Classic Eventing Nation

That moment when your family horse gives you the biggest result of your career. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

When we last left Rosie Fry, she was in two minds about her situation: one the one hand, she was delighted to have moved into the lead with her ten-year-old True Blue Too II after delivering the second-fastest cross-country round of the day in what was only his second CCI4*-L, and she was determined to enjoy the moment, particularly in the wake of the harsh dose of perspective we’d all been dealt after the lorry crash that started the week. But on the other hand, she couldn’t help but think of the last time she was in this position. That was back in 2012, when she found herself in the lead after cross-country with Bankon Louie — but on the final day, the pair took four rails and tumbled down the leaderboard to sixth.

“I don’t really like to be in this position,” she told us yesterday with some trepidation. But despite any latent nerves she may have had, “I was so tired last night that I slept so well!” she laughs. This morning, she was up with the sun and kept busy with the other horses she has with her, who all needed to be fed and ridden and cared for — and in the case of Arise Cavalier, competed.

“It’s quite nice to not have just one, because then you have other things to think about,” she says. “I had [Arise Cavalier] to jump in the three-star, and he went clear, so that gives you the confidence that you’re doing the right thing.”

Rosie Fry and True Blue Too II jump the final fence. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Arise Cavalier’s performance saw the pair finish fourth in the large three-star class, which began the afternoon on a positive note after yesterday’s rollercoaster of a day, which saw Rosie’s strong cross-country performances bookend an unfortunate early fall on course with her other three-star mount. Bolstered by a successful Sunday thus far, she turned her attention to preparing for the biggest moment of her career — again. Fortunately, like yesterday’s course, today’s track was tailor-made for his strengths.

“It was just forward and nice, and I knew that would suit him — he likes to be on a forward stride,” says Rosie. “And it’s a nice big arena, and on grass; I think he jumps better on grass, and the atmosphere picked him up too, where he might have felt a little bit tired after yesterday. It definitely felt like he knew there were people around him; he felt like he was on really good form and that gave me the confidence to ride him confidently.”

After second-placed Tom McEwen and Dream Big knocked three rails, Rosie was granted a buffer — but she only had one pole in hand, and she didn’t want to have to use it. Though True Blue Too skimmed economically through the treble and breathed on another couple of poles during his round, he ultimately left everything in the cups and crossed the line clear and inside the time as Rosie threw her head back and punched the air in shock and gratitude.

That winning feeling: Rosie Fry rewrites history with her first CCI4*-L win. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

For Rosie, it’s an enormously emotional moment — not least because it’s an affirmation of her skills as a rider and proof that she can hold her own against the biggest names.

“I can’t really believe it — it’s going to take the whole drive home to sink in,” the Dorset-based rider, who will likely spend upwards of 12 hours driving home, laughs. “With all the other amazing people, with Tom and Oliver, these gold medallists in the same section — well, it just puts the belief in what you’re doing, in your process at home and the training and everything. I’ve had him since he was four, so it’s even more special because I’ve done everything with him, and it gives me that confidence. When you have a bad day you think, ‘god, what am I doing wrong?’ But then these days are why we do eventing, so we’ll celebrate it — you just don’t know when it’ll come again.”

Rosie Fry hugs her aunt — and the breeder of True Blue Too II — Di Hamilton-White. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Rosie’s also particularly grateful for this result, because she didn’t even know if she’d make it to Blair this year: “Two weeks ago, he had a freak incident at home, and we didn’t know if we’d even get here,” says Rosie, explaining that he managed to get loose and slip over, pockmarking himself with superficial injuries. “Luckily it was all just grazes, but to come here you need to make sure everything’s tip-top. Luckily he recovered in time, but it was a bit of a worry with timing — but my girls have worked so hard to get him in top shape. And he was; he couldn’t have felt better. He’s just tried so hard.”

Rosie Fry and True Blue Too II take their lap of honour. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Now, Rosie plans to give True Blue Too a holiday so that she can bring him back into work over the winter and focus on improving his dressage. Then, all being well, she’s planning for the next step up in the spring.

“There isn’t anything else he needs to do this season, so he’ll have that break and then we need to work on the dressage, so he’ll do lots of dressage and showjumping this winter,” she says. “Then, hopefully we’ll now aim for Badminton, which would be amazing — that’s the long-term plan, so hopefully we can keep him healthy and well.”

Alice Casburn and Topspin II. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Just like Rosie’s horse, nineteen-year-old Alice Casburn‘s Topspin II is something of a family legacy: his granddam competed to Advanced with Alice’s mother, Caroline, who then bred from the mare and went on to compete the resulting filly. Years down the line, she decided to breed from her, and the product of that decision was lanky Topspin, who began his career showjumping with Caroline in the irons before she passed the ride along to her daughter a few years ago. Together, they’ve overcome the gelding’s initial disinterest in eventing, contested the Junior European Championships, moved up to four-star, and even jumped around 1.40m and Puissance classes — but before their showjumping round today, they came up against something they’d never encountered before.

“He actually got really insecure in the warm-up,” says Alice. “He was like, ‘where are you, mum?!’ And he’s never like that. But funnily enough, as soon as he saw the crowds, he was like, ‘brilliant!'”

If you were to stand Alice and Topspin next to one another, you wouldn’t necessarily pick them as the most likely competitive combination: he’s long, tall, and strong, and she’s petite and whip-thin. But her quiet, sympathetic and unphysical style of riding suits the horse, who relies heavily on her voice for reassurance and guidance while on cross-country, and she understands his strengths and physicality and doesn’t try to force him into being something he’s not. That can make for interesting viewing in this phase; he’s so long in his body and his stride that it can look as though he’s going too slowly or without enough power, but Alice learned while jumping a colossal Puissance wall with him that this is simply his natural way of going, and she has to trust in that and go along with it.

“Every time, everyone’s like, ‘you’re going to have time!’ But then you get three strides out and he can really adjust himself to find the long or the short one. He’s really elastic, which isn’t that common for a big horse, but he just looks after me so well — he’ll do anything to get to the other side.” She pauses, beams at her horse, and says, as she has done so many times before, “I’m just so, so lucky and privileged to ride him.”

As Alice and Topspin cantered into the arena, he threw in a dramatic spook at the red brick wall he’d need to jump in just a few moments’ time — but although his antics made the crowd gasp, that was the moment that made Alice realise it was all going to be okay.

“It sounds really funny, but if he spooks as he comes in, that’s when you know he’s on form. People always look at me like, ‘oh my god, are you okay?!’ And I’m like, ‘yeah, I’d be more worried if he didn’t do this!’,” says Alice. “I started enjoying it after the second fence, because if I’m ever going to miss, it’s always at the first — that’s like, my nerves getting to me. But it was okay today!”

Alice’s second place finish is impressive no matter which way you spin it: from the clear round yesterday with just six time penalties, to the fault-free round today, to her young age and the relative inexperience of both horse and rider. But perhaps at the forefront of all of that is that she didn’t come here this week with any intention of being competitive, nor of taking any risks: it’s just the second-ever CCI4*-L for both horse and rider who, like Rosie and True Blue Too, had an educational run at Bicton back in June. Alice wanted to use this week to gain a qualifying result and solidify their education, not to pull out all the stops and deliver heroics — but even with a conservative goal in mind, they’ve still managed to come this close to a win.

“I just wanted to come here and have a good experience, really,” she says. “I thought I’d have another crack at it and hopefully get a qualifying result, so to come second is pretty mega. I thought he’d climb [up the leaderboard] as he loves his jumping and he’s normally pretty quick. I don’t think it’s sunk in yet, though — like, yesterday after my cross-country I was just walking around like, ‘oh, wow, I’m in third!'”

Now, with a five-star qualification under their belts, the sky truly is the limit.

“I’ve always really wanted to go five-star, and he’s obviously more than capable — my mum has always said that when you move up, you don’t know if your horse is capable of that level until the second time, because when you bring them out the next time, they know what’s coming. [So now] I’d love to do a five-star, whether it’s this year or next year; that way I can have a go while I’m on a horse I love and trust.”

Lauren Innes and Global Fision M finish third. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Lauren Innes might not be able to spend all day in the saddle — in fact, she regularly has to get up at 5.00 a.m. to ensure she can finish riding and caring for her horses before she begins her day job as an accountant at 9.00 a.m. — but she’s looked every inch the professional this week in partnership with the exceptional eleven-year-old Global Fision M, who she bought as a “very, very sharp” five-year-old through Brian Morrison of Ireland’s Global Event Horses.

Yesterday, she filled us in on her jam-packed schedule that allows her to get the sparky gelding fit herself, and over the course of the weekend, we’ve seen the proof of its efficiency: the pair added 10.4 time penalties yesterday and finished full of running, and today, he looked so fit and feisty in the showjumping arena that we’d almost have suspected her of swapping for a fresh horse — except for his characteristic pinned ears, which made it so plainly evident that the catlike horse in the ring was the one we’d enjoyed watching all week.

“I knew that he was a good horse, but he can get very excited, and it’s just about bringing all three phases together on the day,” says a delighted Lauren, who explains that ‘Flipper’ is ordinarily at his best when showjumping on the final day of a three-day event, which helps to take the edge off him.

Well, sort of. After Flipper’s lightning-fast clear today, which secured a third-place finish for the pair, there wasn’t much opportunity to chat to his beaming rider: he was too busy snorting and cavorting through the collecting ring, and Lauren opted to remove him from the buzz of the pre-prizegiving scrum and hack him back and forth along the path to the stables. Or, more accurately, attempt to keep him in a collected hand canter back and forth to the stables before he had to rejoin his friends and enjoy a rather exciting lap of honour.

Instead, we chatted to Mark Corbett, head of the British Eventing under-18 programme in the south of England and 30-year-old Lauren’s trainer since she was 12.

“I taught her on her scrappy little pony,” he laughs. This longevity, though, means that he knows her inside and out — and understands the constraints of her working life, too, which means he can help her tailor her training regime to her horse’s quirks. But as it turns out, the things that make Lauren’s situation unique are exactly the things that help Flipper to thrive.

“If he was in a team of horses, I don’t think it would work,” he says, watching as Flipper canters back down to the stables, nearly scattering some good-humoured spectators to the breeze in the process. “He’s just an individual character, and it’s taken us quite a while to work him out. But because of his individuality, you have to just let him be — a lot of the thing with him is that you can’t boss him around. You can’t tell him off, you just have to let him do his own little quirky thing, like going back to his stable now, and then he just goes, ‘aahhh.’ We don’t know quite what goes on in his head, but every time you point him at a fence, it’s just like, wow.”

Now, Lauren will plan for the biggest competition of her life: she’s qualified for Badminton, and if all goes well, she’ll head there next year as a true amateur rider on a self-produced horse who will be just twelve years old. Never say never, folks.

Izzy Taylor and Ringwood Madras finish fourth. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Izzy Taylor‘s Ringwood Madras might have been a little-known entity before this week, but the former Ben Way ride delivered three solid performances — including a foot-perfect clear round today — to finish the week in fourth place. It’s an exciting start to what could be a formidable partnership to come: this is just Izzy’s second international competition with the ten-year-old, who joined her string at the beginning of the year.

“She was fantastic; coming to Blair with the hills and the heat, for a change, was a big challenge, but she’s been phenomenal,” she says.

Nicola Wilson and Erano M round out the final top five. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Dressage leaders Nicola Wilson and the inexperienced 12-year-old Erano M had slipped down into sixth place after picking up 14.4 time penalties across the country, but they clawed one spot on the leaderboard back to finish in fifth after overnight runners-up Tom McEwen and the ten-year-old ex-racehorse Dream Big tipped an unlucky three rails to move down to sixth. The final phase here didn’t prove as influential as it has done in the past, with seven of the 13 pairs producing clear rounds and most looking remarkably fresh despite a ten-minute stamina test in yesterday’s blazing sunshine. It’s an exciting uptick after June’s Bicton CCI4*-L, where many horses looked unprepared to tackle such extensive terrain after a long period of time without a significant British long-format competition. As we head towards the spate of three-days coming up on the calendar — including next week’s inaugural Bicton CCI5*, the return of Blenheim in the latter half of the month, the European Championships at the end of September, the Nations Cup finale at Boekelo and five-stars at Pau and Maryland in October, it’ll be interesting to compare the preparation and fitness-building. Now that the home of eventing is truly back up and running, it’s hard to imagine any of the avoidable stamina issues we’ve seen crop up earlier in the year rearing their head again — and that’s something to be very, very happy about. British eventing is back, baby, and if this summer is anything to go by, it’s better than ever.

The final standings in Blair’s CCI4*-L.

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

Winner Ros Canter, second-placed Astier Nicolas and third-placed Emily King atop the podium, with the imposing Blair Castle watching over proceedings. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

After the relatively straightforward CCI4*-L cross-country session, which was plenty influential but largely uneventful, the afternoon at Blair proved to be anything but. The CCI4*-S cross-country finale was always going to be a reasonably late feature on the schedule even if it had started at its intended time of 4:50 p.m. — but a spate of issues in the CCI3*-L class that preceded it steadily pushed the start time back by a full hour. By the time the assembled ground crew could even think about setting the flags for the final class of the day, the afternoon’s extraordinary sunshine had slid languorously down the sky, creating high-contrast light and dark areas on the course and forcing competitors at several points to ride directly towards it, creating some risk of visibility issues. Beyond that, many riders weren’t quite sure how to prepare their horses; there were suggestions prior to the start of the class that the cross-country phase might be split over that evening and the following morning, and after competitors were told there was an hour’s delay to the proceedings, a sudden announcement that the setback would be ten minutes shorter meant that several had to scramble to get on board and down to the warm-up arena, where they then discovered that they’d be able to put their numbers down on arrival and run out of order — a method ordinarily only used in national level classes.

Nevertheless, the class continued on, though not without some excitement of its own. Just shy of 75% of the 40 starters came home without jumping penalties, but there were three eliminations and four retirements on course, with six of those seven noncompletions incurred across fences 14AB — an innocuous water combination with a conservative drop in and a wishing well fence on dry land — and 15ABC, a combination featuring a chunky log parallel to two open corners, which could be ridden on six and four strides or five and three.

Ultimately, the win would go to Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo, who had lead from the front after producing an impressive 25.2 test on Thursday evening. They then jumped a clear round over yesterday morning’s showjumping track, which produced a clear rate across the class of less than 50%, though they added 0.4 time penalties. When they headed out of the startbox as one of the first pairs to tackle Alec Lochore’s 6:45 track, it was with 2.4 time penalties in hand ahead of then-second placed Yasmin Ingham and Banzai du Loir.

They wouldn’t need it. Ros and the deceptively tall British-bred gelding (Grafenstolz x Cornish Queen, by Rock King), who she rides for owner Michele Saul, produced the second fastest round of the day, adding 0.8 time penalties and making the influential track look like a glorified schooling exercise, even with the  added challenge of the low, bright sun.

“He’s an amazing horse — he’s just fun, and he has the ability to gallop really fast, balance very quickly, and gallop downhill like he’s on flat ground. And he’s careful,” says Ros.

Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo take another CCI4*-S victory. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

She roundly praised the course, which offered a fair challenge for the level and tested horses’ stamina in a productive, developmental way, requiring them to moderate their balance and power.

“They certainly seemed to cause some problems, but I thought they were clever,” she says. “They just required some thought, really; every question was very fair, but you had to consider the terrain and the effect of the terrain ongoing around the course. You had to think about how it affected their balance towards the end, where you needed to spend time and where you didn’t need to spend time. [You’d have a] fence that maybe would be innocuous on the flat, but when you’re up there and it’s on a bit of a camber coming downhill and you’ve just run fast uphill for two minutes, you’d actually get a new feeling. So I think it was just a case of being kind of ahead of the game on what you think they might feel like.”

Ros’s young daughter Ziggy helps accept mum’s slew of prizes. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

The talented nine-year-old won the inaugural (though admittedly much flatter) Aston-le-Walls CCI4*-S and finished second in Bicton’s enormously tough CCI4*-L earlier this summer. This is just his eleventh FEI event; so far, he’s never finished lower than eleventh place in any of them.

“It appears, at the moment, that he can do any sort of track, which is exciting,” says Ros. This makes him the obvious frontrunner among her string for her Paris 2024 campaign, and he’s already making considerable headway: ‘Walter’ was named on Friday as a direct reserve for Ros for the British team at the European Eventing Championships next month.

“[World Champion Allstar B] is my number one choice, but it’s nice to have a back-up that seems quite steady,” she says.

Reigning champions Astier Nicolas and Babylon de Gamma settle for second in their return to Blair. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

The last time Blair ran, back in 2019, Astier Nicolas‘s Babylon de Gamma was just an eight-year-old making his CCI4*-S debut — and the fact that he won it was just delicious confirmation of the Frenchman’s suspicions that the horse might be his next superstar. Now, two years along, he didn’t quite manage to defend his title, but as he reflects on the last few days and the second place finish he climbed his way towards, he’s more convinced than ever that the Selle Français gelding has the ‘it’ factor.

“I’m quite in admiration of him — he’s quite a lion,” he says. “He’s a good horse, and now he’s even more so, because now I think he can do dressage — before, I always thought he was a good jumper, but the dressage was not so easy for me. But he’s improved a lot.”

The dressage was something of a point of contention for Astier, who is one of the first European-based riders to tackle the logistically taxing journey to the UK this season. He brought three horses along for the ride: alongside Babylon de Gamma, he ran his 2017 Seven-Year-Old World Champion Alertam’alibor in this class and the inexperienced Diese Cot Chat in the CCI3*-L. But with each of the three horses, he felt he’d been pointedly undermarked, prompting him to seek out the organising team for a chat.

All’s well that end’s well, though, if you can go fast at Blair — and Astier certainly did with Babylon, after taking a tumble from first ride Alertam’alibor at the open corner at 15C. The gelding, who was making his CCI4*-S debut after two seasons off with tendon injuries, was placed higher than his more experienced stablemate in sixth after showjumping, but his elimination allowed the striking grey to step up into that placing provisionally. They would deliver the only clear round inside the time of the day, making them the only combination to finish on their dressage score. They went on to finish in second place, a healthy 4.5 penalties behind the winners.

“When I [won here in 2019], I picked up time faults; I wasn’t aiming for the win,” says Astier, reflecting on his horse’s development over the past two years. “He won naturally, because the field was a bit lighter and I went steady-ish. He’s got plenty in the tank.”

Now, Astier will aim for Babylon de Gamma’s CCI5* debut at either Maryland or Pau. In either case, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility to expect that the gelding could go some way towards replicating the naive but exciting victory he collected in his first CCI4*-S two years ago.

Emily King and Valmy Biats take third place. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Emily King also made great headway on a promising horse, climbing from sixth on 29 after dressage to fourth after a showjumping round that she describes as the best of Valmy Biats‘s life. That’s no small praise, considering the inexperienced twelve-year-old’s career success in this phase: he’s only pulled two rails across his twelve career runs. The withdrawal of third-placed Izzy Taylor and Monkeying Around, who will head to next month’s European Championships, slotted them into third — and despite picking up 7.6 time penalties, they stayed there to round out the podium.

“If someone like Oliver [Townend] had been on him, they’d probably have been able to go fast — but I saw how low the light was and thought, ‘I don’t want to hurt him!'” says Emily with a laugh. Instead, she opted to give the gelding, who is owned with the micro-share Event Horse Owners’ Syndicate, a steadier and more educational run to help prepare him for Blenheim’s CCI4*-L next month, which will be his second run at the level after a debut at Bicton.

There was further good reason not to run for the time — Emily was riding Valmy in a new bit for the first time in a quest to find the perfect balance for the sensitive French-bred horse.

“I changed him to a bigger Swales pelham, and it was really good, because he’s strong but if you go a bit too sharp with things, it doesn’t work,” she says. “But this was perfect. I actually didn’t expect it to be quite so perfect, and so in hindsight, I probably could have gone quicker in places, which is exciting for his future.”

That future looks bright indeed: after Blenheim CCI4*-L, Emily hopes to plan for a five-star debut in 2022 and, if all goes well, she’ll aim him for team pathways. It’s an exciting position to see the 25-year-old rider in: after an enormously exciting start to her senior career, which included a fourth-place finish in her debut CCI5* at the age of nineteen and a win in Bramham’s CCI4*-L for under-25s in 2018, she found herself almost back to square one after her primary owner decided it was time to sell up and get out of the sport. Valmy Biats, who was previously piloted by France’s Mathieu Lemoine and Victor Levecque, was offered to her by breeder Philippe Brivois, who retains ownership, back in 2020 — but although she loved the horse from the moment she sat on him, she knew that Philippe’s terms, which required her to cover all running costs, would be untenable for her in the long-term without help. Now, she’s partnered with EHOS to offer experience-based microsyndicate shares, which allow supporters to ‘buy in’ with a nominal annual fee of less than £100. In return, they get the chance to join her at events for course walks, post-ride debriefs, and a behind-the-scenes taste of ownership, while she gets the security she’s so desperately craved since losing her previous string of top horses.

So far, the talented gelding has offered his group of ‘owners’ plenty of fun — and Emily’s thoroughly enjoying the process of producing him, too.

“He’s really, really nice. He’s quite a hot horse on the flat, and he took ages getting his changes; he’s quite a worrier, so it’s been about getting him to show himself off in a relaxed way,” she explains. “He’d easily just go up and down on the spot snorting, so it’s getting him moving and grooving. When he came to me, he wasn’t really doing his changes at all, and that’s been a real work in progress; now he’s nearly got them, and the rest of his work is really good. In showjumping he’s amazing, and in cross-country, he’s a very good mix of bold and careful. He looks after himself, but he’d never back off.”

Yasmin Ingham and Banzai du Loir add another stellar result to their record. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

24-year-old Yasmin Ingham added yet another impressive result to ten-year-old Banzai du Loir‘s record, finishing fourth after adding 0.4 time in the showjumping and 8.8 across the country to their first-phase score of 27.6. This gives the striking gelding — yes, another Selle Français — his fifth CCI4* top ten from seven runs at the level, and like Valmy Biats before him, he’ll next head to Blenheim to tackle the CCI4*-L after winning its eight- and nine-year-old CCI4*-S, which was temporarily relocated to Burnham Market in 2020.

Wills Oakden and MacGregors Cooley. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Fittingly, a Perthshire-based rider — in fact, Perthshire’s only professional eventer — rounded out the top five of this hot CCI4*-S class. Wills Oakden has been quietly making an impression with his string of horses at the upper end of top-level leaderboards around the country, but it’s with the nine-year-old MacGregor’s Cooley that he looks set to do something very big, very soon. They climbed from 23rd after dressage on their score of 33.3 to eventual fifth after a sparkling clear round over the poles and just 6.4 time penalties across the country, making theirs the third-fastest round of the day. This is just the second CCI4*-S and eighth FEI competition for the gelding: he finished second at Barbury last month on his debut, making him one of Britain’s most exciting young Advanced horses.

The final top ten in Blair’s CCI4*-S.

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

Overnight leaders Rosie Fry and True Blue Too II. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Amid a rather sultry mist, this morning’s final horse inspection at the Land Rover Blair Castle International Horse Trials  saw fourteen of yesterday’s fifteen cross-country finishers come forward for the CCI4*-L. Opting out of the competition was Katie Bleloch, who withdrew tenth-placed Goldlook before the start of the inspection.

Tim Cheffings and Gaston. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Just one horse was sent to the holding box during the course of the inspection, which was overseen by ground jury president Judy Hancock (GBR) alongside Faith Ponsonby (IRL), and Janet Surr (GBR). Tim Cheffings‘ Gaston, owned by Emma Bryant, was subsequently withdrawn by the rider after being held. The pair had been sitting eleventh overnight.

Now, just thirteen combinations will go on to the showjumping finale this afternoon at 4.40 p.m., with Rosie Fry and True Blue Too II leading the way on a score of 36.6. It’s tightly packed at the top: second placed Tom McEwen and Dream Big sit close behind on a 36.6, giving Rosie a time penalty, but not a pole, in hand. She does, however, have a pole in hand over third-placed Alice Casburn and Topspin II, who come forward on a 40.5 but bring with them considerable showjumping experience.

Here’s a little refresher on how the leaderboard is looking as we head into showjumping (though note that Katie Bleloch’s withdrawal hasn’t been registered on the live scores yet):

We’ll be back this afternoon with all the action from the finale of this exciting class, plus plenty more content to come — so keep it locked on EN and as always, Go Eventing!

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

Rosie Fry and True Blue Too II move from ninth to overnight first in just their second-ever CCI4*-L. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

“I’ve been in this position once before, nine years ago,” remembers Dorset-based Rosie Fry, who stepped into the top spot over today’s cross-country challenge with the inexperienced True Blue Too II, moving up from ninth place after adding just 2.8 time penalties. But she’s hoping this week doesn’t end in quite the same way: “it all fell apart in the showjumping,” she says with a rueful laugh, “so I don’t really like to be in this position!”

Still, she can’t help but delight in the performance of the ten-year-old, who was bred by her aunt, Di White-Hamilton, and who made his CCI4*-L debut at Bicton in June. That ended up being an educational run, rather than a competitive one, but it’s served him well in the set-up for this weekend.

“He had a twenty there, but it was early on and he just got better and better,” she says. “He’s actually an amazing cross-country horse — all I have to do is sit and steer. But I wasn’t expecting to be in the lead!”

Rosie has produced the gelding from a four-year-old, and knew that the taxing hills of Scotland would suit his rangy, open stride well.

“He’s a proper athlete, and we knew this course would suit him, because he’s a galloper, and he’s so straight and honest. That Bicton course was where he became a man, and now he’s gone up another gear.”

Rosie opted to take the direct routes throughout the course, which helped her keep as close to the clock as she could.

“He had a few time faults, but coming here, I don’t think a few time faults are too bad. Because he’s a good galloper, I just went with him, and he came home full of running. He took a stride out to the corners — I was going on six and four, and he went on five and three, but I didn’t interfere; I just went with him because I know he’s so scopey, and he likes to do things his way.”

There was just one minor hairy moment on course for the pair, which proved a great test of how far the horse has come: “At the skinnies at the top of the hill, I didn’t get a great shot into the first one and he was very genuine to just keep straight and keep on going,” she says. “And then in the water he was really good, because these horses haven’t seen crowds for two years and it’s amazing the difference. He came into the first water and was like, ‘wow, there’s so many people around!’ I didn’t think it would make that much of a difference, but it was a full atmosphere here.”

Now, Rosie’s looking ahead to tomorrow’s showjumping with some trepidation after her experience here nearly a decade ago — but she’s keeping it all in perspective, too, after the tragic lorry accident that claimed the lives of four horses en route to the event earlier this week.

“Whatever happens tomorrow, I’m lucky to be here — we’re so lucky to have horses here, and healthy horses. So we’ll take whatever happens tomorrow and hope that we can have a good result, but [if not], there’s worse things. As long as we go home with healthy horses, [that’s the main thing.] We’ll take this tonight and be proud — I don’t think I was nine years ago, because I thought it was easy, but it’s taken me this long to get back! So we’re very, very proud.”

Tom McEwen and Dream Big record the only clear round inside the time to step up to second. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

The time proved to be the most influential factor of the day, and just one combination managed to catch the optimum time of 10:01. That was newly-minted Olympic gold and silver medallist Tom McEwen, who made a spectacular leap up the leaderboard with Magdalena Gut’s Dream Big, finishing three seconds under the time to move from 14th into second place.

“She was amazing. It was a really tough track, and there was a lot of people out on track which is one thing she hasn’t really seen, but she was phenomenal,” says Tom, who took the ride on the ten-year-old Thoroughbred mare in 2017 after she’d completed her first season of national-level eventing with New Zealand’s Lizzie Brown. That had come after a failed career as a racehorse: owner Magdalena was responsible for backing the impressive mare while working for trainer Sheikh Fahed, and she went on to run six times under rules — five on the flat, and once over hurdles — winning a rather uninspiring £385 throughout her short-lived first job. Now, though, she’s obviously found her calling, and Tom was impressed by her boldness out on course.

“We bounced over the coffin at the water,” he says. “She’s inexperienced at this level but she’s been amazing. Being an ex-racehorse and coming up through the grades with her has been amazing, and with her, the time was really easy. She kept ticking over at the same speed going up the hill as she was coming down the hill — I had a lovely time. I was just working out the minute markers so I wasn’t going over the top. Of course they get a bit tired with the hills, but she was travelling so easy on the time so it wasn’t an issue, which was lovely to have.”

19-year-old Alice Casburn and her homebred Topspin II move into third place in their second CCI4*-L after an impressive cross-country round. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Blair’s serious hills always make it an old-fashioned test of stamina and fitness, and several of the horses we saw excel on course today had been so well-prepared that they continued to bubble over with energy and exuberance long after they’d crossed the finish line — and Alice Casburn‘s Topspin II was no exception.

“I came to the last and he was still pulling — I was like, ‘you’re supposed to be tired now!’ He did cart me all the way back to the lorry park after his ten-minute round – as soon as he sees people, he lights up. I’m hoping that’s what will happen tomorrow, but whatever happens, I’m nineteen and made him myself, so I’m chuffed to be here, to be honest,” says Alice. Though neither horse nor rider are particularly experienced at this level — nineteen-year-old Alice contested her first BE90 in 2016, while Topspin began his eventing career just three years ago — they share a uniquely generational partnership that’s no doubt helped them make their first forays into the upper levels such a roaring success.

“My mum  took his grandmother Advanced, and then bred from that, and then eventually [competed] his mother. Then she started eventing him, and I had a horse at the time that wasn’t going to plan. Everyone was like, ‘she won’t be okay!’,” Alice laughs. “And I wasn’t okay for the first year – but then we just sort of clicked after that first year. I feel really, really privileged to be able to ride a horse like him; it’s not every day they come along that you can jump a track like that and they’ll be like, ‘okay, long one here, short one here, mum!’”

That level of intrinsic communication paid dividends around today’s tough track, which they completed with six time penalties to move from eleventh into third.

“He’s quite insecure, but it comes across as naughtiness. In the dressage arena he’ll decide he really hates a corner, and every instinct says ‘give him a kick to get in the corner’. But actually, I’ve just got to give him a pat. He’s really insecure and I’m quite vocal on the cross-country – it’s quite embarrassing, but he actually listens to my voice more than anything. He didn’t really enjoy eventing the first year, but this year, it’s all sort of just clicked with him – he’s started coming out of the start box like, ‘where is it?!’ Today I went in the start box and I didn’t have a choice if I was going – he saw the first fence and said, ‘there it is, mum!’ It’s a really nice feeling.”

“Because he’s quite a big horse and I’m not very big, I knew that by the time we got to the fifth minute, I was going to have to spend a little bit longer everywhere. I got him a little bit deep coming into the oxer before the water, which was quite a big fence, but he was really, really good. By the time you came around to the corners at the top, you really felt them blowing, but luckily he’s nearly full Thoroughbred, so he was still like, ‘where’s the next one, where’s the next one?’ while I’m up there thinking ‘woah, woah, woah!’ I had my minute markers all set up, but then I was walking around in the warm-up and [the tannoy] was like, ‘retired, eliminated, retired, eliminated’, and I’m really here for a qualification. He’s one of those that’s got to be inspired a little bit, so I’m always going a gear quicker than I’d really like to. I got to the seventh minute and was like, ‘hang on, I’m nearly on my time’. They’re big jumps, so you can’t really hang about; you’ve got to attack them like you want it. I’m quite lucky that he sees a hill, you put him in autopilot, and he takes you up it. So I was conscious of the time, but really, I just wanted to give him a nice round.”

Together, Alice and Topspin contested the 2019 Junior European Championships, finishing in the top twenty — and that experience gave them some exposure to the kind of close crowds they had to face today.

“I saw the crowds [at Juniors], but considering the only four-stars I’ve done have been under COVID rules, coming around to the first water I was like, ‘woah!’ But he was like, ‘wow, I love this!’,” she says. “He’s pretty mega; it’s nice to look round and feel like you’re on the best one – that’s a nice feeling. I know he’s not done as much as half the others, but I know it’s all there.”

There’s still one more tough phase to come — but Alice, who’s jumped 1.40 classes and even tackled a Puissance with the 13-year-old gelding, is feeling pragmatic about the pressure of finding herself in podium position in her second-ever CCI4*-L.

“It’s like anything – it could all go wrong tomorrow, but touch wood, I’m on a good jumping horse and at the end of the day, he’s the one that’s got me here from my first two-stars, so he doesn’t owe me anything.”

Lauren Innes and Global Fision M sit fourth going into tomorrow’s final phase. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Full-time chartered accountant Lauren Innes impressed with the spicy Global Fision M to sit second after dressage, and after adding 10.4 time penalties, they remain well in the hunt in fourth.

“I’m just so lucky to have him; he’s the most incredible cross-country horse,” says Lauren. “He is fearless, and he doesn’t care about crowds — I thought I’d have to ride strongly at the first water with all the crowds, but he was just like, ‘yeah, a jump!’ I didn’t know how he’d cope [with the hills], but he was just amazing.”

Despite the eleven-year-old’s relative inexperience, Lauren was able to make some bold decisions across Alec Lochore’s beefy track.

“I walked the course with my cross-country trainer, Mark Corbett, and between the two skinny brushes at the far end, I was like, ‘do you think I’ll get three strides?’ He said, ‘no way, no matter how many times I walk this on the straight line, you’ll never get there on three’,” she says. But: “We got there on three! He was just flying. Then, at the corner combination, I’d walked the outside line on six, and then straight on the four to the two corners. But I should have just gone for three there, as well, because I was holding for four and it was really short.”

Lauren is effusive in her praise of her horse, who she describes as her ‘horse of a lifetime’, and attributes her time penalties to a more steady approach through the tough middle section of the course.

“I just took my foot off the gas a little bit at the end, because I was up on all my minute markers until the complex section, and I just thought, ‘I need to be careful, because I don’t have that much experience.’ I didn’t want to plop off or something! Then I realised I’d lost quite a lot of time coming down the steep section into the last field, but I don’t care — he’s just amazing.”

Like Alice Casburn’s Topspin, Global Fision M finished the course full of energy — a testament to the balancing act that allows Lauren to get him fit and ready for events, despite not having any help on the yard.

“[Working from home during] COVID has certainly helped, because I can get off him at like, one minute to nine and be at my desk by nine,” she laughs. “I go to Oakingham Stud to use their hill gallops to get him fit for the longs, and that’s about fifty minutes from home, so I’ll get up at quarter past five and leave home just before six. Then after the drive, I’ll be on him just before seven, gallop him, wash him down, and be back by nine. Then he goes out in the field, and I work all day.”

Lauren has just two sponsors at the moment, but one of them — Rachel Corry at the Equine Rebalance Therapy Centre at Hampshire’s Wellington Riding — has proved essential to the process.

“I’ve known Rachel for a long time,” she says. “I go once a week at 7 a.m. before they even open, so he can use the treadmill without using up any slots, and I can get back to work. Everything is just about getting up early and doing it in the morning, because then I know he’s done and I don’t have to worry. It’s not in the back of my mind when I’m working that I need to do something with him. It’s all just done and dusted — [and that helps because] work goes in cycles. Sometimes I’m done at five; sometimes I’m working until eleven p.m.”

The hard work has obviously paid off, and Lauren has big plans in mind — though every step of the way, she’s committed to working methodically in a way that suits her horse.

“I can’t chase the clock with him every time, because it would blow his brains, but when I need to, he gallops and gallops and never gets tired. If I had ridden around ten or fifteen four-stars, I’d be able to get the time on him easily, but because I got my top 25% finish at Bicton, I just needed to get round here, because then I can aim him for Badminton,” she says. And when she gets there? It’ll be off the back of her own momentum — and the support of her family, who help make her unique circumstances work for her.

“I would love to ride all the time, but then, I’d only like to ride horses like him, and when you ride full-time you have to ride some less nice horses,” she laughs. “At least now I can choose to ride him and my other ones, and I love doing it, and it’s always fun. I have supportive trainers, and my mum is like my PA. If you want to do these things, you can find a way to make it happen.”

Izzy Taylor and Ringwood Madras make their move into fifth place. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Izzy Taylor rounds out the top five after an impressive round aboard Ringwood Madras, who stepped up from overnight sixth after cruising home with 12 time penalties. The ten-year-old mare, who’s owned by Sarah van Vegchel, is an exciting CCI4*-L debutant for Izzy, who took the reins from Ben Way at the beginning of the year and has done just one other international with her. That was the inaugural CCI4*-S at Aston-le-Walls, where they finished seventeenth in a very hot field.

Nicola Wilson and Erano M. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Dressage leaders Nicola Wilson and Erano M were relegated to sixth place after adding a steady 14.4 time penalties — roughly the same as he picked up in his CCI4*-L debut at Bicton earlier this summer.

“He struggled with the hills, which I suspected he might,” says Nicola. “But it’ll have done him enormous good for the future. He’s such an athletic little horse, and he’s so fun to ride — he loved it all the way to the end; he had his ears pricked and was looking for his fences, and I was thrilled to bits with him.”

At around 40% blood, his two runs over significant terrain will have served to develop his innate stamina for long-format runs to come, but with tomorrow’s jumping finale yet to come, he can’t be counted out for a top placing just yet: he’s one of the most consistent showjumpers in the field, with just one rail knocked in his four four-stars thus far.

The course’s influence was pretty well scattered, with no one fence negatively impacting more than two competitors. Three competitors were eliminated on course and a further three opted to retire, which meant that 15 of the 21 starters completed the course — and just one of the fifteen still in the hunt picked up jumping penalties on course. Instead, it was largely a test of fitness, and the next indicator of that test will come tomorrow morning, as the field heads into the final horse inspection at 8.00 a.m., followed by the showjumping finale at 4.40 p.m. Once again, there’s sadly no live-stream this year — but we’ll bring you all the news you need to know throughout the day.

Until then: Go Eventing!

The final fifteen in the hunt for glory in Blair’s CCI4*-L.

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