Jérôme Robiné and Black Ice. Photo by Libby Law Photography.
Jérôme Robiné, a member of the German Army, has made an assured start to his first visit to the Blenheim Palace International Horse Trials in Oxfordshire and leads the CCI4*-L at the end of the dressage phase.
Jérôme, 26, scored 22.8 after an excellent performance with his 14-year-old Irish Sport Horse, Black Ice, a horse he has been riding for four years. They were the only combination from the field of 78 to earn an 80% score from the ground jury of Andrew Bennie (NZL, president), Les Smith and Nikki Herbert.
“My horse is really on top of this level at the moment,” said Jérôme. “I am based at Warendorf [the German state riding school] and have access to great trainers, which makes a real difference.”
Jérôme, who made his debut with the German team at the 2023 European Championships, where he finished seventh individually on Black Ice, has been assessing David Evans’s beautifully presented cross-country track. “It’s a very nice course,” he commented. “Very British, very big, as we expect. It should be a good course for my horse ‘Benny’, but it will be a tough day and I will need to be focussed as there are some good questions out there and a tricky combination near the end. It would be amazing if I am still in the lead, but we shall see!”
Scores are certainly tight at the top. Britain’s Gemma Stevens, who is renowned for her fast, accurate cross-country riding, is only 0.2 penalties in arrears of Jerome, on Christopher and Lisa Stone’s chestnut mare Jalapeno lll, a daughter of the 2015 Badminton winner Chilli Morning.
New Zealanders remain to the fore at Blenheim: Jesse Campbell is in third place on Diachello with the good score of 23.3 and his compatriot Tim Price, the first-day leader, is now fourth on Happy Boy.
Georgie Goss, who now competes for Ireland, heads the prestigious CCI4*-S for the eight and nine-year-old star horses of the future. She scored 27.7 on Kojak, a black Dutch-bred gelding owned by Molly Fisher, Lucy Fleming and Samantha Wilson.
New Zealand Olympian Clarke Johnstone, riding Rocket Man, is in second place on 29.4 and is the only other competitor out of the field of 95 to earn a mark of below 30 from the ground jury Judy Hancock (president) and New Zealand para judge Mura Love.
In an international line-up, Sweden’s Sofia Sjoborg is third on Govalent, New Zealander Samantha Lissington is fourth on Quantas R, Dutch rider Andrew Heffernan is fifth on SSK Cape Cooley and Piggy March, who won this class in 2022 on the CCI4*-L entrant Halo, is best of the home riders in sixth on Dassett Arthalent.
For the U.S., Phillip Dutton and Denim are the top-placed, hitting the board in seventh overnight on a score of 25.9. Katherine Coleman and Monbeg Senna are also in the top 20, sitting 19th overnight on a score of 29.1.
The CCI4*-L action starts at 11.30am when Britain’s Max Warburton riding Fenizio will be first out on the cross-country course. The CCI4*-S show jumping phase starts at 7:45 am BST / 2:45 am EST.
Blenheim Palace International H.T. (UK): [Website] [Entries] [Schedule] [Timing & Scoring] [H&C+ Live Stream]
