We’ve made it through the quarter finals for the 2023 EquiRatings Horse of the Year, and are onto the semi-finals. Now’s your chance to vote before the semi-final closes TODAY, December 11th at 5pm GMT (noon EST)!
Fans have narrowed it down to four impressive horses. Make sure to head over to the ERHOTY page to cast your vote to cheer on your favorite!
Semi Final 1: Ballaghmor Class v. Vendredi Biats
BALLAGHMOR CLASS:
Ballaghmor Class tallied his third five-star win this year at Burghley, making him one of only 12 horses in the history of the sport to win three or more. The win came six years after Ballaghmor Class’s first five-star victory. That is one of the longest five-star-winning careers in eventing history (second only to La Biosthetique Sam’s seven-year span between first and last five-star title).
Ballaghmor Class is arguably the most consistent five-star horse of all time, having produced ten top-five placings at the five-star level, including a second-place finish at Badminton this year. His true-to-form consistency this season has given Ballaghmor Class the highest Elo of his career as he climbed with every single 2023 result. After his Burghley win, the 16-YO passed fischerChipmunk to top the Elo table for a while. Ballaghmor Class is, simply put, a five-star warrior and absolute workman.
VENDREDI BIATS:
At the Europeans this year, in the face of tough cross country conditions and after disappointment in similar conditions just three months before (Badminton), Vendredi Biats dug in and rose to the occasion to lay down a cross country performance that was key to earning the European individual silver medal. His XC run as the team pathfinder, over tough ground, on a tough day was also critical to Team GB’s gold. A selection to any British team is hard-won but Vendredi Biats proved his mettle and punctuated his place on the team.
The Euros performance boosted Vendredi Biats’ Elo by an impressive 25 points in one fell swoop, such was the quality of the competition he bested. That makes him one of only seven horses in the world right now to have an 800+ Elo rating (802). The silver-medal performance also registered a High Performance Rating (HPR) of 106, making it one of best 4*-L/5* performances of the year.
It was Vendredi Biats’ second major podium of the year, after placing second at Luhmühlen in June. Two major placings and delivering for Team GB make it a standout year for Vendredi Biats.
Semi Final 2: Lordships Graffalo v. Colorado Blue
LORDSHIPS GRAFFALO:
Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Lordships Graffalo won Badminton by 15.0 points, the largest 5* winning margin in the modern era of the sport. He then went on to win the European individual gold by 6.7 points and that was against international competition with renowned low-scoring ability and, indeed, against one of the strongest fields on record according to the Elo Field Strength rating (second only to Pratoni 2022).
Registering a High Performance Rating (HPR) of 113, Lordships Graffalo’s European gold set the new standard for 4*/5* performances, the best HPR ever (rating starts in 2008).
We’ve seen this horse coming (it’s not even his first ERHOTY rodeo): Lordships Graffalo was the highest Elo-rated horse for his age as both a 9-YO and 10-YO and is now the highest-rated 11-YO ever (rating starts in 2008). It’s a table-topping Elo trend that mimics La Biosthetique Sam-FBW’s record. Plus, Lordships Graffalo was only the third combination since 2008 to win Badminton from the front as did a certain La Biosthetique Sam in 2016.
Lordships Graffalo is, on many metrics, one of the best we’ve ever seen. For this point in his career, he is going toe-for-toe with La Biosthetique Sam who is arguably the greatest horse of all time…for now…
COLORADO BLUE:
Austin O’Connor and Colorado Blue. Photo by Sally Spickard.
This year at Badminton, we saw Colorado Blue go head-to-head with Lordships Graffalo in the cross country phase. It was Colorado Blue who was the fastest on the day in those notoriously testing conditions; 10.8 time penalties for him, 11.6 for Lordships Graffalo, and everyone else?: Twenty-one-plus time penalties. The result was a deserved climb up the leaderboard and the first Badminton podium from an Irish combination in 40 years.
Colorado Blue is in fact one of the top-rated cross country horses in the sport. His five-star XC jumping reliability puts him in the top 0.1% of horses worldwide and his five-star speed is among the top 0.05%.
Five months after Badminton, Colorado Blue went on and did it. At Maryland, he jumped double clear (XC and SJ) to produce the first five-star win for Ireland in 58 years. He had added just 1.2 XC time penalties on a day when only one horse was under the time and he was the only double-clear SJ round on the final day.
A classic sporting story – highs (Badminton and Maryland) and lows (Burghley) and when it ended with that big win, we could practically hear the whole eventing world cheer.
Click here to view the full voting on EquiRatings, and to cast your votes TODAY (December 11)!
