Cruise Around Derek di Grazia’s Defender Burghley Cross Country Course

It’s time to take a deep breath and take a gander at what Derek di Grazia has up his sleeve this year for his third year in residence at Defender Burghley’s iconic CCI5* offering.

This year’s track has everyone, including us, buzzing about its dimensions and technicality — but of course, it wouldn’t be Burghley without a fair amount of sleep loss and pants-soiling. One thing about Derek, though, is that his courses are generally received with respect and a clear understanding that he’s set out a track that allows horses to read the questions well.

That doesn’t mean the riders aren’t doing a good bit of hand-wringing, particularly about some very tall, tall, arrowheads set at the bottom of the Holland Cooper Leaf Pit (an iconic fence in its own right), among other questions on course. You can catch up with what they’ve said in our Riders React round-up here.

And if you’re wanting to see the course close up with Derek di Grazia as your guide, don’t forget there’s a full preview video on Burghley TV!

Saturday’s track features an optimum time of 11:14, with 30 fences set across 45 jumping efforts. The general direction of the course is the same as its 2023 predecessor, but all of the combinations have been changed and the single fences have also been relocated to different parts.

“You’re not going to get a site like this anywhere in the world,” Derek di Grazia said of the land here. “The terrain — the undulating terrain — it just makes for being able to set a very unique course here.”

And indeed it’s true. There is a LOT of terrain on this piece of ground, making it a grueling fitness test as well as a mental test with an unrelenting series of questions to answer. It’s a day that will require mental fortitude from horse and rider and quick thinking to put each horse in the best position to succeed.

Photo via CrossCountryApp.

One new combination on course this year is actually situated in the Main Arena for the first time ever. The MARS Equestrian Arena Brushes question comes early at fence 4 as the first combination, featuring a large double brush and an option of two narrow brushes to be jumped directly or on the alternative route. Not much trouble to expect here, but the first bit of the course has earned plenty of buzz for its intensity (really, just the first bit?), so this combination will be key to injecting confidence and rhythm into each pair.

The Holland Cooper Leaf Pit comes at fence 7 on course and features *those* triple arrowheads that have any rider who’s not at least 7 feet tall quaking in their tall boots.

“The riders really have to make sure they keep going, keep the revs up, especially as you head up [the slope to the BC element], you start to see how big the jump is. They need to be able to get across this jump to be able to keep riding forward [to the DE brush],” Derek described. And of course, not least of the challenges here is simply getting down off the Leaf Pit neatly — as Derek put it, “the horses, you don’t know when they come here if they’re just going to step off or if they’re going to leap off,” and there’s not a huge amount of time to get right on the line to the big brush.

That said, many riders have intimated that they’re at least considering going long here, and while Derek’s alternative routes tend to be friendly in the sense that they mostly allow a rider to keep some semblance of rhythm, they actually seem to be *quite* long this year and as a result very time-consuming. And with an 11+ minute optimum, you’re not going to want to be out there having your horse galloping for much longer than that. Safety is key though, so I expect we’ll see plenty of alternatives used.

By the way, Derek refers to this Leaf Pit monstrosity as “a fun fence”, so…there’s that.

Another question that caught my eye is the Defender Dairy Mound, which comes at fences 22 and 23 this year. Late on course, riders will be managing stamina and trying to squeeze every ounce of maneuverability out of their horses, and this question certainly challenges both of these.

Any cross country course is a study in power and skill — a horse cannot simply be powerful and scopey; they must be quick-footed and quick in the mind, as well as willing to listen to direction. This question, which concludes with a relatively unassuming log followed by a steep downhill and a sharp turn to the final element, could catch out a tiring pair that loses the ability to turn quickly, and with the left door open so wide this fence could be a late heartbreaker.

I’ve really barely scratched the surface of this test for tomorrow, so I encourage you to check out the full preview on CrossCountryApp above or here, as well as the video walk-through on Burghley TV.

Ride times for tomorrow are available here. We’ll have Cheg Darlington on live blog duty to accompany you through the whole day, so stay tuned for much more from Burghley, and best of luck to everyone riding. Be safe, be clear, and keep those britches clean! Go Eventing.

Our coverage of Burghley is brought to you by our incredible supporters, Kentucky Performance Products, your one-stop shop for science-backed nutritional products to keep your horse feeling their best at all times. They’ll even get on the phone with you to help you formulate a solid supplementation plan for your horse’s individual needs! We’d really appreciate your support of KPP, as they’re champions for our sport and beyond and are wonderful people to boot. Check them out here.

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