Samantha Lissington and Billy Alberto. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
New Zealand rider Samantha Lissington comes into this week’s Defender Burghley well-mounted with two horses coming off of great seasons to date, but each of her rides carries a slightly different role as a part of her burgeoning team.
The 13-year-old Billy Alberto, an Anglo-European registered gelding by Tangelo van de Zuuthoeve, wasn’t a horse that was selected outright as a potential 5* horse, truth be told. He’s had a colorful competitive history, never quite nailing the dressage in a way that would allow him to really compete at the top levels. His owner, Alison Spence, had the horse with British rider Sophie Fouracre previously, and Sophie would take him through the 4* level. But, as Sam puts it, “the dressage was just proving too disappointing and too disheartening.”
At that point, Ali’s daughter, Honor, took the reins and competed Billy Alberto at the British Novice level, but a thought remained in the back of Ali’s mind: what if they gave it one more crack to get to the 5* level? The horse was a good cross country jumper — he wasn’t strong (“whilst he’s quite resistant on the flat, he’s the opposite jumping,” Sam describes. “And he just sort of…you steer him like a motorbike, and he just jumps whatever’s in front of him and and he just never said, has never said no, or never looked for a way out.”) and he had the rideability in the jumping that he lacked on the flat.
Here, Sam entered the picture. “[Ali] was like, ‘actually, I want to have one more crack and see if he’s a five-star horse.’ And I said, ‘Look, I can’t promise anything, but I’ll do everything I can.'”
Sam’s only had the ride on Billy Alberto since January of this year, but already he’s found a valuable role within her team: front-runner.
Many riders who come to these big 5* events with more than one horse will use strategy to inform the order in which they run their horses. Not every event will give riders the luxury of choice, but when she’s able, she’ll put “Bertie” out as her first horse, using him as a fact-finder and trusting in her confidence that he’s got the chops to jump around and give her insights for her next, and potentially more competitive, horses.
Samantha Lissington and Billy Alberto. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
This week, she’s done just that, riding her more experienced partner, Lord Seekönig, second. She feels this will come in handy come Saturday, when she tackles her first Burghley cross country since 2019.
“In a short space of time, I was like, actually, this is a really useful horse on our team,” Sam says. “And one of the agreements that I have with Ali was that he runs first, because that then is a really useful member of our team, even if the dressage doesn’t make progress. So then we can work away on the dressage attempt to make some progress on that. On that side, he’s getting to go to big competitions, and he also is my front runner for the other horses to then gain experience, put that into them.”
Of course, she’s riding two completely different horses, so her riding and strategy for cross country will adjust for their respective styles. “[The Lord Seekönig horse is] quite a nervous person, but you wouldn’t know it on cross country. He can be strong. So that’s my sort of continued work on is to try and ride with as light a contact as possible, so that when I do use the reins, it means something, whereas Bertie canters around with an inverted neck in a snaffle! So they are quite different.”
Sending Bertie out first, though, will still provide valuable information to use later on. “I think that first ride gives you a fact finding mission on the terrain more than anything, at Burghley. What’s it going to feel like? What’s the undulations? What’s something to be aware of?”
She’s still focused on her dressage for now — one thing at a time — but her strategy will go into full implementation come Saturday. “I mean, I’m trying to, this year, very much focus on the next job in front of me and not worry too much about Saturday’s job until it’s Saturday. So that’s been working. So far. It’s working pretty well.”
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