Eight-and-a-bit solid hours of cross-country was always going to feel like a spectacularly long day, but early on in today’s competition at the Defender Bramham International, it started to feel as though it might be interminable. Just half an hour or so into the first class of the day, the CCI4*-L, we’d seen our trailblazers – Ireland’s Padraig McCarthy and Lady Ophelia – go clear and inside the time, as did second out Harry Meade and Jet Fighter, but we’d also seen two falls, a hold on course, and a 20 penalty round. This could easily have foretold a rough day of sport for Bramham’s competitors and brand-new course designer Andy Heffernan alike – but at the end of it, despite plenty of the sort of plot twists this famously big, tough four-star is known for, the general feeling in camp is a positive one.
Bubby Upton and Its Cooley Time. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Nobody, of course, is feeling quite so positive as Bubby Upton, who retained her first-phase lead with Its Cooley Time after easily catching the time in the precocious ten-year-old’s CCI4*-L debut.
“He was unbelievable,” says Bubby. “I mean, honestly, he kind of made it feel like a BE100. He just stepped round and it’s just my job to steer him a little bit. He is phenomenal – will I ever ride a horse as class as him again? Who knows, but he’s got it all, and he proved that again today, so fingers crossed I can get him the win that he deserves.”
For Bubby, who won the Under-25 CCI4*-L here two years ago with Magic Roundabout, Its Cooley Time is coming of age at exactly the point in her career when she’s ready to make the most of him – thanks, in part, to the experience she’s built up with all the horses who came before him, even if he sits apart from them in some significant ways.
“He’s so different to any horse that I’ve ever had before,” says Bubby. “He’s unbelievably sharp and spooky. [Five-star mount] Cola was very spooky as a young horse as well, so that’s kind of helped me a little bit with him. All the horses that I’ve been lucky enough to ride, like Clever Louis and Jefferson, those right sensitive types, have really helped me with him, particularly in the dressage.”
Bubby Upton and Its Cooley Time. Photo by 1st Class Images.
But on cross-country, she continues, “there’s no comparison between him and my other horses. He goes in a very unique way: he’s so low and kind of fights a bit with his head. And I’ve just had to learn, over the years, to ignore that he doesn’t go like my other horses, who go a bit softer and rounder and it potentially looks a bit smoother. It never feels as smooth as my other horses, but I’ve learned that that’s just the way he goes. That’s the way he operates, and I’ve just got to not try and mould him into how my other horses go.”
“All my horses are so different, which I love because it means that my job every day is to unlock the best of them, but they’ve all got different keys to their locks. But that’s what I love about it, and I guess that’s, for me, the analytics, and where I kind of really implement my brain and try to get the best out of them, as opposed to just one rule for all and one system.”
Bubby Upton and mum Rachael look after Its Cooley Time after his leading round. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
With any step up to a new level, there’s always a question mark or two – and even Bubby, who rates this horse as the best she’s ever had, was surprised by how much quality she found in him today.
“Last night I was thinking, had he done enough gallop work?” says Bubby. “You never know – the only long-format he’s done is Hartpury [CCI3*-L], but I had to remind myself that that’s hilly and tough too. He’s done very minimal gallop work coming here, and he’s just naturally so fit, so I guess his stamina and his speed didn’t surprise me, because he’s shown it before, but it did kind of cement that he does have it all. He does the short tracks and he’s so quick and nimble, and then he goes and gallops around one of the biggest tracks there is. It makes me think that maybe I do have a Burghley horse after all, when I thought he might be more of a Badminton and Championship horse. He’s got a monstrous stride; the open distances out there even felt short on him. He’s just an absolute weapon.”
Izzy Taylor and SBH Big Wall. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Izzy Taylor and the eleven-year-old SBH Big Wall also came home clear and quick, though with 0.8 time penalties for adding two seconds to the 10:03 optimum time – but the retirement of overnight runners-up Sarah Bullimore and Corimiro, who had some green mistakes on course, opened the door for them to step into second place. In third place, Caroline Harris and Cooley Mosstown put forward one of the 17 clears inside the time in the class to make their mark on the podium ahead of tomorrow’s finale.
Caroline Harris and Cooley Mosstown. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
“He’s only nine, and it was quite a risk to bring him here, because he’s not done a long-format since [the Young Horse World Championships at] Le Lion as a seven year old,” says Caroline. “I wanted to give him an easier year last year because he’d been so good there, and so I was a little bit stressed about whether he could gallop the distance and cope with the hills. But he was just brilliant; he dug so deep.”
Caroline tells us that she always knew the gelding would be a Bramham horse: “he loves big ditchy courses,” she says with a smile. “He’s really good with that sort of thing. Even heading towards home, when he’s getting tired, he just kept jumping and staying on the line.”
Tom Jackson and Hawk Eye. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Great Britain’s Tom Jackson delivered a duo of clears inside the time with United 36 and the former Nicola Wilson ride Hawk Eye to sit fourth and sixth overnight, respectively, while Irish-based Brit Daniel Alderson also caught the time with Blarney Monbeg Pepper to take provisional fifth place.
Yasmin Ingham and Gypsie du Loir. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
When two-phase leaders Sebastien Cavaillon and Elipso de la Vigne galloped across the finish line in the CCI4*-S, it looked, for more than a moment, as though they’d secured the win: the time in this class, after all, was proving a touch tougher to catch than in the CCI4*-L, and they’d added just 1.6 time penalties, leaving just the tiniest margin of opportunity to get ahead of them.
But leave the margin they did, and Yasmin Ingham wasn’t about to ignore that golden opportunity.
“Sebastien very kindly left the door open for me, and so I thought, ‘I’m not going to let this one slide!’ So off we went, and we meant business from the beginning,” she says of the nine-year-old Gypsie du Loir, who was able to catch the optimum time to secure the win. “She’s super fast, and she’s a pleasure to ride cross country – she’s really brave and bold, so it suited her, this track.”
Gypsie du Loir, who will be aimed at a return to Blenheim’s eight- and nine-year-old CCI4*-S this September, followed by a CCI4*-L debut at Boekelo, began her week with a 27.9 in the dressage, and then added nothing throughout today’s jumping phases en route to victory.
It was this morning’s jumping, though, that particularly impressed Yasmin, who’s long rated the French-bred mare as a real star of the future.
“I think for her, the show jumping is always a little bit of her weak phase. So for her to jump clear around, and then with Sebastien picking up a couple of seconds over, I just thought, ‘this could be an opportunity here, and it would be rude not to give it a go’. She deserved it.”
Astier Nicolas and Alertamalib’or. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
On the other end of the spectrum, France’s Astier Nicolas piloted a very experienced campaigner in Alertamalib’or, his 2022 World Championships mount, around the track today, putting in a bid for the win but ultimately settling for second by a tenth of a penalty.
The pair did all they could: they added nothing to their first-phase score of 28 across today’s two jumping phases, and so all Astier could do was wait and watch to see how Yas, a few rounds later, would fare.
When she, too, finished on her dressage score, he had to concede the title – but this run is about the bigger picture this season.
“I’m keeping my win for later on, hopefully,” grins Astier, who, like his fellow countrymen, is using Bramham as a preparation for this autumn’s European Championships, to be held on English soil at Blenheim.
The plan, so far, is paying off for the fifteen-year-old, who’s Astier’s first choice for selection while Babylon de Gamma is off games.
“He felt very powerful, very big in his stride – I was almost overwhelmed, but in a good way, and it’s a good sign that he’s feeling great,” says Astier. “I’ve got one more run to do with him now, theoretically, and then hopefully we can get selected – in the meantime, it’s all about just managing him and keeping him as well as he is.”
Sebastien Cavaillon and Elipso de la Vigne. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Two-phase leader Sebastien Cavaillon might rue the loss of the victory, but he, too, is comforted by the longer-term aim of team selection with Elipso de la Vigne, with whom he finished four seconds over the time to add 1.6 penalties.
“It was a very good course for him, and I hoped to go inside the time – but unfortunately at four minutes and fifty seconds, my watch stopped working,” he laments. “At the last loop I saw that, and I said, ‘okay, let’s go’ – but I was four seconds over. I could have had two seconds [and still won], but no, it was four… so that’s a little bit of a shame. But he was very cool, and he feels very well in all three phases for the next one.”
US representatives Tiana Coudray and Coeur de l’Esprit Z finished on their dressage score of 28.7 to take fourth place, and 2024 Pau CCI5* winners Caroline Harris and D.Day rounded out the top five when finishing on their own dressage score of 29.7.
Tom Woodward is crowned the Under-25 National Champion. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
23-year-old Tom Woodward made good on his reroute from Badminton with Low Moor Lucky, adding just 0.8 time penalties to his first-phase score of 28.1 to take eleventh in the overall CCI4*-S and win the new-look under-25 class – formerly held as a separate CCI4*-L class here – by nearly eight penalties.
“Relief, I think, is the biggest emotion,” says Tom, referring to the redemption arc of this reroute. He and ‘Lucky’ have led this subsection from pillar to post, once again delivering a very competitive starting score – at Badminton, they’d gone into cross-country in the top ten – but this time, sealing the deal in the pivotal phase.
“I feel quite emotional about this whole weekend, really, because we actually came here thinking maybe we’d retire after this weekend,” he says of the eighteen-year-old gelding, who was bred here in Yorkshire.
“I’ve always said I wanted him to finish on his terms – and that’s not to say that he will retire; we’ll have to see how he comes out of today. He’s looking as happy as I think I’ve ever seen him, and even these last couple of weeks, he’s gone up another gear, and that’s a great feeling to have when he’s 18 years old. He keeps getting better, so we’ll see what’s next for him. I don’t want to decide today – we’ll just enjoy this for now. He’s a very special horse, and this means a lot to us. To have him come from Badminton, off the back of it not going to plan, and for him to nail all three phases is a great feeling. I owe everything to that horse, really.”
Tom also finished third in the under-25 section with Shannondale Varsity, who added a rail and a time penalty in the showjumping, but nothing across the country, to his first-phase score of 37.4 – a phase that Tom says is still a work in progress. Second place in this section went to Anya Strilkowski and K, who added 3.2 time penalties in today’s cross-country and 1.2 showjumping time penalties to their dressage score of 35.7. A special mention must go, too, to California’s Molly Duda, who added 4.8 time penalties to her 35.4 dressage score with Disco Traveller to finish 18th in the CCI4*-S, one placing ahead of Tom and Shannondale Varsity – but this year’s new format for the under-25 class means that only British riders are eligible to contest the championship, and so the 19 year old wasn’t afforded her moment on the podium.
For new course designer Andy Heffernan, it’s been a long and occasionally tense day – but one that he’s taking as a positive debut to build upon in the years to come.
“It’s my first time here on my own, and I was a bit nervous this morning,” admits Andy, whose nerves weren’t much settled by the first half an hour of competition. “The first two [competitors] almost made it look too easy, and then the next four made it look too difficult. And I thought, ‘oh God, here we go’. But actually, it panned out – it was pretty good!”
One thing that he didn’t expect was the ease with which the clock was beaten: 10 pairs made the time in the CCI4*-S, and 17 did so in the CCI4*-L.
“I was surprised how easy the time was. But like some of the riders said to me – they loved it because it was forward and it was flowing, and then the ground was fantastic. So I guess if you get forward and flowing and the ground is fantastic, then you’re also going to get horses inside the time.”
Taking over from the legendary Ian Stark was always going to be a tall order, but, Andy says, he’s had nothing but support from his predecessor and the team around him.
“Ian’s been very cool – he sort of left me to it completely,” he explains. “I came up with a plan, and then we walked around when there was nothing out, and he approved my plan, so that was nice. The next time we came, he looked at what I’d put out, and actually, every time, he’s been pretty happy.
“I was a bit concerned, I suppose, about being, you know, too brave – I want to keep it like Bramham, but also, I didn’t want to go over the top, as you can imagine. So that was probably something that was in the back of my mind. But I felt quite confident in that I’ve got Ian, who was happy, and I’ve also got probably the two best TDs in the world, who were both very supportive. So I felt very comfortable – although nobody’s really changed what I did, I felt like if I was going to do something that was over the top, or vice versa, I had people, good people, around me who were going to point me in the right direction. I think the systems work pretty well, and I think we got quite a good balance.
“To design at this level is a dream for me, and to do it so early in my career as a designer is great – but yeah, it’s daunting,” he concludes “But if I’m really honest, I think to design at this level, or to ride at this level, you’ve got to be maybe slightly arrogant. You know, if you started thinking [negatively] it would have a negative effect on your design.”
There was another happy touch to Andy’s day: the victory of Yasmin Ingham, who he regularly helps to coach.
“I did say to her in the collecting ring, ‘it would be very cool if you won my first Bramham!’,” he laughs.
Tomorrow’s CCI4*-L finale at the 2025 Defender Bramham International will begin at 9.00 a.m. BST/4.00 a.m. EST with the horse inspection, and then we’ll head into the showjumping from 12.00 BST/7.00 a.m. EST. We’ll be bringing you all the news, plus you can stream the action as it happens on Horse & Country TV.
Defender Bramham links: Website | Ride Times and Scores | Cross-Country Course | Live-Stream | EN’s Coverage
