Caroline Harris and D.Day. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
“I’ve worked my whole life to even get to 5*, and it’s taken me until this year to finally get a horse to get here,” says 34-year-old Caroline Harris, her eyes brimming with tears as she stands still in the eye of the storm, moments after jumping the clear round that secured her the Les 5 Etoiles de Pau victory with D.Day.
34 is, of course, practically still a baby by any metric – but in a sport that sees so many professional careers start in one’s teens, and where riders in their early twenties might be just as likely to win major titles as riders in their fifties and sixties, getting towards the middle of your thirties can start to feel like an awful lot of early mornings, rainy days, and trips to the muck heap. In the past few years, I’ve spoken to riders from all kinds of backgrounds, and all sorts of ages, ticking major boxes – riders who’ve made the step up to the top level in their forties after half resigning themselves to the fact that it just might not be on the cards for them; riders who’ve been called upon to represent their countries on Nations Cup teams for the first time in their seventh decade of life. Whatever, and whenever, your ‘first’ is, you’ll always remember it – and for Caroline, her first season at five-star has been the sort of yarn that pony novels have long been based upon.
Caroline Harris and D.Day. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
You take one part young girl from a non-horsey family, one part sibling rivalry, one part inherent drive and one heaping helping of little-horse-that-could energy, and you get some kind of magic.
“My family’s not horsey at all. My dad sent my sister off for riding lessons, and we grew up in London, so I just went along. I wasn’t really that into it – and then probably when I was 10, we moved to the country and I got a pony. I’m quite stubborn, and because my sister wanted to do it, I was adamant I wanted to do it – so it just went from there, really,” laughs Caroline.
When that bug bit her, though, it really bit her. By her late teens, she made her international eventing debut, and in her twenties, she opted to base herself with Australian five-star winner Sam Griffiths to learn the ropes as a young professional – a relocation that lasted for a decade.
Caroline Harris and D.Day. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
These days, she’s based at Captain Mark Phillips’ Aston Farm with Zara Tindall and New Zealand’s Clarke Johnstone, and all three riders take an active part in one another’s day-to-day life. That mean’s that every day’s a school day – there’s something to be learned from every horse she sits on, but also plenty to be learned from watching, and chatting, and exchanging ideas and methods. And when she’s not there? She improves her feel at speed by pre-training racehorses part time.
All of that adds up to shape a rider who can best be described as having kept her head down and plugged on with it all. Caroline’s well known for being an excellent producer of young horses, and several of her former rides have been bought up for bigger-name riders. And when that’s happened? She’s kept on keeping on, learning, producing, and waiting for the right horse to come along – and stay with her – so she could see her own dream through.
It wouldn’t, admittedly, have occurred to her or breeder Fiona Olivier that now-ten-year-old D.Day might be that horse when he first arrived on her yard.
“Fiona bred him to just be a happy hack hunter for her son’s girlfriend, and they split up, so he ended up coming to me, and I thought ‘he’s a very cute Junior/Young Rider horse’, and he’s just gone on and on and on,” says Caroline, who now counts Lucy Matthews, Marie Anne Richardson, and Heather Royle among the gelding’s owners, along with Fiona. “He keeps just under the radar, just plugging away and just pulling out results, and I owe him everything for that.”
D.Day (Billy Mexico x Dillus, by Dilium XX) stepped up to four-star in mid-2022, finishing just outside the top twenty in a big class at Burgham’s CCI4*-S. Then, he went on to finish 16th in the prestigious CCI4*-S for eight- and nine-year-olds at Blenheim that year, before embarking upon a 2023 season that included a Nations Cup debut at Boekelo CCIO4*-L in October, a podium finish in an extraordinarily tough Chatsworth CCI4*-S in May, and a fourth place finish in his return to the eight- and nine-year-old class at Blenheim. And this season? A twelfth place finish in his, and Caroline’s, five-star debut at Luhmühlen in June, which came after the same placing in the tough, slick, and wet CCI4*-S at Bicton in May, and a win – again in the relentless wet – at Lignières CCI4*-S last month.
Caroline Harris and D.Day. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
“I’m just so lucky that he is who he is,” says Caroline fondly. “He’s not the most talented in any shape or form, but he gives me everything all the time, and I owe him everything. I just can’t really believe it – I never came here thinking I’d even think about winning. I almost didn’t run yesterday, so I was really not looking forward to the ground, but it goes to show, a good cross country horse in the mud can pull you up sometimes!”
That ‘pulling up’ isn’t insignificant: the pair began their week in 22nd place on a score of 30.3, and climbed to the lead yesterday after delivering the swiftest round of the day for just 10 time penalties. In this era of the sport we’ve become so accustomed to a hefty first-phase influence, and it’s often hard to imagine anyone outside the top ten, or even the top five, making their way to the win – but this week’s result shows that there’s still room for a good, old-fashioned climb. It was with that half in her mind that Caroline made the decision to run yesterday.
“My friends definitely gave me a bit of a kick up the backside,” she laughs. “He ran so well at Lignières in the mud, and he ran very well at Chatsworth in the mud last year, and they just reminded me of that. I think because everyone else was running, I was like, ‘come on, stop being a wimp and go!’”
Caroline Harris and D.Day. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
But even so, actually climbing to the top spot was never on the agenda. Instead, the goal was just to consolidate everything they’d learned in their impressive debut a few months ago.
“He went round Luhmühlen double clear, but we took a couple of long routes because he went a bit green and he was a bit careful and went high. So I just wanted to have a more confident run cross country here, which I think is why I was wondering whether I should run – because it was so wet and I didn’t want him to go high and scared,” she explains. “But he was just a legend. He was so straight, and he’s so quick – he’s 80% blood – and he flew through the mud. He didn’t care at all. I had no expectations [coming into the week], I just wanted another 5* under my belt.”
It doesn’t get much more ‘under the belt’ than winning – and as Caroline rode back into the chute after her round, she disappeared into a sea of fellow competitors, who battled amongst themselves to be first in line to scoop her up in a hug. She may not – until now – have been a name known amongst casual fans of the sport, but one thing is very clear: Caroline Harris is a rider who all the other riders, including the ones you all know very well, have been expecting this result from for a long time.
“I’ve dreamt about this, but I never thought it would ever happen in my entire life; you’re up against the amazing Tom and Ros, and I’m not even anywhere near them, and to come home having beaten them is quite unbelievable,” she says smiling through teary eyes.
Ros Canter and Izilot DHI. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Pau’s showjumping track is notoriously tough: it’s big, it’s square, it’s full of distances and turns that feel more like a pure showjumping course, and the influence it exerts on the final leaderboard always reflects that. But on paper, today seemed like a slightly less influential day – though the course still walked, and looked, as big and tough as ever. 21 of the 55 starters jumped clear rounds; just one of those added time penalties while doing so. Was the course simply built in a more forgiving manner this year, or did the shortened cross-country track, and the great condition of the horses today, contribute to fresher, tidier efforts in the ring? It’s anyone’s guess, and likely, the answer sits somewhere in between the two – but what this less influential final day meant was that we finished with many of the same tight margins we started with.
The tightest of them all? The 0.3 penalties separating Caroline and D.Day from last year’s winners, Ros Canter and Izilot DHI.
“I think we always feel when we walk the course here, that it’s very big. It’s probably one of the biggest courses we ever have to tackle. But I think also that the horses really enjoy jumping off the surface, and I think as much of the ground conditions weren’t easy yesterday, the horses have all come out of it, feeling very well this morning,” she says. “So they were able to tackle such an up to height and technical track all quite well.”
Izilot jumped a grown-up, neat clear to take second place, but before doing so, Ros headed back out on course to revisit what they’d encountered yesterday.
“I actually took some of the kids out for a bit of a bike ride this morning, and we stopped and had a look at the ground where you came back from the race course to the log on the mound [at 21], and they all sunk and got stuck. So that’s what the ground was like, and it’s amazing the job that everybody did to keep it going. So we’re all very grateful for that. This is a very happy event for me – I absolutely love coming here. My horses always seem to enjoy it, and it’s a great event for my family, too.”
Ros Canter and Izilot DHI. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Izilot’s performances through the week have looked as confident and steady as we’ve seen him – an effort that’s been ongoing for much longer than just this year, but in the 2024 season alone, has seen his rider try plenty of creative ways to work through his inherent spookiness. Earlier this year, it was all about hacking out at home and travelling away from home if she wanted to school him, so he could get used to working sensibly in new environments; as the year went on, she went back to adding in work at home, and jumped on the chance to give him some incidental ‘exposure therapy’ when she could. Most recently, that happened at Burghley, where the gelding led the dressage and began cross-country well, but then had an early run-out. On Sunday, he was spared from competitive duties, but got to spend plenty of time absorbing the hubbub of the main arena anyway: he was William Fox-Pitt’s ride for his retirement ceremony, and then happily carried Harry Meade around the prizegiving. All of it gave him valuable experience, and looked very intentional – but actually, Ros admits, it was just a happy bit of chance that she’s been able to benefit from since.
“I think they really couldn’t find another horse they could use,” she laughs. “But I was very happy for him to do that. He can be sharp and spooky, but he’s actually quite a quiet-natured horse and quite a sensible horse. Most of my horses I would have said no, because a prizegiving does buzz them up. But I think he’s got a very level head, so I was very happy for him to go and soak up the atmosphere at Burghley and have to canter past the flower pots and things that sometimes catch us out. So it wasn’t in the plan, but I was very happy for him to be borrowed for that.”
Now, it’s time for both the creative training and the happy competitive outings to hit pause for a little while, and give both horse and rider a bit of downtime.
“He will have a very well deserved holiday. He’s been up and running for a long time this year, so I’m very much looking forward to him getting home and having some time in the field,” Ros says. “Sometimes he makes me a little nervous riding him at home, so I’m quite looking forward to having a break from him too!”
Tom McEwen and Brookfield Quality. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Tom McEwen secured third place with fifteen-year-old Brookfield Quality in the horse’s second five-star start – a happy finish after a tricky Luhmühlen debut, wherein the horse performed excellently but was struck by the worst of the cross-country day storm, and subsequently suffered a bad nosebleed. This week, though, he’s been able to show off what he couldn’t on that occasion, and has proven himself as a much tougher, grittier five-star horse than many would have expected. His clear round this afternoon earned him third place, to the collective delight of Tom, the Brookfield team, and formed rider Piggy March.
“Norris has been amazing,” says Tom. “He’s an awesome little horse with a huge amount of character. It’s taken a bit of time to get to know one another, but he is amazing. So on, the cards will be hopefully a well deserved break and then hopefully some more 5*s next year.”
Alex Hua Tian and Chicko. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
China’s Alex Hua Tian doesn’t often get to make five-star bids, as championships have to remain at the forefront of his country’s developing eventing system. But in Chicko, the former ride of Polly Stockton, he’s long suspected he may have a horse for the very top of the sport – a suspicion that proved true this week. The pair started their week on a 28.9 for 13th place, and climbed to fifth with one of the fastest rounds of the day yesterday. Today, the debutant horse came out as fresh as a daisy to deliver a clear round and step up one place into the spot previously occupied by Piggy March and Halo, who tipped just one rail en route to a top ten finish. Another spot was also opened up in the top ten by Oliver Townend and Cooley Rosalent, who dropped from eighth to 16th after a shock two rails.
“He’s so nifty. The faster you go, the more he scurries, and the higher he goes in the air,” says Alex. “He got a little low towards the end, and had a good rattle at the second last, but once he had that rattle, I knew I could trust him down to the last. I’m so happy for his owners, Kate and Pete Willis. He’s a horse that actually was produced for many years by Polly, so I’ve only had the ride on him the last couple of years. He’s just so cool to ride – she’s done such a tremendous job.”
“I’m just delighted,” he continues. “I have a huge amount of faith in the horse, and I knew he had a good chance of being competitive here, just the type of horse he is, what his advantages and disadvantages, and I felt everything here at Pau was going to suit him, and also give us a bit of an indication of what we might do next year.”
Now, with this behind him, next year could see some very exciting entries indeed.
“I think Badminton is a very different kind of test – yes, more difficult, but also very different,” muses Alex. “So whether or not he would be quite as competitive in that field or with that kind of test, I don’t know. But, he’s a horse that, even though he’s 14, every three months he just seems to improve again. You just think that you’ve hit that limit in terms of improvement, and he just surprises you every time.”
Boyd Martin and Fedarman B. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Boyd Martin soldiered through the last day of a tough week to take fifth place with the indomitable Fedarman B, who’s been the best possible partner for his battered and bruised rider after a tough stint in the office at Maryland last week.
“It was a bit of a rough week for me,” admits Boyd, who thinned his obligations by one yesterday when opting to withdraw debutant Miss Lulu Herself from the tough conditions. “This time last week I was getting out of hospital, and it’s tricky mentally, wondering if you should or shouldn’t come, and then you get the horses here and you get here, and it’s horrific conditions. But I kept telling myself I had a champion horse in Bruno, and to finish fifth in such a large field is something to be very proud of.”
Bruno, he continues, was able to step up and help his rider out en route to taking another top-ten placing at this level.
“I definitely wasn’t 100%. I think Bruno covered for me a bit this weekend, but he’s still got plenty left in the tank, and I feel like we’ve got a handle on his dressage now,” says Boyd, who started his week in 16th place on a 29.5. “I think there’s a lot to be excited for Bruno’s future, and I’m very, very grateful that the Annie Goodman syndicate got behind me and allowed me to do a second trip to France this year. The sky’s the limit with him.”
Bruno has become one of the most competitive horses in Boyd’s string: he’s previously finished in eighth place here and at Luhmühlen, and was tenth at the Olympics this summer – but Boyd, who rides the gelding in honour of the late Annie Goodwin, admits that he’s not necessarily a horse he’d have talent-spotted as a youngster.
“I’d never buy him as a young horse. He doesn’t have enough blood – but he has just got so much heart. He’s gutsy. He never says no, and even when the chips are down, he grits his teeth and jumps clear or fights his way through the flags at the end of the course when he’s knackered, and he lifts a gear in the dressage, and it’s a real privilege to be able to ride a horse of that calibre,” he says with a grin.
Lea Siegl and DSP Fighting Line. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Austria’s Lea Siegl and DSP Fighting Line also battled through a tough week en route to an excellent finish, but for slightly different reasons. This time last year, they suffered a hugely uncharacteristic crashing fall on cross-country, leaving Lea to recover from a facial injury, and when the season was set to begin again this spring, she was once again sidelined with a badly broken leg. She had to spend eight weeks keeping her leg elevated to help it recover from a complex operation and the addition of a metal plate, and that left her almost no time to secure her qualification for Paris. But she did, clinching a win in the CCI4*-L at Baborowko after just a few rides back, and she and Fighty headed to Versailles – only to be spun at the first horse inspection. And so the goals for the latter half of the season shifted, and the focus moved back to Pau – an event that Lea wanted to rewrite for herself.
She and Fighty have, bit by bit, done just that this week, starting with a 29.5 on the flat for 16th place, and climbing after a gritty ride through the slop yesterday to seventh place. Their clear today pushed them one spot up the leaderboard, and allows them to close the book on 2024 with a smile on their faces and higher hopes for next year.
“He was amazing. I think the whole week, he’s felt really good,” says 26-year-old Lea. “I know he’s a good jumper, but after this shit ground yesterday, it was not so easy for the horses. I was still hoping that he was quite fit today, and this morning at the trot up, he was already a bit too motivated! So he was feeling really well today, and he did a nice job. I’m also happy because last year was shit here and now to come back and have this result feels good.”
The relief of it all, she says, has her dreaming again.
“I was already thinking about it: if it’s good in Pau, if everything goes well, my childhood dream was always to compete at Badminton. He’s turning 18 next year, but he’s still feeling quite fit, he’s not feeling like he’s 18,” she says. “He’s getting better and better as he’s getting older. So we will see. He gets a winter break now, and if next year he feels as this year and he is fit and motivated, I might give him another season and maybe go to Badminton, because I think he’s the horse you can ride at a 5* like Badminton. I think not every horse is born to be a Badminton or Burghley horse or a 5* horse, in general, but I think he is so, if he feels good, we have a plan.”
Piggy March and Halo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
What a difference two days make: after her dressage test on Friday, Piggy March wasn’t at all sure that she’d run her five-star debutant, the little stallion Halo, on cross-country, and after talking to her about it, I was nearly sure she wouldn’t. But her mid-field draw proved fortuitous: she was able to watch enough horses happily return home that she figured she might as well give it a shot. The pair ended up delivering one of the day’s speedier rounds, thrusting them from tenth to fourth place, and though they had a rail today, Piggy couldn’t be more pleased with Jayne McGivern’s tiny horse’s seventh place finish.
“He’s amazing – I’m so proud of the little chap,” she beams. “I’m just glad I wasn’t first out yesterday, because I probably wouldn’t have run. It was nice to see [pathfinder] Oliver [Townend] do such a great first round, his horse just looked so happy, and like he went through the mud. It’s unknown ground here when it’s wet, because you’re normally on top of it. I was definitely conscious of where the horse is at and his stage in his career, and what’s the right thing for him. I was probably being a big fanny! But he was as good as I know that he is. He pricked his ears and he actually loved it, and he gave me some feel. He’s a gorgeous little horse – I’m so excited. He wasn’t scared at all. He didn’t give a monkeys’!”
Now that Piggy’s running a smaller string than before – by choice – she’s more protective than ever of the horses she runs. But now, she feels like she might be ready to take Baby out of the corner.
“He’s a stallion but he’s so brave – he’s super brave. But I protect him. He’s a lovely horse, and he’s a little unicorn, so I sort of think, ‘oh, I just want to make sure he’s okay’ – and today, he felt fantastic,” she says. “I obviously will go around in circles [about that pole], but I don’t think there was anything that I could do if I jumped it another million times! It was by the gateway; I think maybe he looked into the gate rather than totally at the fence. But such is life! He gave a super feel and jumped a lovely round.”
Like Lea, Piggy has been hoping for a happy ending to a tough year, and a bit of better luck to herald in a positive start to next season – and in this result, she’s got it.
“It’s been a hard work year. It’s been a big emotional roller coaster of a year, for lots of different reasons, obviously,” says Piggy. “But we know that – it’s riding the wave of life, or sport or horses, and sometimes, you just think everything you touch goes to shit. You keep trying to bounce up and you don’t want to be negative, and you keep trying to be like, ‘Let’s go again. Let’s go again. Let’s go again.’ You keep getting smacked back down. I’m not getting the violin out, but there’s just times it’s like, ‘this is really difficult’ – but we’re also very fortunate. So I shut up and get on with it! We’ve got another night here; we don’t go back to tomorrow night. So we’re going to go and drink French wine and enjoy it.”
After the very long drive home, Piggy’s focus will shift from competition to something equally major: a 1,100km cycle from Scotland to London next month, which she’s undertaking with husband Tom and a variety of fellow riders and friends in order to raise money for the British Eventing Support Trust and Spinal Research in memory of her sister-in-law, Caroline March, who opted to medically end her own life earlier this year after a long stint spent rebuilding her life following a spinal injury sustained in a cross-country accident.
“I get off the last event, and I think, ‘shit, I’ve really got to make sure I get fit this week because then I want to back off the next before going’ – it’s awful,” laughs Piggy, who’s been cycling fairly unfathomable distances most days in training. “But it’s good. It’s such a good cause, and I just really hope every rider or lover of the sport, I really, really hope anyone involved, just puts their fiver in the pot. We’re doing this for our community, and trying to keep it all positive, but we just know through this year that it can very quickly go wrong. If it does, there’s a point for everybody to just help. It’s not negativity, it’s trying to remain positive of our great sport, our great, great community that we do have, but it would just make such a difference. You never know when it’s you [who’ll need help]. I’ve spent my life worrying about having a pesky show jump down like today, thinking, ‘Bloody hell. I’ll kill myself for three days if it happens’. But really, that’s not a bad day in the grand scheme of things, and when you’ve suddenly had real bad days, weeks, months, years, and terrible outcomes, it puts it into perspective. It’s not a bad day. It’s very easy for things to be a bad day, and it really affects people’s life. That might not be you, but it might be your mate or your mate’s mate. Somewhere along the line of our little bubble that we’re in, it does affect people, and we all just need someone that you can pick up the phone any time to just be like, ‘help, this has gone wrong.’”
Will Coleman and Off The Record. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Swedish Olympians Frida Andersen and Box Leo put a pin in another exceptional week this season by jumping a classy clear round to secure eighth place – a three-phase climb from 32nd – and cement their place as ones to watch in the seasons to come, while ninth place went the way of Tim Price and his smart first-timer Jarillo, who also jumped a fresh, tidy clear round. The top ten was rounded out by the hugely consistent Yasmin Ingham and Rehy DJ, who added no faults and now have three five-star placings to their name. Will Coleman and Off The Record climbed another five places to finish in 24th after a one-rail round.
That’s all for us – for now – from Pau, and the final event of the season, on this side of the pond, anyway. We’ll be back with lots more eventing news and views tomorrow, and when I finally make my way back to England and sleep off seven months of accumulated Big Tired, I’ll also be back with lots of opinions and thoughts and retrospectives on this and the rest of the events I’ve been fortunate enough to cover this year. Until then, thank you for always coming along on this wild ride with me. Go Eventing (and, in my case, gratefully, Go To Bed).
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