Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
Collectively, there probably hasn’t been many hours of sleep logged amongst the competitors at Defender Burghley ahead of today’s cross-country day; what little that was, no doubt, was plagued with night sweats and prolonged horror stories featuring the brush arrowheads at the Leaf Pit (7ABCDE), which nearly every rider had referred to, grim-faced, as the biggest fences they’d ever seen. And big, they most certainly were: made of stiff brush, they towered over the heads of any rider foolish enough to stand on the landing side and try to peer over the top.
By any estimation, after two days spent talking to the riders, and a mizzly morning early today spent walking the lines and finding many of them down there doing the same thing, any one of us would have put money on this extraordinarily tough-looking question being the most influential of the day.
Until, of course, in fine five-star style, it wasn’t. But that, as I’ve found over so many years of reporting on this sport, is so often the way – the line that walks the hardest, and looks as though it’ll have no margin for error whatsoever, and keeps us all awake wondering what on earth we’re doing this all for, ends up being, well, a bit of a puppy dog of a thing. Is it because all the panic engenders a deeper level of respect to the approach? Is it because these rider frighteners that are actually surprisingly readable are a marker of quite remarkably canny course designing, in this case by Derek di Grazia? Or is it, probably, some alchemical combination of the two things?
I’d love to tell you we have the answer, but all we really have for you is this – the fact that, at the close of the day, just one rider out of 65 faulted at the Leaf Pit. That was a late-in-the-day rider fall for Jonelle Price, who set out of the start box meaning business on the 2022 Pau champion Grappa Nera, who twisted in the air over the first of those colossal skinny brushes and gave her pilot an unwanted flying lesson, putting paid to their bid for a leaderboard climb.
Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
Sorry, sorry, did you think that this meant that the course ultimately ended up being a bit of a breeze? Let’s not be silly.
This year, Derek built us a track that was packed with intensity, and serious five-star questions, in the first quarter, and that first quarter absolutely wrought its influence. 17 of our field of competitors ultimately picked up jumping faults of some description between the start and fence 11ABC, the latter part of the Trout Hatchery water, and ten of those finished their rounds within those fences, whether through tumbles – dramatic dunkings in the Trout Hatchery water for top-ten-placed Gireg le Coz as well as Padraig McCarthy, plus that Leaf Pit whoopsy for Jonelle – or run-outs and retirements, as for, among others, France’s Luc Chateau and Lithuania’s Aistis Vitkauskas at the first pass through Defender Valley, which also caught out overnight leaders Ros Canter and Izilot DHI, who skimmed out the side of the angled brush final element after the ditch, and Ros, as she did at Badminton this spring, opted to put her hand up and, presumably, plan a reroute.
So that was our leader out of contention, as just the second round of a day packed with drama. Pathfinders Harry Meade and Superstition had logged the early clear, though with 10.8 time penalties, and then our next two starters after Ros, Matt Heath and Golden Recipe and Pippa Funnell and her 2022 Pau winner MCS Maverick, both retired on course after running into trouble at various points of the track.
It would have been easy, then, to assume that the tone was set for the day, until the next two riders, Ireland’s Susie Berry on Irene Leva and British rider Aaron Millar on Friendship VDL, both navigated their five-star debutants to classy, steady clears on 20-odd time penalties.
So what was it to be, really? Ultimately, with the crystal clarity of hindsight, a day of classic Burghley action, basically. We look at this – the biggest, boldest of five-stars – as being a true eventing challenge, in which dressage plays its part but doesn’t play the whole part, and in which heroic efforts can pull deserving horses and riders thirty, forty, or fifty places up the leaderboard and give them a fighting chance of a competitive finish, and that’s exactly what today did.
The problems, when they came – and boy, did they come – were dispersed far and wide across the course, with Defender Valley at 5 giving it plenty of welly and the achingly wide Rolex Corners at 16AB offering up no shortage of sway, too, with their tough related distance. And two-thirds of the way through the day, that meant that of the dressage top-ten who’d left the start box – five, at that point – not a single one had completed.
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Let’s, before we go any further, run through who those were, because their absence from the competition going forward is just as key as the addition of those who took their spots. We’ve discussed Ros, who might not come as a wild surprise, as she’d been nearly as vocal this week as she was at Badminton about potentially pulling up quirky, spooky Izilot DHI. But Emily King and Valmy Biats, fourth after dressage and hotly tipped for a first five-star win, called it a day on course too, having picked up a drive-by at the second angled hedge at 11BC, which caught out plenty through the day. They retired after that; a less dramatic finish than that of fifth-placed Oliver Townend and Cooley Rosalent, this year’s Kentucky winners, who had a slightly wiggly (though clear) jump through the final skinny brush at the Maltings at 15ABC, and then had the wheels fall of the bus entirely at the Rolex corners at 16AB. After jumping the first corner, the mare stumbled slightly after the first stride, and from that moment, it felt like a foregone conclusion: the line was lost, the angle was too severe, and though Oliver got his elbows out and tried to direct the mare’s considerable athletic ability between the flags, there was nothing that could be done. The clever mare picked up and quickly saw the fruitlessness of it all, put back down again, and collapsed the frangible fence while skirting her way around the side of it, sending Oliver tumbling into the wreckage but staying upright herself.
France’s Gireg le Coz and Aisprit de la Loge, seventh overnight, got their aforementioned dunking at the Trout Hatchery after a big jump in and a peck on landing, and Badminton winners Caroline Powell and Greenacres Special Cavalier, eighth after dressage, retired at the first of the Rolex Corners after a frustrating run-out marred a til-then excellent round.
Phew. Okay. Did we mention that four of those falls, inclusive of a tumble for Hannah Sue Hollberg late in the course from Capitol H I M after leaving a leg at the Dairy Mound at 23ABC, came back-to-back without breaks?
For all the moments that left us gasping and – in the case of Burghley Radio interviewer Ben Way, accidentally punching everyone in close proximity in the boobs – though, there were so many truly exceptional bits of derring-do and some seriously thrilling moments of guts and gumption that pulled many of our seemingly out-of-the-hunt pairs right back into things today.
We’ll get into those shortly, but first: a moment for our overnight leaders, who certainly weren’t out of the hunt after dressage, but gave us one of the most fluid showcases of cross-country navigation we’ve ever seen as one of the last pairs to leave the startbox today.
That, of course, was Ros Canter, who swaps one leading horse for another and now helms the competition on her Badminton winner and European Champion Lordships Graffalo (Grafenstolz – Cornish Queen, by Rock King). It’s no small feat to tackle the Burghley course even in the freshest of headspaces, but doing so with a chance to win the whole thing, and just hours after a very early finish on your other competitive ride, is an extraordinary show of compartmentalisation.
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But, says Ros, who made the whole thing look a bit like a schooling exercise en route to finishing one second inside the time, “I watched Tom Jackson, I watched Harry Meade, I watched a few of the really good ones and then I pulled myself away and had a bit of cereal and paced a bit — paced a lot.”
Then, she got to work forgetting about her morning in exchange for focusing on her afternoon, and her extraordinarily reliable longtime partner making his Burghley debut.
“I think we always thought Burghley might be another great event for him, and I’m just relieved. I’m quite relieved, to be honest,” she laughs. “I’ve been around Burghley a few times — not loads, but a few times — and I didn’t feel like I’d really cracked it until this afternoon, so when this morning went kind of fairly categorically wrong very early, it’s been a long wait, to be honest.”
When they left the box, though, nothing about their ride looked like it might have come after hours of waiting and, probably, worrying. They were so balanced and considered throughout that it would have been easy to start worrying, from the ground, that they might be a touch too slow – but Walter’s capacious natural gallop stride is deceptive, and as they came to the Dairy Mound in the latter part of the course, they were the fastest of the day at that stage.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m taking too many waits, but because he’s just got such a scopey stride and he just gets his head down, doesn’t he? He’s made to gallop,” smiles Ros.
The pair retain their first-phase score of 22 overnight, giving them a 3.5 penalty margin – not a rail, but some time – in hand over second-placed Tim Price and Vitali, our last pair on course today and last year’s two-phase leaders.
Tim Price and Vitali Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
They didn’t quite manage the clear inside the time – their smooth ride saw them add 3.2 time penalties – but for Tim, too, it was a reassuring way to end the day after a slightly tricker earlier round on the relatively inexperienced Viscount Viktor, who picked up a run-out, a missed flag, and a broken safety device across the course.
“He’s too good, isn’t he?” grins Tim, who followed an interesting path set by Tom McEwen at the Leaf Pit, choosing the steep left-handed approach up to the bank rather than the more smoothly sloping ‘ordinary’ route.
For Tim, the highlight of the round was the talented gelding’s continued improvement in this phase.
“He felt better than last year; fitter, I think. It was just a really fun experience. The thing that’s always happening, even though there’s always highs and lows, is he’s gaining experience, and he’s really gotten the whole package. He really used to nap going into the start box. The whole thing is really building the arsenal of what he understands.”
“It’s not his first time around these big tracks, but this was definitely the best he’s felt,” he continues. “He was galloping and moving, still jumping. And he’s a real privilege to ride around there, because he can go fast across the ground, but then you can balance him up at the end. At the double corners [16ab], which have been causing a lot of trouble, I jumped in there on four strides all day, and it probably was, but then I got scared and fiddled a fifth stride. But you can just do that with him, and that’s at six or seven minutes. So you know, to be able to do that is impressive, for what he’s capable of.”
There haven’t been any doubts about Vitali’s ability to perform in the first two phases; he’s had five previous five-star runs, and in all of them, he’s been well-placed in the first phase – including setting the dressage record here last year with an 18.7 – and quick and capable in the second. It’s the third that’s the issue: in four of those runs, he’s had three rails, and in his last, at Badminton this spring, he had five.
But who’s dwelling on the past? They delivered a smart clear in their prep run in the British Open Championship at Hartpury last month, and all Tim wants to do is look ahead.
“I just feel like he’s come here in very good form, and it’s just nice to go out tomorrow and have a jump and hopefully do a good job, and that’s a good campaign,” he says. “Really, that’s what it’s about, and I know he’s often been in a winning position. But I’m really trying to compile three decent phases in him, and if that’s a good result, then that’s secondary to what I’m trying to achieve with this horse.”
Harry Meade and Annaghmore Valoner. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
Ros and Tim are joined on the podium by the busiest man of the week, Harry Meade, who piloted three horses around the track for clear, competitive rounds: the pathfinder of the day, Superstition (Satisfaction FRH – unknown, by Cordalame), added 10.8 time penalties for overnight 15th, despite only having run once in the past year, and he sits third and fifth, respectively, with final ride Annaghmore Valoner (Coroner – Annaghmore Lady Valier, by Black Walter) and second ride Crystal Cavalier (Jack of Diamonds – Cavalier Iris, by Cavalier Royale), both of whom added nothing to their first-phase scores, though Annaghmore Valoner was initially awarded 15 penalties for a late flag that the ground jury opted to remove without any appeal.
“I had five entered and probably left my two strongest cross country horses at home,” laughs Harry, who’ll take those two – Away Cruising and Et Hop du Matz – to Maryland next month.
Of third-placed Bramham CCI4*-L winner Annaghmore Valoner, who he inherited from Australia’s Sam Griffiths in early 2023, he says: “She’s a lovely horse. It’s her first five-star, and I’ve had to hold her hand so far around the two four-stars she’s done and build her confidence because she’s been a little unsure. She was a bonus [entry], so I thought I’d just crack on and not waste time, and she was comfortably inside.”
‘Comfortably’ is something of an understatement – though the mare always looked smooth as silk and totally comfortable within her cruising speed, she crossed the finish line as by far the fastest of the day, with thirteen seconds in hand.
“I tried to give her a quiet ride at speed,” says Harry. “I tried to set out really fast and steeplechase every straightforward fence, including fence one, but really hold her hand and give her confidence. She wouldn’t be that resilient – she’d get upset very easily even if she saw something in the crowd or caught a fence or something, she could just panic in her breathing. But she was wonderful from beginning to end. She grew and grew. She feels like she’s really come of age now. She was wonderfully professional and easily inside the time, and could have been even quicker.”
Harry Meade and Cavalier Crystal. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
Riding three horses on a day like today – and three very different horses, at that – is a major mental game, but Harry took a measured approach to the task at hand.
“I sort of had a plan at the beginning of the day for each horse. I was quite happy going out first, and I would have been quite happy going out second and third,” he says. “I think they all went as planned, and they’re all different horses. I just tried to ride each one with a bit of sympathy, and giving them time. It’s not a sprint round somewhere like here. Superstition was amazing — really game, foot perfect everywhere. Cavalier Crystal was just on fire. And she’s a horse who, 18 months ago, I didn’t think she’d be a five-star horse, and she just was absolutely wonderful.”
Nothing, though, would happen without the village of extraordinary support he has around him, he continues.
“I think it is a real team effort for us. I’m pretty hopeless at a lot of things, but one thing we can do is produce confident, happy, resilient, five-star horses from young horses. It’s not how you produce them in the month leading up to this, it’s 10, 15 years. It’s a process which not everyone buys into, but I personally believe it’s about giving them that long term, slow confidence, and then when you get somewhere like this, they’re absolutely bulletproof.”
And, at the end of the day, it helps that Harry himself finds it, well, just plain fun.
“I just enjoy doing this,” he grins. “If there was no crowd here, if it wasn’t a competition, I’d love to come out here on my own and just have a good crack round a course like that. It’s what I do, it’s what we as a team do. And, you know, to get three bites of the cherry is even more fun. And long may that last — one day, I’ll miss being at these events.”
Gaspard Maksud and Zaragoza. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
Like Harry on Annaghmore Valoner, British-based Frenchman Gaspard Maksud was initially awarded 15 penalties for a flag with Zaragoza (Cevin Z – Saracen’s Pride, by Saracen Hill xx), but after he dismounted at the finish and cooled his horse off, he went to appeal it – and before he even made it to the ground jury, he got news that they’d decided to remove it. That propelled him straight up the leaderboard thanks to the scant 3.6 time penalties he’d accrued, giving him a temporary lead that ultimately became overnight fourth.
The speedy round perhaps didn’t have the same polish as those of the leaders – there were some decidedly agricultural moments and some gutsy decisions made, but Gaspard took to heart plenty of sage advice from Andrew Nicholson, with whom he used to be based before setting up on his own a few years ago.
“I walked with Andrew, and there were a few things I was discussing with other people, a few routes, and I was never going to go straight through on the Leaf Pit, but everybody jumped it well. So I said, ‘you know what? Just let’s do that’,” says Gaspard. “She just keeps on giving. I put her in a rhythm, and once we jumped over those corners, I told her to move on a little bit more. And to be fair, she kept on galloping strongly into the end. So I’m very pleased with her.”
It’s easy to forget that gritty ‘Zoe’ is just eleven – in 2022, she and Gaspard were sixth in the World Championships, and there’s plenty more to come from the exciting mare.
“Give me another year or two, and I’m sure she could get that time,” says Gaspard. “But basically, it’s our first five-star completion, because we fell off in the water at Pau. So the sure thing I really wanted to make sure we stay on the four legs. She was very good; she tried hard for me and she was still feeling very well at the end.”
Gemma Stevens and Chilli Knight. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
The finish line was so often a place of gleeful celebration today, but nobody celebrated quite as ebulliently as Gemma Stevens, who punched the air and screamed like a frisky housewife front row centre at a Bon Jovi concert as she sailed through the timers with her 2021 Bicton five-star champion, Chilli Knight (Chilli Morning – Kings Gem, by Rock King). And rightly so, too: they had a blinder of a round, adding just 2.4 time penalties and putting the frustrations of Badminton this spring, where they’d have won but for a flag, well behind them. That puts them into sixth overnight, well up from first-phase eighteenth.
“I cannot tell you how nervous I was!” she says. “I felt horrendous today, because I just so badly wanted to do well. And yes, I did feel like we had a little bit of a point to prove after Badminton. It’s such a shame I lost a little bit of time but the jumping today, he was just incredible.”
The time, she says, came down to a couple of factors: “You could say I was just a little out of practice. The last few years I haven’t had the rides at that level and coming back to it, it’s scary. But now I’ve got some amazing ones coming through so hopefully I’ll be back. I’m really annoyed that we had a few time [penalties], but he did lose a shoe, so after Capability’s Cutting, I could feel him slipping the whole way down that hill for that big fence at the bottom there. So I was like, ‘Oh God, we’ve got to be careful we don’t fall down.’ And, yeah, just like, round the corners there, just after the water and stuff, I just had to be careful. But what an amazing little horse.”
The son of Badminton winner Chilli Morning is, says Gemma, “just a fantastic little horse. He’s such a trier. What he maybe lacks in scope, he makes far up for in heart and grit and determination. Coming to the Dairy Mounds, because I feel like that’s the last really difficult one, I was like, ‘Come on, little man, come on.’ And when I jumped that, I was like, ‘Come on, now we can get home!’”
Monica Spencer and Artist. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
After so many tough rides through the Rolex Corners at 16AB, which looked as though they may have been the one less-than-perfect placement choice on Derek’s course, it was a joy to watch US-based Kiwi Monica Spencer and her gritty Thoroughbred Artist (Guillotine – Maxamore, by Satin Blush) sail down the line as though it was a straightforward question. That fluidity and partnership was the keystone of their round, and saw them gain a flurry of speed in the final run of the track to cross the line with 8.4 time penalties and take overnight seventh place, dropping just two places from fifth in their Burghley debut.
“It felt like a lot of big jumps and a lot of galloping, and I didn’t imagine feeling so, like, desperate to go fast,” says Monica. “But he was great. He just answered every question I asked of him — I just probably took a bit too much time in some places. It’s pretty awesome to build a partnership with a horse over many years; I think we’ve been together nine years now, and he’s only 13, but I feel like he gets better every year, so I don’t think he’s reached his peak yet.”
After dismounting and taking stock of her horse, Monica wasn’t quite able to process the magnitude of what had just happened, even with two seventh-place five-star finishes, at Kentucky and Maryland, under her belt already.
“I don’t know if it’s settled in yet, but yeah, I’m rapt. I mean, this morning, the course felt like a huge, huge challenge, and I was almost wondering how I was going to get through all those flags. But now that I’ve done it, I guess, there’s just more self-belief – and I’m just thanking my lucky stars that I’ve got a horse like him.”
Tom Jackson and Capels Hollow Drift. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
One of the horses on everyone’s radar today – along with Austin O’Connor’s Colorado Blue (Jaguar Mail – Rock Me Baby, by Rock King), who was almost marginally too keen for 4.8 time penalties and overnight twelfth – was Capels Hollow Drift (Shannodale Sarco St. Ghyvan – Lucky Crest, by Lucky Gift xx), with whom Tom Jackson finished second here in 2022. Today, though, they looked the next level up even from that banner performance, and their 5.6 time penalties moves them from 13th to eighth.
“That was one of the best rides I’ve had,” says Tom. “He stayed traveling for me the whole way. This is his fifth five-star, and he just delivers every single time. Whatever you ask of him, he just delivers. Here is definitely tougher to ride, the terrain just adds a whole new level to it but I’m really happy with the way he picked up and finished really strongly.”
At thirteen, ‘Walshy’ has amassed a wealth of experience – along with that Burghley finish, he’s also twice been fifth at Badminton, and sixteenth on his debut there, cementing him as one of the great cross-country athletes of our sport.
“It’s such a privileged position to be with him now, with how experienced he is and how good he’s been for his whole career, that actually some of the time, as crazy as it sounds, through the combinations, you just feel like you’re going through the motions. He’s so with you and on it. And as long as you get him vaguely in the right place, he’s going to do everything to do the right thing.”
With that in mind, “I just really wanted him to come here and enjoy it. He’s had a really tough last year, and even the spring with the wet weather and going into Badminton at the beginning of last year, I said, ‘his ground is not wet ground’. He hates it. And he came out with sort of average time penalties for most horses. We thought, ‘oh, maybe it’s not too bad’. And then hated it again at the Europeans [last year] in terms of the ground. He always wants to do his job and jump, and he’ll never stop trying to do that, but just in terms of traveling at the speed you need to at these things, [he found it harder]. But today, he absolutely loved it.”
Nicolas Touzaint and Absolut Gold HDC. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
It was a day of two halves for the French, whose first two competitors – Gireg le Coz and Luc Chateau – didn’t complete, but whose second two are in the top ten overnight. The last of them to go was Olympian and national stalwart Nicolas Touzaint, who piloted his experienced team ride, but five-star debutant, Absolut Gold HDC (Grafenstolz – Belle Meralaise xx, by Verglas xx) to 8.8 time penalties. That’s enough to see them retain ninth place overnight.
“I was lucky to go on late on the course, so I had time to see how it went. And the thing is, I have the best horse I could ever have,” says 2008 Badminton champion Nicolas, who is also making his own Burghley debut this week. “He’s 14 years old, but he’s never ran [a course] as difficult as this, so I didn’t know what to expect. I just listened to my horse. We form a really super partnership, so I believe in him, and he believes in me. Now that I know him a little better on these long distances, we’re going to grow on that, and I think he can be more and more performant with the time. Now we have a good bond, and now I know he can do it. He knows we can do it together.”
Alex Bragg and Quindiva. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
Alex Bragg rounds out the top ten with Badminton podium finisher Quindiva (Quintender – Ruby Roller, by High Roller), who gave us our first clear round inside the time of the four today and climbed 32 places after dressage.
“This is a jumping track, and a jumping horse,” he grins. “That was a brilliant ride, and I was going for the time and I was just about on it every minute. She just kept going, going, going. I nearly stopped to have a beer because I thought it was so easy! She just kept delivering.”
Alex was full of praise for the game, elegant mare, who’s had an exceptional season proving her mettle at this level – and is one of the best showjumpers in the field for tomorrow’s competition.
“We all know that she’s a great jumping mare. She’s been super genuine, and she’s really taken to this sport now,” says Alex. “It’s taken time to build that confidence, but honestly, when you leave that start box, she’s just like a demon. She grows horns, and there is nothing — I mean, nothing — that’s going to stop her. And I’m just the lucky person to be sat on board steering. You have to work with that much scope. She can always jump herself into trouble, so you have to take a breath and not let the adrenaline take over too much. And remember, those drops after the fences are punishing if you come in too big. You can imagine she lands so far out. But she just kept galloping. I just haven’t got enough words to describe how pleased and how thrilled I am with the horse, and how happy I am for all of the team and the owners that stick by you when there are some days which are not so great.”
Quindiva finished fifteenth here last year with 14.4 time penalties, and picked up 7.6 at Badminton this spring en route to third place, and today, Alex felt she’d gained enough experience to really go for the time.
“Last year here, she finished with so much fuel in the tank and then Badminton again, I just felt like I was always protecting her,” he says. “And I felt if I was just brave enough to let her go a little bit at the beginning, then we had a really good chance of finishing inside the time anywhere. I mean, she’s fast, she’s neat. She does spend a lot of time in the air, but we train a lot on the technicality stuff, and you mustn’t underestimate — when you say the mare’s polite, it’s all about discipline and training. And we work so hard with our team on all the technical side, with my show jumping coach, Jeremy Scott –everything is down to being disciplined, straight and accurate, and then the horses can do their job, and it looks neat. So if you stick to those rules, honestly, it makes the job so much easier for them and then so much easier for us. The thing is, as well, this is only her second season at this level. How exciting!”
A bevy of very good cross-country pairs follow closely behind Alex after big climbs today – Alice Casburn and her homebred Topspin (Zento – Capriati xx, by El Conquistador xx) are eleventh, up from 48th, after finishing four seconds over the time, and Austin O’Connor and Colorado Blue (Jaguar Mail – Rock Me Baby, by Rock King) climbed from 37th to twelfth with their 4.8 penalties.
Cosby Green and Copper Beach. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
In sixteenth place overnight is the best-placed of the four US combinations, Cosby Green and the eighteen-year-old former Buck Davidson ride Copper Beach (Radolin – Cloverballen), who looked a picture on course to add 12.8 time penalties and climb ten places.
“It’s such a relief,” says Cosby, who’s in her second season based in the UK with Tim and Jonelle Price, and has previously completed Pau and Badminton before her Burghley debut this week. “You hope to finish through the flags but you never really know, so to be safe and especially clear, I can’t have wanted anything else. I’m very emotional. I just wanted to know my plan — I know I’ve walked it so many times and I knew it, so I actually had a lot of calm over me. It was nice to just get out there, and he was beyond my expectations amazing. [It rode] exactly to plan, which I was really surprised. There was no surprises out there, and I knew the plan inside and out, and we were able to execute it.”
‘Sean’, in his customary fashion, bowled along with his ginger tail windmilling around – a trademark of the sweet, stalwart competitor.
“The tail got us all the way home over those jumps, I’m pretty sure!” laughs Cosby. “He’s got a twinkle in his eyes still, and he’s such a good old man. I’m really impressed with him.”
At eighteen, Sean is the oldest horse in the field – but Cosby, with help from her mentors, who’ve each had horses still competing at five-star at nineteen, has adjusted how she works with him to keep him feeling in his prime.
“I’ve learned that less is more, and that kind of trusting that the horse knows what he’s doing with his eyes closed,” she says. “And just being able to have enough confidence in myself to trust that he is trained, he knows his job, and it’s all about maintaining and improving in slight little ways, and body fitness and physio and all that kind of stuff.”
Jennie Brannigan and FE Lifestyle. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
One of the few riders to express excitement about riding Derek’s beefy course was Jennie Brannigan, but as she sagely pointed out, “you’d be excited, too, if you were sitting on a horse like this!” And true to form, her out-and-out cross-country machine FE Lifestyle (Leo von Faelz – Berina A, by Brandenburger), who is owned by Jennie’s longtime supporters Tim and Nina Gardner, attacked every inch of the course, leaving just some time on the table to take home 15.2 time penalties and climb from 40th to 19th.
“I was told to lick a stamp and send it, and that’s what I did,” grins Jennie, who finished twelfth with the gelding here last year after a tie-up scare the Monday before the competition. “He’s a beautiful horse, and it was really nice to come back with him in 100% health, because I was like, ‘Oh, that was a lot harder last year’ when he wasn’t quite right. So that was really wonderful. You could see why I was like, ‘Oh, I’m excited to ride him tomorrow’ because he’s just a brilliant cross country horse. I mean, he’s definitely the best one I’ve ever had.”
Andrew McConnon and Wakita 54. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
Andrew McConnon made the trip over for his Burghley debut knowing that the first phase would be something to just quietly work his way through with Wakita 54 (Plot Blue – Werusa, by Padinus), because Saturday, he was sure, would be the day she’d shine. And shine she did: though he took some places steadier with the inexperienced eleven-year-old, they finished with a respectable 19.6 time penalties to move up from 57th to 29th.
“I’m very excited, and very happy with my mare,” says Andrew, who opted to take two long options – one at the Leaf Pit, where several riders made the same call. “I was 50/50 yesterday. Before riding, I was going to go direct. She was beautifully patient off the bank, which she can be a little gung-ho. So actually, I decided to go long there, and then the double of corners. I know that’s been the tricky fence, and I had a great shot in. Really nice jump. Second stride, she just pecked a little bit, and I knew that’s what was putting people on the second sjump. So I rerouted to the long option at B, and then she flew around the rest of the way. A bit slow and happy!”
“You never know on cross country,” he continues. “I mean, there’s always going to be things that don’t go to plan. I’m really proud of the decisions I made in the moment off of the Leaf Pit and then in between the two corners. I want to be competitive deep down, but I really love and trust my mare, and I knew that I was going to put her in a bad position to that second corner. So I’m thrilled that I went long. I’d of course like to go quicker, because I know she can, but I’m really happy. I’ve had her since a five year old, and I’ve been the only one to compete her. So I’ve produced her. I’m the only one that has to answer to time penalties, so I was happy to go a little slow.”
Mia Farley and Phelps. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
The time is always a tough catch at Burghley, but one pair with a great chance of catching it were Mia Farley and her full Thoroughbred Phelps (Tiznow – Boom Town Gal, by Cactus Ridge), who’ve gone inside the time at both their previous five-star starts in the US. They began their trip around the track looking absolutely on the money to do so again – despite a couple of serious long ones at fences two and three – but like so many of their fellow competitors, they had a skim-by at the second of the Rolex Corners, which allowed absolutely no margin for error. Theirs wasn’t, arguably, a real error, even: Mia opted to try a tighter inside line and a four-stride approach, and in the final stride, the line simply wasn’t there. With that behind them, she slowed the pace and let Phelps cruise home, taking 23.6 time penalties with their 20 jumping penalties but ultimately climbing two places to 34th.
“I didn’t have the best shot in and I really should have gone the long route,” muses Mia. “ButI thought it was fun after like minute four when I had a little more brakes! He’s very enthusiastic out there. He wants to do it, he loves what he does. I think we just need to control the love for the sport a little bit next time! I think I learned a lot about the track here, and him too, this was really just a fitness run for him so I’m excited to come back and be better. The terrain’s crazy. It was the busiest beginning of the course I’ve ever had, but the terrain is the biggest thing.”
Our fourth US pair, Hannah Sue Hollberg and Capitol H I M, unfortunately didn’t complete the course after an enormously frustrating late mistake at the Dairy Mound, where ‘Chito’ left a leg and popped Hannah Sue straight out the side door. There was much to like about their earlier efforts, though, and we hope to see them back on this side of the pond soon.
Tomorrow sees us take 43 horses and riders into the final horse inspection at 9.00 a.m. BST/4.00 a.m. EST and then, hopefully, onward to the showjumping. That’s down from 65 starters, giving us a 66.2% completion rate with 32 clears, for a 49.2% clear rate.
We’ve seen horses finishing in brilliant form all day long, and the ground conditions here are among the best we’ve seen at any event, so we have high hopes for tomorrow morning – and we’ll be back bright and early to bring you all the news and updates from the inspection, and then from showjumping, which begins with the first group at 10.30 a.m. (5.30 a.m. EST), and follows on with the top twenty from 14.15 (9.15 a.m. EST). Until then: Go Eventing!
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