Before the finale of the Defender Bramham CCI4*-L even began today, the field of competitors had already thinned: from 43 competitors at the end of yesterday’s tough cross-country day, we downsized to just 40 to showjump in the main arena at lunchtime. One of those was an overnight withdrawal; France’s Camille Lejeune opted not to present Dio du Leou, with whom he’d sat 26th overnight following a clear round with 10.8 time penalties. The other two, Matt Heath and Benedict Radau (27th after a clear with 3.2 time penalties) and Thomas Hawke and Lonestar (33rd after adding 8.4 time penalties and activating a frangible device), were both sent to the holding box and didn’t return for reinspection.
So, three fewer horses and riders in the mix, but no less pressure on two-phase leader Bubby Upton, who had jumped an extraordinary clear with the CCI4*-L debutant Its Cooley Time yesterday, making the world’s toughest four-star look a bit like a Novice. They’d added nothing to their dressage score of 24.4, but so tight were the margins on the leaderboard that they had just a few seconds in hand for their showjumping round, and certainly nothing close to a rail.
As their turn approached, it became very clear that zero-score rounds were going to be even harder to achieve today than they had been yesterday: just nine of the 39 before her had managed it, while yesterday’s cross-country challenge yielded a surprising seventeen clears inside the time, a number slightly at odd with its influence and intensity.
But when Caroline Harris and Cooley Mosstown, third overnight, managed to deliver a foot-perfect round, it was game on. They sat exactly four penalties behind former Bramham winner Izzy Taylor and SBH Big Wall, who would have took precedence in a tiebreak situation, but needed to go clear to keep the thumbscrews to Bubby.
Unfortunately for Izzy and her rangy eleven-year-old, it wasn’t to be: three rails later, and 1.2 time penalties to boot, they left the ring having forfeited second place – and, in fact, a place in the top ten – and Bubby found herself with a rail and change to play with.
Bubby Upton and Its Cooley Time. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
She wouldn’t need it. From the moment the ten-year-old Its Cooley Time entered the ring, it was very clear that he knew exactly what the task at hand required him, and he was prepared to deliver – and Bubby, always icy cool under pressure, knew it was up to her to give him the freedom to do it in his way. Just a couple of short minutes after she entered the lions’ den, Bubby emerged from the arena the 2025 Bramham Champion – a title she adds to the Under-25 accolade she scooped here just two years ago with Magic Roundabout.
“He’s sheer class, and the way he jumped today is pretty special when you’ve seen him go cross-country,” says Bubby of her newly-minted champion. “He goes so low and as aerodynamic as possible [in that phase], but then he showjumps like a jumper, and it fills you with so much confidence as a rider, being sat on a horse of his calibre.”
Bubby Upton and Its Cooley Time. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
This isn’t just a debut at CCI4*-L for the historically sharp and quirky son of Quality Time TN – it’s also just his second long-format event ever. That run, which scooped him second place in the Hartpury CCI3*-L, came two seasons ago, and so Bubby had come into this week with a few niggling doubts about how ‘Finn’ might find this challenge – but those worries were also paired with a huge amount of belief in the talented horse. For his part, he let her know from day one that he was ready for whatever was to come.
“He definitely knew it was a big week ahead – he’s kind of been buzzing all week,” laughs Bubby, who led from pillar to post with Finn to finish on their dressage score of 24.4. “Every time it’s been a case of putting his head in the game, he’s done that. He went above and beyond – the way he went in and focused on the dressage was just incredible. Cross country, he could have gone round again, and it wasn’t an easy track, but he made it feel so easy, and was full of running at the end. And then today in the show jumping, he was absolutely wired in the warm up, and he came into the ring chomping on the bit and ready for the challenge, but then when you begin, and you jump the first fence, the feeling is… it’s quite extraordinary. It’s pretty impossible to describe the feeling that he gives me, but he’s in a league of his own, to be honest. I’m just so excited to see what’s to come, considering it’s his first time at the level, and he’s only done three four-star shorts.”
“I owe him so much,” she continues. “He’s obviously very new to this level – it’s his first time – but he’s already such a star. I just feel so lucky to be the one that gets to ride him and have days like this on him.”
Bubby is well-established as a fierce five-star competitor in her own right, but much of her recent success has come after a horrendous spinal injury that forced her to relearn to walk just eighteen months ago. Further complicating matters was that it was a second broken back for the 26-year-old – the first had come from a green rotational fall with a much younger Its Cooley Time.
Bubby Upton and Its Cooley Time. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
The journey – from that crashing fall to now, but also from consistently tricky young horse to now – makes this week’s result even more special, she says.
“It took a while to come back from it in terms of confidence with him, but in the last few years, he’s just grown up beyond measure. I’m very proud of the horse that he is now, because [all of us on our team] have seen him as a naughty, obnoxious youngster that we couldn’t get in and out of the yard, and we know what we’ve been through to get here. So it means a lot to us.”
Now, she tells us, she’d “love him to step up to five-star, and obviously I would love to make my senior [team] debut [at the European Championships]. I’ve come close a couple of times, and been unlucky with accidents and stuff – one of which being his!”
There’s very clearly an awful lot ahead of Bubby and the exciting, classy ten-year-old – but for now, she’s also allowing herself the chance to sit in the moment.
“This is one of the ‘Big Bs’ and I never thought, coming here, that he was going to win it. I’d just hoped he’d be competitive. Growing up, I’ve seen legends win this class, and so it really feels special to win it, particularly having won the under-25 championships here as well. It’s amazing to have done the double, and in the way he did it as well – he was really dominant all week and just faultless. He’s all class, and I’m so glad that he got the win he deserved.”
She pauses, smiles, and continues.
“It’s all worth it in the end. Horses with his talent and his class, yes, they test you at times because they’re uber intelligent, and they take patience and trying to understand them and work with them, but it all pays off in the end. I’d say the future is pretty bright with him in my string.”
Caroline Harris and Cooley Mosstown. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Caroline Harris, too, ends the week delighted with a young up-and-comer in her string in the nine-year-old Cooley Mosstown, who completed a weeklong climb from sixth to second place, finishing on his dressage score of 30.2. The nine-year-old, like Bubby’s Finn, was making his CCI4*-L debut over this topmost of courses, and adds this sterling result to a CV that already includes third place in last year’s Blenheim eight- and nine-year-old championship and fourth in the Seven-Year-Old World Championships in 2023, which was his last long-format run.
“I’m seriously proud of him,” she says. “He’s a very good jumper, but I find him easier to jump on the last day when he’s a little bit tired, because he just loses that little bit of tension. But he was not going to touch a fence today, I don’t think.”
Cooley Mosstown represents a very exciting ‘second string’ to stablemate D.Day, who won Pau CCI5* last season and finished fifth in yesterday’s CCI4*-S here.
“It’s really exciting,” says Caroline. “He’s only nine, and we came here just to do his first four long. We didn’t have high expectations; I just wanted him to finish confident and happy. But he’s gone above and beyond for us. He deserves the result – he’s a phenomenal horse in all three phases. The dressage will only get better as he gets stronger and sees more of these atmospheres.”
Now, Caroline hopes to aim for a return to Blenheim’s eight- and nine-year-old class – this time, she hopes, to catch the win – and then, at the end of the year, another CCI4*-L run in the Nations Cup finale at Boekelo.
Tom Jackson and Hawk Eye. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Double-handed Tom Jackson enjoyed an excellent day in the office, finishing eighth on United 36, who tipped one pole to slip down from fourth, and third with Hawk Eye, who jumped a classy clear to finish on his 32.7 dressage score and complete his trajectory from first-phase 13th place.
“He’s quite a new ride for me, but he’s reasonably experienced – this is his third time here,” says Tom, who made his international debut with the thirteen-year-old gelding at Thoresby in March, running steadily in the CCI4*-S for 23rd place.
Prior to that, he’d been with Kristina Hall-Jackson, who finished eighteenth with him in the short-format class here in 2023 and started, though didn’t finish, the CCI4*-L last year. Before that, he was in the string of Nicola Wilson, with whom he finished fourth in the eight- and nine-year-old CCI4*-S at Blenheim on his debut in 2021.
“I’m delighted with him. I’ve been working quite hard to have him as adjustable as I can, because he can get a bit keen and strong,” says Tom. “Yesterday, he didn’t skip a beat, and he really felt like he was with me, so I was super pleased with that, and then today he followed it up with a lovely clear. This is just our fourth event together, so hopefully it keeps going like this!”
If it does?
“He’s five-star qualified,” says Tom with a grin, “so maybe we’ll look at another Big B in the autumn.”
Daniel Alderson and Blarney Monbeg Pepper. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Daniel Alderson, who’s originally a Bramham local but has been based in Ireland for nearly a decade, took fourth place with Blarney Monbeg Pepper after adding just 0.4 time penalties for finishing a second over the time allowed today. That single second stopped the pair from finishing on their dressage score – a 32.6 that had seen them sit twelfth after the first phase – but Daniel’s unlikely to be dwelling on it. This is a first Bramham for both rider and horse, and a third CCI4*-L start for the ten-year-old mare, with whom he finished 4th on her debut at Kilguilkey a year ago.
Kylie Roddy and SRS Kan Do. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
The top five is rounded out by Kylie Roddy and SRS Kan Do, who made good on their reroute from Badminton, where Kylie was jumped out of the tack early on in the track. This week, they began in a surprisingly off-the-pace 22nd place on their score of 34.1, but climbed to the top ten off the back of their clear inside the time yesterday. Today, a lost shoe moments before their round did little to slow their roll – they cantered into the main arena a few minutes later, having swapped start times with Holly Richardson and Ballyneety Silver Service, with all four shoes firmly in situ and delivered a classy clear round to move up again.
“She’ll have to share her winnings with the farrier,” quipped John Kyle over the tannoy, as the much-loved rider trotted out of the ring beaming.
Hers wasn’t the only impressive week-long climb: Hayden Hankey and Fools In Love hauled themselves up from a first-phase 26th to eventual sixth when finishing, like Daniel Alderson, just 0.4 up from their dressage score, and seventh place went to Ireland’s Padraig McCarthy and Pomp N Circumstance, who added nothing to their 35.1 dressage score to move up from initial 28th. Sweden’s Louise Romeike gave herself a scenic tour of the leaderboard with the charismatic Caspian 15, starting in fourth place on a 27.4 and then dropping to 17th when adding 8.4 time penalties yesterday. Their classy clear today secured the Olympic partnership ninth place, behind Tom Jackson and United 36, and ahead of Sam Ecroyd and Boleybawn Lecrae, who tipped one rail but were able to retain the tenth place they’d held overnight.
That’s it for us from Defender Bramham this year, but don’t go far – we’ll have plenty more stories coming out of Bromont today, plus the crazy train keeps on rolling over the week to come as we head to Germany for the Longines Luhmühlen CCI5*. Grab your passport, jump in the proverbial passenger seat, and let’s Go Eventing!
The final top ten in the 2025 Defender Bramham CCI4*-L.
Defender Bramham links: Website | Ride Times and Scores | Cross-Country Course | Live-Stream | EN’s Coverage
