo fences’ — like Burghley’s Cottesmore Leap, though, it tends to jump brilliantly, despite its bum-clenching proportions.

This year, the Bunker came at fence 16 on the CCI4*-S course. After navigating a significant amount of Hartpury’s not inconsiderable hills, horses and riders cruised downhill, readjusted, and popped an influential pair of open corners on the flat at 13 and 14. Then, they galloped onward to 15, an oxer over a much shallower ditch, before executing a hairpin turn back to this fence. After landing, they galloped on down a short stretch before reaching the second water, which featured a huge log drop in followed by two beefy tables on dry land.

Because of its primary role as a prep event for the autumn’s long-formats — ordinarily lead Burghley, but in its absence this year, an incredibly hilly Bicton 5* — Hartpury tends to provide as much of a stamina test as a CCI4*-S can do, and features big, bold fences that aren’t enormously technical. At this point in the course, riders are discovering whether their horse is quite as fit as they’d expected, and while Birketts Bunker doesn’t ever cause any issues, it can sometimes show off if the communication channels aren’t quite working as they should. You’re not likely to run into disaster if you miss here, but equally, you’ll probably feel as though you’ve gone into orbit in the back seat. It’s best to use that hairpin turn to balance and add power from behind so you can commit and attack — just don’t look down!

Now, it’s over to you, dear readers: we’ve rounded up a collection of snapshots of the Bunker from throughout the day. Have a browse through each pair’s form and then scroll down to cast your vote for the best effort over this epic hunk of timber. We’ll announce the winner on our social media channels on Tuesday, August 24. Happy voting!

Bella Innes Ker and Highway II. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Nici Wilson and Fine Fleur. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Paul Whitehead and Cooley Wingman. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Camilla Kruger and Biarritz II. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Gaspard Maksud and Cado Louvo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Amy Struthers and Hotshot GN. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Molly Faulkner and Call Me Cooley. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Harry Meade and Cavalier Crystal. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Pippa Funnell and Billy Walk On. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

William Fox-Pitt and Oratorio II. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

NAF Five Star Hartpury International Horse Trials: Website, Times, Live Scoring, Cross-Country Preview, Live-Stream, EN’s Coverage, EN’s Twitter, EN’s Instagram

Tuesday News & Notes from Legends Horse Feeds

By on Aug 17, 2021 7:28 am -

I don’t usually get myself in a tizzy about eventing opening and closing days, but then, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a day so chock full of big ones. Entries for both the Bicton Arena CCI5* and the AECs close today, while entries are now open for the Maryland Five-Star — and we’re predicting some seriously spicy entries there. Planning to put your name down for any of the aforementioned? Get moving!

National Holiday: It’s National Black Cat Appreciation Day! Did you know that black cats in animal shelters are less likely to be adopted than their colourful counterparts? Consider opening your home — or your cozy barn — to a dusky kitty today.

Events Opening Today: Spokane Sport Horse Seventh Annual Fall H.T., The Maryland Horse Trials at Loch Moy Farm, Jump Start H.T., Sundance Farm H.T., Middle Tennessee Pony Club H.T., Willow Draw Charity Show, Fleur de Leap H.T., Maryland 5 Star at Fair Hill, Moqui Meadows H.T.

Events Closing Today: Course Brook Farm Fall H.T., Bucks County Horse Park H.T., Woodland Stallion Station 1 Day H.T., Silverwood Farm Fall H.T., Chattahoochee Hills H.T., Equestrians’ Institute H.T., USEA AEC, $60,000 Adequan Advanced Final, and ATC Finals

News and Notes from Around the World:

In the aftermath of the Olympics, it’s not just the eventers who are disappointed in the new team format. It’s also been a major point of contention for the show jumpers, too, who’ve raised welfare and practicality concerns. Now, Brazil’s Rodrigo Pessoa is speaking out. [Rodrigo Pessoa on the Olympic Format: “I Hope the FEI will Listen this Time”]

New research is shedding further light on wobblers’ syndrome, and it might not be caused by what you’d expect. [Wobbly Horse: What’s Wrong with Him?]

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced an uptick in funding for British athletes ahead of the Paris Olympic cycle. They’ll now receive £232 million, distributed at various sums between all the sports. [Prime Minister announces £232m investment ahead of Paris 2024]

Spectators won’t be able to attend the Paralympics, which comes as no surprise as COVID cases continue to skyrocket in Japan. Exemptions will be made for this partaking in a school programme. [Tokyo 2020 announcement and guidelines regarding tickets following spectator capacity limit]

Listen: The Eventing Podcast’s Hartpury Review Show, which covers the thrills — and spills — of the weekend’s biggest British event.

Watch: Jon and Rick catch up with Doug Payne and Sam Watson post-Tokyo.

Enter: Planning to check out the inaugural Maryland CCI5* in October? (Of course you are!) Make your week even better by purchasing your tickets early — you could win a swish pair of Dubarries!


Monday News & Notes from FutureTrack

By on Aug 16, 2021 3:37 am -

Ava, Holly, and Morris celebrate a great first event. Photo via Holly Jacks-Smither’s Facebook.

We were all so bummed for Canada’s Holly Jacks-Smither when she had to make the tough — but totally right — decision to retire her best friend, More Inspiration, from upper-level eventing after the discovery of a heart murmur at Kentucky this spring. But the plucky Thoroughbred isn’t in the equine equivalent of a nursing home — instead, he’s getting to enjoy life as a lower-level schoolmaster. He and working student  Ava Lema-Nilsson made their debut together over the weekend, tackling the Junior Novice division at Ontario’s Grandview Farm, where they finished second.

“I have never been one to enjoy sitting on the sidelines but the joy I felt watching them was overwhelming,” posted Holly on her Facebook page. “Sometimes things just work out how they should.”

I’m not crying, you’re crying.

National Holiday: It’s National Rollercoaster Day! No thanks.

US Weekend Action:

The Woodside Summer Event (Woodside, Ca.): [Website] [Results]

GMHA Festival of Eventing H.T. (South Woodstock, Vt.): [Website] [Results]

Otter Creek Summer H.T. (Wheeler, Wi.): [Website] [Results]

Waredaca H.T. (Laytonsville, Md.): [Website] [Results]

Windridge Farm Summer H.T. (Mooresboro, Nc.): [Website] [Results]

UK Weekend Action:

NAF Five Star Hartpury International: [Website] [Results] [EN’s Coverage]

Aston-le-Walls (4): [Results]

Bold Heath: [Results]

Hopetoun (2): [Results]

 

Global Eventing Roundup:

France’s Mae Rinaldi and Boston du Verdon are the new Pony European Champions after leading from pillar to post and finishing on a 28.4 — the only sub-3o finishing score in the whole competition. Ireland’s Ben Connors and Cornafest Fred took the silver medal, climbing from 11th after dressage, while the Netherlands’ Sophie Weening and Hip Hop took bronze. The French also triumphed in the team standings, followed by Germany in silver and Ireland — whose riders rode for late compatriot Tiggy Hancock — in bronze. These plucky pony riders, who competed over a CCI2*-L track at Poland’s Strzegom, get the ball rolling on this year’s European Championship season.

FEI European Championships for Ponies (Strzegom, Poland): [Website] [Results]

France has had a great weekend all round; they also took top honours in their home Nations Cup leg at Haras du Pin, where a young Dutch team finished second and the Swedes finished third. France’s Gwendolen Fer won the class with Traumprinz (and finished fourth with her 2017 Pau CCI5* winner Romantic Love), while Tim Price’s 2019 Seven-Year-Old World Champion Happy Boy finished second in his four-star debut. Third place went to Germany’s Josephine Schnaufer-Völkel and Pasadena 217.

Le Grand Complet FEI Nations Cup – Haras Du Pin (Le Pin-au-Haras, France): [Website] [Results]

Finally, a small but determined four-star field of four competitors battled it out at Bromont, with Canada’s Brandon McMechan claiming victory on his Thoroughbred Oscar’s Wild after leading the dressage but moving into second going into the cross-country finale after knocking a rail. US-based Aussie Dom Schramm and Bolytair B finished second and even more impressively, did the whole thing on their own. We’re petitioning the FEI to give you a groom’s award, Dom!

Bromont Horse Trials (Montreal, Quebec): [Website] [Results]

Your Monday Reading List:

Ian Stark may be one of the all-time legends of our sport, but that doesn’t mean he’s forgotten his roots. Earlier this month, and fresh off his commentary gig for the Olympics, he spent a long day in the pouring rain acting as stand-in coach for the Duke of Buccleach Pony Club’s grassroots showjumping team. Even better? They finished second under his expert tutelage. [From Tokyo commentary to Pony Club champs: eventing legend steps in as grassroots team coach]

In need of a healthy dose of ‘awwww‘ to start your week? This kiddo who couldn’t quite stay awake to the end of a lead-line class is a real mood. [Behind the Photo: Asleep at the Wheel]

We love it when local newspapers get excited about their nearby eventers. We love it even more when they get giddy over the horses. In this case, it’s consummate horse-crush Tsetserleg. You get ’em, Sexy Legs. [Comal County equine athlete shines at Tokyo Olympics]

Ever wished your horse could talk? So, too, does Olympic gold medallist Oliver Townend. I’m currently on the fence, just out of sheer trepidation that my horse would start requesting Ed Sheeran-heavy schooling playlists. [Oliver Townend: Olympic gold medallist hopes Team GB’s success will inspire young riders]

And finally, Peder Fredricson — former Olympic eventer, now gold medalist showjumper — is one of the great heroes of the Games. Dive into his musings on good horsemanship and take his horse-first ideals into the week with you. [Peder Fredricson on horsemanship: “the horse is your responsibility, so you need to get involved and be engaged”]

The FutureTrack Follow:

The perfect balm for the soul after a busy weekend of eventing? A bit of wanderlust and jumping, courtesy of the Longines Global Champions Tour. I’ve been obsessing over the London leg as captured through EquiSportif’s lens, and I can’t wait to see more of her work.

Morning Viewing:

Rewatch all the Pony Euros cross-country action (and wish you were a gutsy teenager again):

Nicola Wilson Stakes Her Claim on Squad Selection at Hartpury

By on Aug 14, 2021 4:26 pm -

EN’s Hartpury coverage is brought to you by Trefonas Law, an immigration law firm located in Jackson, WY. 

Trefonas Law features experienced U.S. visa and immigration law practitioners working with the equestrian industry. We can provide advice and assistance with P1 and 01 athlete visas, short-term work visas, as well as general immigration services. Contact us to see how we can find the right visa for you!

Nicola Wilson and JL Dublin regain lost ground to take the win in the NAF Five Star Hartpury International CCI4*-S. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Pick at random from the horses and riders in the final top ten of the CCI4*-S field at the NAF Five Star Hartpury International Horse Trials, and no matter which names you drew, you could be quite confident that your selections would form a formidable team for next month’s European Championships at Avenches, Switzerland. None of us envied the British selectors ahead of Tokyo, and even with those three extraordinary riders and horses scratched off the long-list of 30, picking the final six that’ll get the call-up looks no easier — such is the British squad’s unprecedented strength in depth. Hartpury, which returned to the calendar this week for the first time since 2019, is so often simply a useful feeder event for the major autumn three-days, but this year, the feature four-star class has had an even more important role to play in providing a battleground for the next batch of gold medal-seekers.

Designed by Eric Winter, who’s best known for his work on the Badminton course and for tough, technical tracks that require adaptability and quick thinking, Hartpury’s course is a short four-star that could, perhaps, be better described as a ‘four-star medium’. At 3990 meters, and with its seven minute optimum time, it’s only a matter of a couple of hundred meters longer than most other courses at this level or, for comparison’s sake, 430m shorter than Tokyo’s CCI4*-L track. But here, we see terrain used to test stamina in a way that’s quite unique for a short-format course: the Hartpury hills are well utilised not just to create tricky cambered approaches to questions, but to present horses with a long uphill trajectory that calls for the clever moderation of energy. As a result, it tends to show any cracks in the foundations at this latter stage of the season — and in an eighteen months of eventing most notable for its shortage of serious tracks, the welcome return of Hartpury offered up the perfect stage for this crucial selection process.

First-phase leaders Nicola Wilson and JL Dublin have already made a strong bid for Europeans selection this year: they won the inaugural CCI4*-L at Bicton in June and were even subsequently moved onto the shortlist for Olympic selection. But although their 23.9 dressage score here represented an international personal best for the ten-year-old Holsteiner, they didn’t take a straightforward wire-to-wire win in this class. After rolling a pole in this morning’s showjumping, they came forward for the cross-country finale in fourth place — and as one of the last riders to leave the start box in this class, Nicola was all too aware that coming close to the seven minute optimum time would be both essential and very difficult.

But JL Dublin — or ‘Dubs’, as he’s known at home — is nothing if not a trier, and Nicola has been thrilled by his progression from his early and admittedly slightly unruly years.

“As a young horse, he showed a lot of quality and ability, but he was a bit like a bull in a china shop,” laughs Nicola, who found him as a four-year-old at the Holsteiner sales. “He was very excited and keen to do everything. But each level he’s done, he’s just got better and better, and he’s such a lovely horse to work with — he really concentrates and tries so hard.”

Even so, Dubs’s joie de vivre has never wavered: “He has this sort of squeal under his breath of excitement that just makes you smile,” says Nicola fondly. “He loves jumping, in particular, and he loves being out; he always thinks everyone’s there to see him, and I have to remind him that they’re not!”

Whatever ‘it’ is, it’s clear that the son of Diorado has it: despite being quite a continental type of horse with less than 50% Thoroughbred blood, he’s proving to be a specialist over tough, hilly courses. While he didn’t quite make the time, he soared home just three seconds over the optimum time to add 1.2 time penalties and deliver one of just two sub-30 finishing scores of the week.

“He gave me a super ride around what I thought was a difficult course,” says Nicola. “I thought there was a lot to jump. But then he did at Bicton, too, which was such a challenging event in itself. I had a plan [here] from the first walk, and I was very fortunate that it rode very much like that; he came out of the start box very rideable and focused, and he came home the same.”

Nicola cited the corner combination at 22AB, which was situated in a wooded area, as a particular test on the course, and one where an inexperienced or less genuine horse might have had a blip.

“The corner was hidden under the trees and I thought it was quite a sneaky little question, but he picked it up really well and I thought he felt super,” she says. “I think that’s a sign that he’s getting older and a little bit more mature that he’s now looking for his fences, which is lovely for the jockey.”

Now, the waiting game looms as the Europeans inch ever closer — but perennially positive Nicola won’t let looking to the future stop her and her team from celebrating the present.

“We’re all so excited by him, and you have to enjoy these moments,” she says. “Bicton and Hartpury have been fantastic, but it’s a real team effort: there’s [head girl] Ruth Asquith and the girls on the yard, and his owners Jamie and Jo Lambert and Deirdre Johnston, and the list goes on of all the people who are involved in a result like this.”

Kitty King and Vendredi Biats take a close second place. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

If it’s hard to imagine a Europeans squad without Nicola and Dubs, it’s perhaps even more fiendishly impossible to imagine one without Kitty King and Vendredi Biats, who were non-travelling reserves for the Olympics, best of the Brits when competing as individuals at the 2019 Europeans, and whose form has continued to dazzle from event to event. Though they weren’t able to add another win in this class to their record — they took top honours in 2017 — the dynamic duo finished in second place after delivering a foot-perfect clear over the poles and adding just 4.4 time penalties across the country. ‘Froggy’s’ professional, classy performance comes after a somewhat unconventional prep run: as Kitty told EN yesterday, she gave him a ten day break to wind back his fitness after the departure of the Tokyo squad, and has only had him back in work for just over a week.

“He’s had kind of a busy, funny spring, preparing for Badminton, then Luhmühlen, then Bicton, and then having to prepare for Tokyo,” explains Kitty, who was first non-travelling reserve for the Olympics with the gelding and had to undergo pre-export quarantine. “Even though chances were we weren’t going to go, we were high up the reserve list so had to prepare as though we were going. Then he went out to Liege [Airport] to make sure nothing fell off the ramp, and then he came home. So he’s been gearing up for a big three-day and he’s like, ‘am I going?!’ And I’m like, ‘nope, not today!'”

The time off evidently hasn’t done him any harm, and Kitty’s commitment to the squad can only stand her in good stead as the autumn season unfolds — and the Europeans, she asserts, are chief among her goals for this year.

Gemma Tattersall and Chilli Knight record the only clear inside the time to step up to third. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Gemma Tattersall and Chilli Knight are proving time and time again that they’re among the fastest pairs on the British scene — and today, they were the only pair to make the seven minute optimum time in the CCI4*-S, propelling them to eventual third. They were able to gain further ground on the leaderboard, despite a rolled pole in the showjumping, after the tactical withdrawal of Sarah Bullimore and Corouet, who recently ran in Burgham’s CCI4*-S and were thus exempted from today’s jumping phases by the powers-that-be of the British squad. This — plus a frangible activation by Oliver Townend and Davinci III, who he’s riding for Sam Ecroyd this season — helped to clear the path ahead, but it was ultimately the strength of the Chilli Morning son’s final phase performance that clinched a podium finish for the pair.

Not that they had much catching up to do, mind you. Their first-phase mark of 27.2 put them in tenth place at the end of the day yesterday, and Gemma was ebullient in her praise of the horse’s progress.

“I don’t think he could have done anymore — he’s not a flashy mover, but he tries so hard, and he’s so obedient that I can ride every single moment of every movement,” she says. “He’s got no extended trot, but he never stops trying.”

That game willingness is evident across the country as well — but although their performance today will certainly not have escaped the notice of the selectors, Gemma’s got her eye on another plan for the gelding.

“If all goes to complete plan, the plan is Bicton CCI5*,” she says. “He’s absolutely, one hundred million percent ready, and he actually jumped around Pau two years ago as a nine-year-old — and he’s done three four-star longs and never been out of the top seven.”

Alex Bragg and King of the Mill make easy work of the track for fourth place. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

With Tokyo in the rearview mirror and this autumn’s championship presenting the perfect opportunity to produce up-and-coming horses for next year’s World Championships and Paris 2024, all eyes are on the next generation of rides for some of our top British talent — and Alex Bragg‘s fourth-placed King of the Mill certainly fits that bill. The lanky, attractive gelding made his CCI5* debut at Pau last season but lacks in the top-level experience of stablemate Zagreb, who was withdrawn before today’s final phase. His romp around the cross-country course, though, looked like the work of a well-seasoned campaigner, and his 1.2 time penalties put him equal with JL Dublin as the second-fastest round of the day. That — plus a classy clear showjumping round — allowed him to make an impressive climb from outside the top twenty into eventual fourth on a finishing score of 32. Behold: the new era of Bragg talent.

Pippa Funnell’s Burghley winner MGH Grafton Street heads up a trio of top-ten finishes for the rider. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Pippa Funnell‘s excellent weekend continued with all three of her CCI4*-S rides maintaining positions in the top ten, from which they’ve never dropped in any phase — though they’ve certainly done some shuffling around. 2019 Burghley winner MGH Grafton Street topped the trio in fifth place, adding a rail and 3.6 cross-country time penalties to finish one place lower than his dressage position, which saw him fourth on the board and second of Pippa’s rides on his 24.8.

Pippa Funnell and Majas Hope take sixth. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Meanwhile, the stolid fourteen-year-old Majas Hope stepped up from initial eighth to final sixth after jumping an excellent showjumping clear and adding six time penalties across the country — though for this reliable jumping horse, the highlight has certainly been swapping his usual mid-30s marks for a 27 after some help from the maestro, Carl Hester.

A rail and 5.2 time penalties saw Billy Walk On drop from initial second place down to seventh, though he looked every inch as impressive as his stablemates — and while Pippa, like many of her compatriots, admits that a trip to Avenches is at the top of her list of autumn goals, this exciting trio of horses looks set to offer her a vibrant latter half of the season no matter which way the selection process goes.

Pippa Funnell’s Billy Walk On slots into seventh place. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Today’s competition has offered wall-to-wall excitement, with just under half the class adding faults in this morning’s showjumping and time penalties proving influential through the final phase. Interestingly, though, the four-star cross-country has caused the least problems of today’s three international tracks: its nearly 70% clear rate far eclipses the CCI2*-L’s 60% and CCI3*-L’s 52% clear rates. Most influential on the four-star course was 8AB, a hanging log on the lip of a hill followed by a downhill approach to a timber arrowhead. Eight combinations faulted here, with one electing to end their day early — but though it cause a couple of glance-offs, its influence was almost entirely down to the activation of a safety device. In total, six lots of eleven penalties were awarded at this fence through the day, and only one further device on course was activated through the 79-strong class. Next most influential — but leading the way for 20s — was fence 6, the first water on course. Seven combinations faulted at this three-part question, which featured a wide-faced rolltop in the lake followed by two skinny elements, which were spooky and early enough to invite run-outs from unfocused horses.

Now, as we head out of this crucial selection event, it’s full steam ahead on the five-week fast track to Avenches — the final squad of six (that’s four on the team, plus two individuals) will be announced by August 20th. Want to refresh your memory of that whopping 30-strong longlist? Click here to give it a browse — and until next time, Go Eventing!

The final top ten in Hartpury’s hotly contested CCI4*-S.

NAF Five Star Hartpury International Horse Trials: Website, Times, Live Scoring, Cross-Country Preview, Live-Stream, EN’s Coverage, EN’s Twitter, EN’s Instagram

Friday Video from SmartPak: Meet Vassily de Lassos, Your New Favourite Eventer

By on Aug 13, 2021 5:21 pm -

Who among us isn’t a little bit in love with Vassily de Lassos, the striking French-bred chestnut mount of Aussie Andrew Hoy? Whether you’ve followed his career with keen interest for the last couple of seasons or whether that double medal performance at Tokyo was your first introduction to this special gelding, there’s every chance you’ve fallen for his exceptional talent and sparky charisma. And chief among his fan club? That’s got to be his rider, who shares the story of their journey together so far, and owners Paula and David Evans, who share the tale of how a broken collarbone and a cancer charity fundraiser brought the team together. All of us at Team EN are ready to combine our savings to buy a young horse straight from the string of Tom Carlile, and this has only pushed us closer to the edge.

Nicola Wilson is Head of the Class at Hartpury CCI4*-S

By on Aug 13, 2021 3:48 pm -

EN’s Hartpury coverage is brought to you by Trefonas Law, an immigration law firm located in Jackson, WY. 

Trefonas Law features experienced U.S. visa and immigration law practitioners working with the equestrian industry. We can provide advice and assistance with P1 and 01 athlete visas, short-term work visas, as well as general immigration services. Contact us to see how we can find the right visa for you!

Nicola Wilson’s Bicton victor JL Dublin impresses yet again to lead Hartpury. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

If yesterday’s dressage day at the NAF Five Star Hartpury International Horse Trials was all about the up-and-comers, today’s action focussed almost entirely on those horses and riders in contention for a coveted spot on the British team for next month’s European Championships. As a result, we saw significantly more sub-30 scores — 17, in fact, as opposed to yesterday’s two — and a bustling line-up of some of the sport’s biggest names. As the first phase came to an end, we welcomed a fitting new leader: Nicola Wilson and her remarkable ten-year-old Holsteiner JL Dublin, who won the CCI4*-L at Bicton in June. After that, he was added to the Olympic shortlist in place of stablemate Bulana, and though he wasn’t ultimately part of the final five selected as team members and reserves, he certainly made his mark as a team horse of the future. In this unusual year, with its two championship opportunities (plus a rare autumnal Aachen!), he could be about to meet that future swiftly.

Today’s performance certainly hasn’t hurt his chances of selection for the Europeans, due to be held in Avenches, Switzerland in six weeks’ time. Though he’s been a consistent sub-30 scorer, he produced a career-best mark of 23.9 to finish the day at the top of the pack.

“I was thrilled with him,” says a beaming Nicola, who notes that there’s still a better mark to come from the expressive gelding.. “I went for a really good mark in his extension to power him out of the corner and he just broke the rhythm over X, which was a shame, but we salvaged it to finish, and I thought his changes were really light and expressive. He was really good boy, and he’s getting more and more confident in there.”

Nicola Wilson and JL Dublin. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

More and more, ‘Dubs’ is stepping out of his role as precocious ingenue and into a new identity as a powerhouse of the upper level scene.

“He’s very level-headed, he likes to please, and he’s learning to show off more and more each time he goes in,” says Nicola.

This has been helped enormously by his victory in Bicton’s inaugural CCI4*-L: “He went for a nice steady run at Burgham, and there were quite a lot of squeals there, and a lot of excitement when he got off the horsebox yesterday. He did think that he owned the place — so we did have to remind him that he’s one of many [horses] here!”

Pippa Funnell and Billy Walk On head up an impressive triple effort for the rider. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Pippa Funnell was the judges’ star student today, piloting each of her three horses into the top ten with a trio of expressive, correct tests. Chief among those was Billy Walk On, the lanky British-bred twelve-year-old with whom she finished fourth here in 2018. That year, he posted an impressive 25.6 — at that point, his best-ever four-star score. Today’s efforts saw him earn a 24 and a test sheet chock full of 8s for overnight second place, proving that careful production can create a powerboat out of a cruise liner.

“I was really happy with him; when he gets strung out he loses a bit of jump, and when you get that jump, you get the changes. He got those changes today,” she says.

Not far behind him, stablemate and 2019 Burghley victor MGH Grafton Street sits fourth on 24.8, despite missing out on his chance at arena familiarisation this morning.

“He’s not one you’d want to overdo it with, but at the same time, he’s the one that always has the last laugh,” says Pippa of her five-star champion, whose reputation for being capable and flashy on the flat is as well-bolstered as his reputation for being mercurial across the country. “He’s always been pretty consistent, but I felt the lateral work was a lot better than it’s been recently — he naturally has a short neck and wants to come back at you, so that was better today. He did have one squeak where thought he was going to shoot forward and have a little bit of a joke, though!”

Such a close set of marks becomes all the more impressive when you consider that leggy Billy Walk On and compact MGH Grafton Street couldn’t be more different horses — either in build or brain.

“[Billy Walk On] is so different to [MGH Grafton Street] — where that horse is so short and compact, Billy Walk On is so long and sort of strung out. They’re complete opposites. [MGH Grafton Street] is the stable comedian; if there’s one horse that’s always up to something, it’s this one. He likes to have the last laugh, whereas Billy Walk On would be the goodie-goodie. [MGH Grafton Street] would be the one that’s smoking in the corner, and he’d probably have a Mohican.”

Pippa Funnell and Majas Hope. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Perhaps more of a surprise — and, as such, the biggest delight for Pippa – was the tidy 27 delivered by Majas Hope, who sits in eighth place going into tomorrow’s jumping phases. The fourteen-year-old Irish Sport Horse has been a consistent campaigner for Pippa, who rode him as British team trailblazer at the 2019 European Championships, but unlike his stablemates, he’s not quite found the sparkle in the first phase. But this year, we’ve seen him shake off the mid-30s scores of yore in favour of impressive and competitive high 20s marks. The secret? A kindred spirit from another discipline.

“I was really thrilled with him this morning. I had some super lessons with Carl [Hester] at the beginning of the year, before he got super busy training more important people to win medals,” laughs Pippa. “He was a joy and it gave me confidence that I was on the right line, because he’s very much like how I try to be — not doing it by force, but doing everything softly and trying to get [the horses] to give it. It’s just a really nice way of doing it.”

Though there are still two tough phases to come, it’s not a shabby start to the weekend for Pippa, whose goals for the rest of the season were widely echoed through the day: “They’re lovely horses and I’d love, love, love one of them to try to get to the Europeans, but there’s a lot of us still fighting for it.”

Sarah Bullimore’s diminutive Corouet is vibrant in Hartpury’s buzzy atmosphere. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

There’s a unique kind of pressure that comes after delivering an excellent result, and Sarah Bullimore knows that all too well after Burgham, where she and her homebred Corouet came achingly close to winning the British Open Championship. Rather more excitingly, they put a 19.6 on the board in that CCI4*-S class, and while the gelding often impresses in this phase, everyone gathered en masse to see if he could do it again.

He didn’t, quite, though his 24.2 was strong enough for overnight third and just three-tenths of a mark off the lead — and that was despite the inherent buzz of the crowd on the hill adjacent to the arena, which caused him to lose some suppleness in the shoulder-in along that side. Though Sarah had hoped for another unsurpassable score to bolster her campaign for the Europeans, more prominent was her delight in the tiny, opinionated chestnut’s brain.

“There’s still more [to come],” she says. “He’s just getting so much more rideable; he’s accepting now that we can do it as a partnership and I’m allowed a little bit of input. Not too much, though — there’s a balance!”

Particularly notable were Corouet’s tidy, correct flying changes, which were blissfully unfussy and easy. As it turns out, they feel every bit as pleasing  to produce as they are to watch.

“They’re lovely to ride, because you always know that they’re going to happen, so you can actually ride them rather than pulling them together and preparing and constantly asking ‘are you still with me?’ But he can do a line of twos easily,” says Sarah, who will aim for Corouet’s CCI5* debut this autumn if he’s not selected for the British team.

Fifth-placed Kitty King and Vendredi Biats look ahead to an exciting autumn campaign. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Though it’s no surprise to see Kitty King and Vendredi Biats in their usual haunt near the top of the leaderboard, their 24.9 and overnight fifth today came after an unconventional lead-up to the event that was necessitated by the odd season they’ve had so far. They’ve now aimed at four long-format events without being able to run in any of them.

“He’s had kind of a busy, funny spring, preparing for Badminton, then Luhmühlen, then Bicton, and then having to prepare for Tokyo,” explains Kitty, who was first non-travelling reserve for the Olympics with the gelding and had to undergo pre-export quarantine. “Even though chances were we weren’t going to go, we were high up the reserve list so had to prepare as though we were going. Then he went out to Liege [Airport] to make sure nothing fell off the ramp, and then he came home. So he’s been gearing up for a big three-day and he’s like, ‘am I going?!’ And I’m like, ‘nope, not today!'”

The effect of all this preparation without a long-format run meant that the sensitive Selle Français had reached a fitness peak that was a level beyond productive, and so after Kitty waved her teammates off to Tokyo, she opted to turn ‘Froggy’ away for ten days to let him diffuse.

“He was too fit and he was going to go over the top like the racehorses do, basically,” she explains. “Now he’s had a week or ten days back in work, and he’s come out and been really good. I thought he might be a bit fresh, because he’s not had the amount of work and build-up to Hartpury as he would normally.”

Nevertheless, the gelding — who can be as quirky as he is talented — produced one of the week’s most relaxed tests, just losing minor marks in the walk pirouette. As they look ahead to tomorrow’s challenge Kitty, whose role in Team GB’s success was probably one of the toughest to endure, is looking on the bright side — her time in training camp provided excellent opportunities, and there’s another worthy goal on her horizon.

“It was great to be able to use such wonderful facilities, and it was great just being able to concentrate on one horse for ten days. When he was finishing quarantine he was going really well; he did the Olympic test with [team dressage trainer] David Trott really nicely and we got to jump around the track they’d built for us, which was great. He was really ready to roll, and were not quite back to that point yet, but he’s not far off — but you can’t keep peaking them day in and day out. Now, fingers crossed, we get selected for the Europeans — that’d be the ultimate goal.”

Tomorrow sees both jumping phases unfold, with showjumping starting from 8.00 a.m. BST/3.00 a.m. Eastern and cross-country running from 10.50 a.m. BST/5.50 a.m. Eastern. Both the showjumping and the cross-country here tend to be built big, because they’re intended as preparation for the autumn’s long-format events — and with less than a pole separating the top ten, every second will be enormously valuable.

You can keep abreast of all the action in the CCI4*-S feature class, as well as the CCI3*-L and CCI2*-L classes, with Hartpury’s free live-stream channels. They’ll be featuring all of the weekend’s excitement, paired with expert commentary from Jonty Evans — so don’t miss out. Want to take a look at the beefy, bold track, designed by Eric Winter? Click here to ‘walk’ it via the Cross Country App.

Until then? Go Eventing!

 

The top ten after dressage in Hartpury’s CCI4*-S.

NAF Five Star Hartpury International Horse Trials: Website, Times, Live Scoring, Cross-Country Preview, Live-Stream, EN’s Coverage, EN’s Twitter, EN’s Instagram

School’s Back in Session as Caroline Harris Stakes Claim on Hartpury CCI4*

By on Aug 12, 2021 2:43 pm -

EN’s Hartpury coverage is brought to you by Trefonas Law, an immigration law firm located in Jackson, WY. 

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Caroline Harris and Falko TH. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Something feels different in England in the aftermath of Tokyo, and it’s not the promise of autumn in the air, nor is it the particular afterglow of a gold medal haul for Britain’s star team. It’s that — for the first time since 2019 — we’re looking ahead to an increasingly well-populated calendar and planning for eventing outings with surety, rather than constantly scribbling them out of the diary in the wake of another cancellation announcement. There are new events on the horizon: inaugural five-stars at Bicton and Maryland, for example, and a European Championships at Avenches, but there’s also the welcome return of old favourites. Among those, and the primary site of this weekend’s exploits, is the NAF Five Star Hartpury International Horse Trials, which hosts classes from CCI2*-L to CCI4*-S (though not, notably, five-star) across the picturesque campus of Britain’s leading equine university.

Situated as it is in the late summer cusp of the calendar, Hartpury’s big, bold, and hilly CCI4*-S track typically acts as a feeder event for Burghley in normal times. This year, though none of its graduates will head to Lincolnshire, they won’t lack three-day events to target off the back of successful runs here — and after a necessary string of four-stars with a rather pared back difficulty level, it’s great to see the return of these upper-end tracks in the wake of a bold, challenging Bicton in June. That was arguably the watershed moment for the sport’s return in earnest and now, for the first time in eighteen months, it feels as though we can pick up where we left off and sink our teeth into the season.

98 horse-and-rider combinations have come forward to battle it out for top honours in the CCI4*-S feature class this weekend, and today, we got our first look at 48 of them. While the class is heaving with top-notch horsepower and major names, almost all of these horses have been put in tomorrow’s line-up, which meant that today gave spectators — and judges and journalists alike — the chance to focus on some up-and-coming equine talent. A combination of this relative inexperience across the board, a spooky and atmospheric arena, and some tough-but-fair marking mean that half the day would pass before we saw someone break into the 20s, and when that someone did, she would hold the lead until the very end.

It’s been a good day in the office all around for Caroline Harris, who leads on a 29.7 with Falko TH and sits equal fourth on 31.5 with Miss Pepperpot. Both rides are relatively inexperienced: 9-year-old Miss Pepperpot stepped up to CCI4*-S this season and has only been eventing for two years, while the 17.1hh Falko TH made his debut at the level in Blenheim’s eight- and nine-year-old CCI4*-S at the end of 2019. He finished a very respectable seventh there, and then didn’t contest another FEI event until this year. Though he didn’t quite match his four-star personal best of 28.7 today, his 29.7 wasn’t far off — and it represents a significant step in the right direction for the oversized Dutch Warmblood, who tends to be a reliable low-to-mid 30s scorer.

“He’s super talented, but he’s taken a bit of time to get his whole body connected together,” says Caroline, who has produced ‘Joey’ from a four-year-old. She credits top dressage rider Dannie Morgan with helping her to unlock the gelding’s potential, which showed through in improved movements today.

“His trot work was really lovely,” she notes — and indeed, their initial entry in canter, halt and salute, and transition into collected trot earned them two 8s and a 9 — “and I was really proud of his walk pirouettes, because they’ve not been his strongest bit, but actually, he didn’t stick today and he really did try.”

Though their second flying change skewed their trending mark when they earned a 4 and two 5s, consistency was key for Caroline and allowed her to take control of day one of competition.

Caroline Harris and Miss Pepperpot. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Caroline wrapped her day with the spicy and diminutive Miss Pepperpot, who was a shock contender near the top of the leaderboard at Bicton CCI4*-S earlier this summer, where she earned an impressive 25.7 — her first four-star sub-30. But the best mares are also often the trickiest, and the prodigious talent, who ran her first FEI event in 2019, still has plenty to learn about channeling the energy of an atmosphere.

“She’s got all the ability in the world, but she can get quite hot, like she did today,” explains Caroline, who sits in equal fourth place with the mare, tying with Zara Tindall and Class Affair.

It’s been interesting to watch horses lose focus and make mistakes through the day; competing in front of spectators is a foreign and unfamiliar thing now, and just as they did at Barbury last month, where the showjumping arena was overlooked by a looming bank packed with people, many horses reacted to Hartpury’s benched bank, which acts as a natural grandstand alongside the ring.

“There’s a lot of atmosphere because that bank feels like they’re all sat on top of you a bit, so [the horses] do get a bit lit up in there,” Caroline continues. “[Falko TH] is very laid back, so we just lead him around the arena familiasation this morning — he’s not fussed, but [Miss Pepperpot] gets a bit more anxious and hot.”

Arthur Duffort and Brando de Cherel. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Another rider to make the best of the atmosphere with two inexperienced horses was British-based Frenchman Arthur Duffort, who sits second with Brando de Cherel on a 29.8 and eighth with Arko’s Lad on a 32. This is a four-star debut for ten-year-old Selle Français gelding Brando, who made his eventing debut as an eight-year-old — and it’s not at all hard to see why Arthur considers the horse his next superstar. Despite being arguably the least experienced horse in the field, he produced one of the few ‘clear rounds’ of the day, scoring consistently and making no major mistakes.

Arthur Duffort and Arko’s Lad. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

While eighth-placed Arko’s Lad might not be quite as straightforward, Arthur speaks with evident fondness of the British-bred Hanoverian, who contests his third four-star this week.

“He wants to do right, and he’s a nice-looking horse — but he’s both very laid back and also a worrier,” Arthur explains. “I’ve never had one like him; he’s very worried about everything but he’s not hot, he just worries and shuts off. So for him to come here and express himself, I was very pleased with him.”

Arko’s Lad’s educational turning point might just come down to a little secret weapon: “I just love him,” he grins. “I love him and give him confidence. I really do believe they need to be loved, and I think this one definitely needs to. Then he can build confidence through that at home, and then when he comes here, this helps him more than anything else.”

Alex Bragg and King of the Mill. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Alex Bragg and King of the Mill sit third on a respectable 30.8 after some expensive moments of tension in the ring proved that the relatively inexperienced gelding might look quite like stablemate Zagreb, but he’s still earning his stripes between the boards. Still, it’s not unreasonable to expect that the comparisons could continue on apace: the eleven-year-old’s scores continue to trend downwards, and with a CCI5* under his belt already, he’s no slouch even in good company.

Zara Tindall and Class Affair. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Meanwhile, Zara Tindall and Class Affair continued the early stages of their long-awaited reunion after the rider’s most recent pregnancy, helping to round out the top five overnight by taking equal fourth on 31.5. The twelve-year-old gelding, who was piloted by Tom McEwen during Zara’s maternity leave, remains firmly in situ on the cusp of greatness: we’re still waiting to see him match, or better, that 28.9 he scored at Blenheim in 2019, and though he didn’t do that today, he bettered his last FEI score, earned on Zara’s return at Barbury last month, by just shy of four marks. Could this spell a peak to come at an autumn three-day? Watch this space.

Tomorrow’s competition throws many of the country’s best horses into contention: we’re particularly excited to see William Fox-Pitt’s Oratorio II, returning to competition after his trip to Kentucky this spring, Kitty King’s formidable Vendredi Biats, who will vie for his spot at next month’s European Championships, Nicola Wilson’s Bicton CCI4*-L victor JL Dublin, Alex Bragg’s Zagreb, aiming for a major autumn title, and Sarah Bullimore’s tiny, feisty Corouet, who delivered an exceptional 19.6 in the CCI4*-S at Burgham last month. Expect a major shake-up of the leaderboard and plenty more sub-30 scores as they aim to top Hartpury’s best-ever four-star score — a 22.3 delivered by Kitty King and Ceylor LAN in 2018. The stage is set and tomorrow, the battle to earn a spot on the second British senior team of the year commences in earnest.

The top ten at the end of day one of dressage in the NAF Magic CCI4*-S.

NAF Five Star Hartpury International Horse Trials: Website, Times, Live Scoring, Cross-Country Preview, Live-Stream, EN’s Coverage, EN’s Twitter, EN’s Instagram

Wednesday Video from Kentucky Performance Products: It’s A Groom’s Life

By on Aug 11, 2021 4:00 pm -

Here at EN, we’re always #TeamGroom — after all, without the support and ceaseless care of those on the ground, none of the big wins would ever happen. The Japanese Racing Association, or JRA, are pretty pro-groom too, as it turns out, and they’ve put together this behind-the-scenes video with three of Europe’s leading grooms, including Lena Steger, long-time travelling head girl to the marvellous Michael Jung. What goes into each role? How are the days structured on top competition yards? And, most importantly, how perfect is Uma the horse? All this and more is in the video — so hit play, dive on in, and buy a groom an extra-large frothy coffee tomorrow.

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Tuesday News & Notes from Legends Horse Feeds

By on Aug 10, 2021 6:39 am -

Not that I’ve set a countdown on my phone or anything fundamentally weird like that, but did you know there’s only 1,081 days until the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics? As a former Paris denizen, I’m wildly overexcited, and even scheduled in a detour at Versailles en route to Le Lion d’Angers last autumn just to scope out where the arena would be for the equestrian disciplines. Now, in the aftermath of Tokyo, the IOC has released computer-generated images showing what many of the venues will look like, and that arena? Well, it’s even better than I imaged. Powder my wig, Pierre, because I’m pitching my tent at la palais.

National Holiday: Apparently it’s National Shapewear Day, and my thoughts on that can’t be adequately expressed on this, a family-friendly(ish) website about horses.

Events Opening Today: FEH Qualifier at Loch Moy Farm, FEH Championships at Loch Moy Farm, Stable View Oktoberfest 2/3/4* and H.T., ESDCTA New Jersey H.T., University of New Hampshire H.T., Twin Rivers Fall International

Events Closing Today: Town Hill Farm H.T., Seneca Valley Pony Club H.T., Five Points H.T., Shepherd Ranch Pony Club H.T. II

News and Notes from Around the World:

Modern Pentathlon is facing a review after outcry following the contentious showjumping phase at Tokyo. This review will include input from the British Equestrian Federation. [Tokyo 2020 pentathlon: Review of horse jumping phase under way]

Breeding — and the technology surrounding it — has come on in colossal leaps and bounds over the last fifty years. Is this bringing us closer to a genetically perfect sports horse? [Building a Better Equine Athlete]

We bid a sad farewell to Continuity, the stalwart five-star mount of Great Britain’s David Britnell. The remarkable gelding is the first horse to compete at both the Badminton grassroots competition and Badminton CCI5*, coming up through the ranks from Pony Club with David on board. [From Badminton grassroots to Badminton five-star: rider’s ‘horse of a lifetime’ put down]

Listen: The latest episode of the USEA podcast covers all things Tokyo after the fact, with EquiRatings’ Diarm Byrne and Nicole Brown.

Watch:

Here, Australia’s Andrew Hoy deftly solves the horse world’s current biggest talking point: what on earth do we do about Modern Pentathlon?

Tokyo in the Rearview: The Horses, Riders, and Moments that Moved Us Most

By on Aug 9, 2021 7:57 am -

Julia Krajewski and Amande de b’Neville. Photo by Shannon Brinkman.

“The important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win, but to take part; the important thing in life is not triumph, but the struggle; the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.”

Those were the immortal words of Pierre de Coubertin, the father of the modern Olympics — and though we’re delighted to have left many of Coubertin’s dodgy ideals in the dust (he famously dismissed the idea of female athletes, calling them ‘impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic’) — we do quite like where this little quip is going. Though we’ve been moved to tears and thoroughly inspired by our medal winners at Tokyo, there have been so many characters and so many stories, that have made just as significant of an impact through the week. Read on to find out some of Team EN’s horses, riders, and moments of the week — and then slide into that comment section and let us know yours.

TILLY BERENDT

Has anyone ever seen Oliver Townend jump for joy before?! A historic moment, indeed. Photo by Shannon Brinkman.

Moment of the week: The Brits taking gold

It’s an obvious one, and frankly, it never even got my heart rate up on the final day because it felt so assured, but Great Britain’s first team gold since 1972 (isn’t that mad?!) was particularly special. The Brits went into this Games as the firm favourites, but in eventing, there are so many variables at play that that doesn’t act as a guarantee of anything. Each rode spectacularly, despite all being Olympic debutants, and when they all sailed home sans time penalties on cross-country day, it was a truly exceptional moment. That they won it on the lowest-ever finishing score in Olympic history is just the cherry on top of one heck of a cake, and it’s a testament to the strength of the British system and the superb leadership of Chris Bartle and Dicky Waygood. As a German citizen who was born in England and has lived in the US and France, I’m never sure which lane I’m in at a championships, but not for the first time, I felt so proud and privileged to live in this remarkable hub of equestrian excellence.

William Fox-Pitt, Keiko and Kazuma Tomoto after Kazu’s showjumping rounds. Photo by Sally Spickard.

Person of the week: Kazuma Tomoto (Team Japan)

Blimey, it’s hard to narrow this one down, isn’t it? My heart was beating so fast for Julia Krajewski — who’s been through so much and never let the smile fall from her face — that it sounded like a marching band had invaded my cottage, and I couldn’t imagine a better woman to be our first (official) female individual gold medalist. But through the week — and, actually, over the past four years — my allegiances have been firmly with Japan’s Kazuma Tomoto, who finished in an exceptional (though no doubt frustrating) fourth place. Kazu’s story is one of extraordinary sacrifice, hard work, and overwhelming positivity, and it’s a testament to that old adage that teamwork makes the dream work. Formerly a top-class showjumper, he swapped over to eventing in 2016 because the Japanese jumping contingent was already so strong. He left Tokyo, where his wife Keiko and young daughter have remained, supporting him from afar as he put in the hard graft in the UK, where he’s based with William Fox-Pitt. Within one year of picking up his new discipline, he came within a hundredth of a second of winning the eight- and nine-year-old CCI4*-S at Blenheim, which is always packed to the rafters with top-class riders and horses. That same month, he made his team debut in the Nations Cup at Waregem. Within two years of starting his eventing career, he was part of the fourth-placed Japanese team at WEG, and in 2019 — less than three years after swapping disciplines — he won three four-stars on three different horses, made his Badminton debut, led the first phase at Luhmühlen CCI5*, and qualified four horses for Tokyo. It’s all enormously impressive, but what makes Kazu one of the greats for me is who he is as a person. I’ve seldom known anyone so positive; even when he was struggling with the language barrier he always found kind words for everyone, and he’s universally adored and admired on the British and European circuit. His kindness passes on to his horses, and William says he’s never seen Kazu lose an iota of patience with any animal. The past few years must have been so tough on him, particularly through the pandemic when he likely wasn’t able to see his family at all — but Tokyo, he’s always said, is the one chance he and his teammates have to get the Japanese public into the sport and secure its future. His is a noble cause, and his fourth place finish was a wonderful one — I just so wish it could have been a squeak higher for him. I’ll admit that I cried with joy for him several times through the course of the week — but never more so than when his wife, Keiko, who lives just down the road from the Baji Koen equestrian park, was finally granted accreditation and she and Kazu were reunited.

Lea Siegl and DSP Fighting Line. Photo by Shannon Brinkman Photography.

Horse of the week: Don Quidam, Ferreolus Lat, and DSP Fighting Line

I love putting these team review posts together; truly, I do. ‘I want you to pick your favourite thing for each category,’ I tell the team in the group chat. ‘Really put your heart and soul into explaining why that ONE THING is special.’ Then I open the text file, put fingers to keyboard, and merrily list half the field of entries over the course of approximately 3,000 words. In the words of our lord and saviour Britney Spears, that’s my prerogative, baybay. So let’s chat horse(s)! They’re all superstars, really, but a few certainly joined my tick-list of ‘horses I’d quite like to steal without consequence.’ (This list, I should add, exemplifies a dream world in which any top-level horse will go well for me, despite the fact that most days, I ride with the competence of someone who couldn’t pick a horse out of a field of cows.) Kevin McNab’s Don Quidam has been high on that list for a long time — I adore this game, catlike little horse whose ears are always hunting out the next challenge, and although it’s always horrible to see someone relegated to the bench, I admit I did some air-punching with joy when this duo got their call-up after the first horse inspection. To see them then win a silver medal for their efforts was truly special: Don-Don helped give Kevin the accolades he’s long deserved. Two other horses who particularly caught my eye were Miloslav Prihoda’s ten-year-old Ferreolus Lat and Lea Siegl’s DSP Fighting Line. The first is a horse I’ve never seen before, which is a serious novelty to me, since I spend my life trawling from event to event. While he was one of those thrown out of contention by an activated MIMclip at 14C — the very same that cost Michael Jung the gold medal — he impressed me so much with how obviously he loves his job and his rider. At just 10, he’s learned a huge amount over the course of the week and I’ll be excited to see him — and his double-size forelock — on the pathway to Paris. I also adored Lea Siegl’s 15th-placed DSP Fighting Line, who always lives up to his name and packs a real punch out on course. I doubt he’s particularly easy to ride but he and gutsy 22-year-old Lea look perfectly suited, as though they dare one another the whole way around. In both cases, these horses represent countries well outside the ‘Big Six’ — the Czech Republic and Austria, respectively — and they’re a tangible reminder of how much higher the standard has gotten over the last few years.

MAGGIE DEATRICK

Laura Collett and London 52. Photo by Sally Spickard.

Moment of the week: Laura Collett’s dazzling clear across the country with London 52

Watching Laura Collett cross the finish line of the cross-country was a tear-inducing moment for me. She caught my attention when she made such a splash at Badminton in 2011 and I’ve kept my eye on her since. Rather than being a flash in the pan like so many of these precocious young riders who break onto the stage with a top finish at an early career five-star, Laura seemed well on her way when getting derailed by a severe cross country accident that put her in a coma for six days and destroyed her vision in one eye back in 2013. To come back and represent your country in such style, earning a team gold medal….I have no words.

Kazuma Tomoto (JPN) and Vinci De La Vigne. Photo by Sally Spickard.

Person of the week: Kazuma Tomoto (Japan)

I keep waffling back and forth between Kazuma Tomoto and Julia Krajewski. Ultimately, I am going with King Kazu, who set a goal of representing his country in their home Olympics, switched disciplines to do so, endured months and months away from his young child and wife and persisted through a pandemic to perform absolutely beautifully in all three phases . I so wanted him to get a medal but was absolutely delighted to see how thrilled he was with what can be the most painful position at the Olympics: just off the podium with a fourth place finish.

Andrew Hoy and Vassily de Lassos. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Horse of the week: Vassily de Lassos 

Vassily de Lassos, like Amande de b’Neville, didn’t come into this competition with huge hype behind him. His dressage scores weren’t sub-25 so he wasn’t on the tip of everyone’s tongue, in the US at least. But this French-bred showed why eventing is a three phase sport (or a four phase for the Olympics) by climbing to silver on the merit of finishing on his dressage score, the only horse to do so. Just like that, the ability to finish on that first-phase score remains the centerpiece of the sport.

ABBY POWELL

Julia Krajewski and Amande de b’Neville. Photo by Shannon Brinkman Photography.

Moment of the week: Julia Krajewski overcomes the odds to take gold

This feels like a bit of a cop out answer, but for me, it’s got to be Germany’s Julia Krajewski clinching individual gold and becoming the first female to ever do so in eventing. Despite having what can only be described as a craptastic time of things — losing two of her top mounts with the sale of Chipmunk FRH to her teammate Michael Jung (side note: imagine competing with and also against your former ride amidst this!) plus the retirement of Samurai du Thot after losing an eye, and then the devastating death of her father earlier this year — Julia found herself here at the Olympics after all on a young mare that rose to the challenge. And boy, did she put in one hell of a showing. Now, who’s buying the rights to this movie? Production companies need to get on this, stat.

Małgorzata Cybulska and Chenaro 2. Photo by Shannon Brinkman Photography.

Person of the week: Malgorzata Cybulska (Team Poland)

One of my favorite things about Olympic eventing is getting to know riders from other nations that I haven’t really heard of before because they’re not out there constantly contesting five-stars and don’t have a huge string of horses raking in results. One of those riders that stood out to me this year (though granted, there were a number of them) was Malgorzata Cybulska of Poland. She and teammate Joanna Pawlak also share the honor of being the first women to represent Poland on a senior championship team for eventing.

Not only is Gosia, as she goes by, one of the youngest in the field, but she’s also a full-time student of Psychology and, prior to the pandemic turning classes remote, commuted back and forth to Warsaw for class while balancing riding and competition. And just two years ago, she also underwent spinal surgery to reverse the damage done by a degenerative disc disease that she’d had since he was a child but had just kept powering through. Raise your hand if you can relate to sucking it up and ignoring your own body until you physically can’t anymore! Tilly wrote a short feature on her after the dressage, so make sure you catch that too.

With a technical elimination and losing a stirrup about halfway through the course, Gosia unfortunately didn’t have the cross-country round she had hoped for, but she was able to regroup and, under the new rules, complete the competition. Hats off to you, Gosia.

Andrew Hoy and Vassily De Lassos. Photo by Shannon Brinkman Photography.

Horse of the week: Vassily de Lassos

It’s always hard to choose just one, but as a member of the Vassily de Lassos fan club before these Games started, I’ve got to pick him. I’ve featured Andrew Hoy and Vassily in many of our afternoon video posts, thanks to Andrew’s dedicated use of his helmet cam, and every time I write one of those posts and check up on how the pair finished the relevant competition I’m just blown away by their competition record, as they turn in fast times and clear jumping rounds time and time again. Like any event horses, dressage has been Vassily’s weakest phase (though it’s still quite respectable indeed and absolutely nothing to spurn) but he’s getting better and better and you can tell by their scores that Andrew is putting the training in. The horse is an FOD (finish on dressage score) freak and he and Andrew proved that they can deliver those clear clean rounds even on the biggest stage. Watch out world — this horse is only 12 years old and I think there’s lots more to come from him yet.

 

SALLY SPICKARD

Canada’s Colleen Loach and Qorry Blue d’Argouges. Photo by Sally Spickard.

Moment of the week: Colleen Loach Completes Her Second Olympics

I’m going to go a bit off key here as I think the rest of the team has well covered the epic nature of moments like Julia’s individual gold and Laura’s triumph with London 52. Colleen Loach flies a bit under the radar here in the U.S., quietly collecting results and qualifications while staying mostly away from the spotlight that surrounds some of her counterparts. It’s no secret that Canadian eventing is a bit of a mess at the moment, and I can’t imagine the potential distraction that must come with not only disorganization on the federation front but also gossip on the internet front. Colleen put all of this chatter behind her and focused on her goal: a top 20 finish in her second Olympics. While she didn’t quite meet this goal, I personally wouldn’t classify it as the failure she described it as. I really enjoyed watching Colleen from the sidelines all week long as she focused solely on Qorry Blue D’Argouges and giving him the best rides she could. He was among the freshest I saw finishing the cross country on Sunday — no small feat on that track, in that weather — and I hope she knows how much her head-down-hard-work attitude really inspires me and probably countless others.

My only regret is to not have caught Mint’s beautiful hair at the first jog!

Person of the week: Arinadtha Chavatanont Handles a Down Weekend with Class

I’ll remember my brief chats with Thai rider Arinadtha Chavatanont for a long time to come. ‘Mint’ was given the unenviable task of being the first rider down the centerline and the first rider out of the start box in her very first Olympic Games, where her country had fielded a team for the very first time. Not only does her horse, Boleybawn Prince, seem like an absolute gem, Arinadtha herself is also full of class and despite her not having the weekend she wanted, she handled her disappointment with grace. After getting into a car accident shortly after the 2018 Asian Games, Arinadtha was out of the saddle for some time, giving her a less than ideal lead-up to the Olympics. In fact, she only returned full-time to training in France earlier this year. In spite of this, she emphasized that taking proper care of her horse (which includes loads of bananas) was her biggest priority. Mint was also the only female rider of Asian descent competing in Tokyo this weekend — and her beautiful blue/purple hair made her difficult to miss! — and watching her gave a little stir to my dream of riding for Korea, which has lain dormant for several years now.

Vinci de la Vigne: “Wow, you’re all here for me??” Photo by Sally Spickard.

Horse of the week: Vinci de la Vigne Steals My Heart

One of my favorite parts of the trot-ups at a three-day is watching the horses come in, curiously wide-eyed at the surroundings that must just look so strange through a horse’s eyes. Vinci de la Vigne is one horse that really stole my heart, not only in four solid performances for Japanese rider Kazuma Tomoto but also in the 12-year-old Selle Francais gelding’s pure fascination with the jog strip and the people gathered, presumably to watch him strut his stuff. I think you can tell a lot about a horse’s overall happiness and engagement through their level of curiosity about their surroundings, and using that as a marker it’s clear that ‘Vince’ has a lot of love for life.

LESLIE WYLIE

Julia Krajewski: your new eventing individual gold medalist! Photo by Shannon Brinkman Photography.

Moment of the week: Julia Krajewski becoming the first female Olympic eventing champion

While equestrian sport likes to pat itself on the back for its equal playing field, systemic gender inequality still exists. It wasn’t until the 1964 Games — which, coincidentally, were also held in Tokyo — that the eventing competition was even contested by a woman. That year, Lana duPont rode her Maryland-bred Thoroughbred, Mr Wister, to a podium finish, having helped the USA to a team silver medal. Now women are welcome but still underrepresented at the top echelons of the sport; of this year’s 63 Olympic eventing starters, 35% were female compared to 65% male. Julia overcame innumerable obstacles and heartbreaks on her path to the top step of the podium, among them breaking another glass ceiling to prove that prove that a woman can wear eventing gold.

Switzerland’s Robin Godel and Jet Set. Photo by Sally Spickard.

Person of the week: Robin Godel (Team Switzerland)

After Robin Godel’s Olympic mount Jet Set was euthanized following cross-country day at Tokyo, the 22-year-old Swiss eventer exhibited incredible maturity even as he came under inevitable public evisceration. Losing the horse you love is every equestrian’s nightmare; having to experience such a tragedy while in the limelight of the sporting world’s brightest stage must be indescribably difficult. Yet Robin continued forward, cheering on his teammates ringside. Thank you, Robin, for your outstanding example of sportsmanship and grace.

Tom McEwen and Toledo de Kerser. Photo by Shannon Brinkman Photography.

Horse(s) of the week: Amande de b’Neville, Toledo de Kerser, Vassily de Lassos & Absolute Gold

The Olympic format of two show jumping rounds, combined with the sweltering Tokyo heat, stretched the stamina of these equine athletes to the absolute brink. If they came into the first jumping round looking a little gassed from the day before, the second round left no weakness unexposed, making the third phase of this Olympics hugely influential. Only four of the top 25 horses that came back for the individual round left all the rails in the cups both times — the top three from the podium (Amande de b’Neville, Toledo de Kerser, Vassily de Lassos) and sixth-placed Nicolas Touzaint’s Absolute Gold. Of these, the only one who jumped clear with no time both rounds was Vassily de Lassos. All four horses deserve applause for rising above not just out of physical endurance, but also an incredible show of heart.

Tokyo 2020 Olympics: Website, Latest News, EN Olympic Digest Newsletter Signup, EN’s Instagram, EN’s Twitter, EN’s Coverage, The Ultimate Guide to Tokyo, The Form Guide: Team Edition, The Form Guide: Rider Edition

Monday News & Notes from FutureTrack

By on Aug 9, 2021 7:45 am -

Is this officially the best bit of eventing merch we’ve ever seen? Quite possibly, yes — and we salute Adam Kosofksy for his good-natured support of daughter Alexa in the Novice division at Fair Hill and hope that his cooler of beer was well-stocked. Who wants to place a bet on whether her next horse is called ‘Dad’s Retirement Fund’?

National Holiday: It’s National Women’s Day AND National Book Lovers’ Day, so if you need me, I’m turning my phone off and re-reading Riders to celebrate.

US Weekend Action:

Millbrook H.T.: [Website] Results] [EN’s Coverage]

Hoosier Horse Trials: [Website] [Results]

Area VII Young Rider Benefit H.T.: [Website] [Results]

Cobblestone Farms H.T. II: [Website] [Results]

River Glen Summer H.T.: [Website] [Results]

Fair Hill International Recognized H.T.: [Website] [Results]

Spring Gulch H.T.: [Website] [Results]

UK Weekend Action:

Skipton (2): Results

Bricky (X): Results

Little Downham (2): Results

Your Monday Reading List:

Ingrid Klimke is among the many, many riders calling for the Modern Pentathlon to review how it uses horses, after ugly scenes at Tokyo brought the sport into the spotlight. While this certainly isn’t the first time the showjumping phase of pentathlon has shocked viewers at the Games, the image of Annika Schleu sobbing while flailing her whip at her mount have become emblematic. [Top eventer calls for pentathlon rule change after controversial scenes]

Behind every major result is a story of triumph and disaster – and for dressage supremo Charlotte Dujardin, it’s no different. Forgive us for sharing a piece from the Daily Fail, but if you’re struggling through a break-up or a family illness, this should offer up some much-needed inspiration this morning. [‘When my fiancé left me, I kept thinking, ‘Why was I not good enough?’: How Olympic champion Charlotte Dujardin overcame the hurdles of a broken engagement, her horse out of action and her critically ill mother in the build-up to Tokyo]

There’s no denying that the Swedish showjumping team were on extraordinary form throughout the Games. But did you know that two of their three team horses are barefoot? Fran Jurga sat down for a chat with Peter Glimberg, the team farrier, to find out more about the hows and whys of barefooting it at the top level. [The Olympic Hoof Explained: Swedish farrier outlines barefoot management of gold medal team]

Each Olympic cycle brings to the fore the systems that are getting it right — as well as the ones that need a serious overhaul. In the aftermath comes the fertile ground to grow, and HorseSport is laying the Canadian system bare to try to encourage that necessary change and growth. [What’s Behind the (Sorry) State of Eventing in Canada]

The FutureTrack Follow:

We can’t stop looking at these custom biscuits representing the British dressage team at Tokyo — and clever Camilla did the eventers, too. Wait til you see her *chef’s kiss* rendering of Ballaghmor Class.

Morning Viewing:

If you still haven’t seen silver medallist Shane Rose swap his horse for a skateboard, where have you been? This is your essential viewing of the day.

#TheTea(Post)Tokyo: Happy Homecomings

By on Aug 7, 2021 5:25 pm -

And just like that, the equestrian disciplines at the Tokyo Olympics were over, seemingly as quickly as they’d begun. While we’ve all been engrossed in this week’s showjumping competition (and, um, Modern Pentathlon, though perhaps for all the wrong reasons), our eventers and their horses have been on the long road — or flight path, rather — home. Want to see how they’re getting on in the aftermath of this year’s biggest adventure? Keep scrolling for a recap of the best of their social media updates over the last few days. Oh, and press play on this for maximum impact:

There was time for one last shot at the Olympic rings before the packing commenced, and Hong Kong’s Tom Heffernan Ho — one of the fan favourites of the week with 20-year-old Tayberry — made sure to fit in a visit:

Most riders flew home before their horses, so everyone made the most of the last days together in the Tokyo sunshine and reflected on what had unfolded, including the Czech Republic’s Miloslav Prihoda Jr:

There’s so much to be grateful for — not least the grooms who keep the show on the road. Ireland’s Sarah Ennis celebrated Ailsa, her groom, who stayed behind to look after and fly with Woodcourt Garrison:

And China’s Alex Hua Tian laid out his love for his horse, Don Geniro, before getting the last of his suitcases packed and hitting the road for the airport:

It’s important to pick up snacks and souvenirs for the flight, and the brilliant Kiwi team managed to do both in one fell swoop, while hinting at their Paris plans:

Australia’s Andrew Hoy took in the last views of that extraordinary skyline en route to his flight:

Meanwhile, with the riders gone and the stables quiet once more, the four-legged superstars enjoyed some zen time. All we want in life is to be as chilled as Tom McEwen’s Toledo de Kerser was in this moment:

Before long, it was time for the horses to catch their own flights. Most were heading to Liege, and they emerged bright-eyed from their first class voyage and ready for their onward journeys:

Two of Team China’s horses, Flandia and Lady Chin, heading back to the Netherlands to the base of Dutch Olympian Tim Lips, where they and riders Bao Yingfeng and Sun Huadong live:

France’s Karim Laghouag was delighted to be reunited with Triton Fontaine:

And the riders got warm welcomes at the airport, too! Check out Christopher Six’s welcoming committee:

Laura Collett used her flight home to befriend some other big names, such as gold medal gymnast Max Whitlock:

Prepare yourself to get a bit teary over individual gold medallist Julia Krajewski’s welcome from friends, family, and students, including many of the Warendorf riders:

Not to mention the red carpet arrival of her beloved mount, Amande de b’Neville:

US reserve rider Tamie Smith made it back to California to recuperate before she heads to Europe for Aachen:

And teammate Doug Payne was back in time to catch the showjumping — which must have been a surreal viewing experience:

Australia’s Kevin McNab was delighted to be reunited with wife Emma and their two children:

The horses were delighted to get back to their fields:

While some preferred to make use of the turn-down service at home:

Oliver Townend bypassed the usual tea-and-a-biscuit:

While Michael Jung’s second rider, Pietro Grandis, celebrated his friend and mentor:

Italy’s Susanna Bordone was another rider to relish catching up with her family:

As was Boyd Martin, who we think should seriously consider incorporating the hot rod flames into his cross-country wardrobe:

The bronze medal winning French team were kept busy with obligations in Paris — and some top notch worldplay from Karim:

Now, all that’s left to do is bask in the memories, revel in that golden glow, and saddle up ready for Paris 2024. Go Eventing! 

Saturday Video from SmartPak: Team GB Spills the Tea

By on Aug 7, 2021 3:16 pm -

I know you guys are basking in the Tokyo high as much as we are — it’s impossible not to get caught up in the whirlwind of excitement around any of the sports, but when it’s your own in the spotlight, it’s extra special. I’ve been reliving Great Britain’s extraordinary victory over and over again, and so I was delighted to stumble upon this video from the final press conference, where you can hear all about how that win happened — and what it felt like — straight from the mouths of Tom McEwen, Laura Collett, and Oliver Townend themselves. Aaaaand I’m crying again.

Final Five-Star of 2021 Cancels Due to Covid Restrictions

By on Aug 6, 2021 8:05 am -

Photo courtesy of Australian International 3 Day Event.

Life and sport might feel a bit more like normal after the successful staging of the Tokyo Olympics, but here’s an unwelcome reminder that things are still in flux: the Australian Three-Day Event CCI5* in Adelaide has been cancelled for the second consecutive year due to ongoing Covid restrictions.

Greg Bolton, Chair of the event’s board, explained that lockdowns in various Australian states had impacted many riders qualification routes, leaving them with inadequate time to prepare and gain the necessary results to contest the Aussie showpiece, which was due to take place from 18–21 November and is the only CCI5* in the Southern Hemisphere. This ordinarily means that the field of entries is significantly smaller than those we see at Europe’s five-stars — and that field would only have been further shrunk in this tricky year.

“Our primary focus is to deliver a safe and successful event at the world-class benchmark we have created,” said Bolton in a statement released today (August 6). “Unfortunately, with continued lockdowns across the country in 2021, this has impacted the ability for riders to compete and qualify for the Aus3DE. We are disappointed this has led to the decision to cancel the 2021 Aus3DE, particularly after the success of our Olympic Silver Medal winning Equestrian Eventing Team at the Tokyo Olympics, but we have our sights set on the delivery of a fantastic event in 2022 post this pandemic.”
The event’s board is committed to the return of the event in 2022. Meanwhile, the Northern Hemisphere’s CCI5* pathway continues on apace, with Burghley’s replacement event at Bicton taking place in the first week of September, followed by the inaugural Maryland CCI5* from October 13–17 and France’s Les 5 Etoiles de Pau from October 27–31.