Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
Could it be argued that today’s Defender Burghley showjumping track was built on the softer side? Absolutely – it certainly walked as a much different type of track than the enormously influential one we saw at Badminton this spring, and the word on the street is that the course designer made his final plans for it factoring in the heavy rainfall we experienced overnight and into this morning. A fair call, and the right call, considering the major challenge horses faced yesterday over Burghley’s hills and dales – but when the sun decided to make an appearance mid-morning, it did so with surprising ferocity, and the impact of all that water on the ground ultimately ended up marginal.
But could it also be argued that even with a much tougher showjumping track, or a bog of an arena to jump in, Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo would still have triumphed. Also yes, and emphatically so. They did just that at Badminton last year, after all, and we’ve yet to find the kind of conditions that put rangy ‘Walter’ off – and as the reigning European Champion, an Olympic team gold medallist, and a Badminton champion, he was already tipped as the ultimate event horse long before his name even appeared on this entry list.
And now, frankly, it’s confirmed. It’s been a long time since we started referring to eventing as being a two-prong sport – these days, there are championship horses and championship tracks, with their own unique pathways that look quite different to those for ‘traditional’ horses over ‘traditional’ five-star tracks. For many horses, it’s one or the other. When you find a horse who can do both, and make it all look laughably easy, you know you’ve found one that’ll be talked about long after his final run.
Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
For our newly-crowned Defender Burghley champions, that final run looks a very long way away indeed: despite all his extraordinary accolades, ‘Walter’ is still just twelve years old, and Ros, at 38, isn’t even a decade into her five-star career. It was here, in 2015, that she made her debut at the level, finishing 37th with Allstar B and fulfilling a lifelong dream of riding around her most local major event – an event she and her friends in the South Wold Hunt North Pony Club would come to spectate at every year, and a venue at which she, in those heady Pony Club days, would come to compete in rallies held in the back fields. She’s been back several times since, coming close to, but never cracking, the top ten. This week, she and Michele and Archie Saul’s horse of a lifetime came with one mission in mind: to finally tick the box. They did so, delivering a clear round with just 1.6 penalties, despite having a much broader margin of 7.5 penalties – a rail and time – to play with. In adding that 1.6 time penalties to their faultless cross-country round and their 22 dressage score, they not only won, but also set a new record low finishing score for the event.
“It’s just amazing, really, I think. I’ve just had a text message from my two best friends from my Pony Club days saying, ‘I can’t believe you just won the event that we came to every year together as children,’” says Ros. “And that sums it up, really – it’s something that we’ve worked on for years, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever tick the Burghley box. You know, the last few performances, they’ve been all right, but I’ve not quite made it. So just turns out you need a horse like Walter, don’t you?”
It’s Walter’s world. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
“I grew up coming here pretty much every year,” she continues. “And then, my riding career started in Burghley Pony Club show jumping. I moved on to the Young Event Horse classes, which I did for many years, and I actually thought [that] might be my pinnacle for a bit. And then it was my first five-star. So it’s been quite a journey at Burghley. If I wasn’t competing, I would still come: I love the place, and I haven’t had much of a chance to kind of wander around much this week, but on Thursday morning, I wanted to go up to the dressage and just have a look at the arena and make sure I knew where I was going. And I wandered up through the trade stands before everything opened up, and I thought, ‘there’s just something magical about this place’. It’s got this kind of calm feeling about it, but it has the buzz and the excitement as well. There’s nowhere else like it.”
There’s no horse quite like Walter, either. Their 2024 was framed wholly around the Paris Olympics, which ran early enough – in late July – to allow for some time to recover and go again in this early autumn season, and as they were held as a ten-minute four-star on flat ground, Walter came home feeling particularly well in himself.
“It was just such an amazing opportunity, with Paris being quite early, to be able to bring Walter here,” says Ros. “If there was ever an event horse and an event that could match each other, I think this is it with Walter and Burghley. It definitely it was a box I felt I hadn’t really got quite right yet — I’ve had a few runs around here on a couple of different horses, the first two with Allstar B, when I hadn’t quite found my way and hadn’t quite found my system. And he was amazing, and I gained lots of experience, but I never really got the opportunity to have another go on him and show what he could do. So it was just fantastic to be able to bring a horse that I had such faith in, and to really let rip on the Burghley terrain.”
Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
In that interim period between Paris and Burghley, Ros had a few lightbulb moments while sharpening up the areas in her performance that she felt could improve. Key among those? Marginal improvements to the gelding’s straightness, which led to major gains in the ring.
“With only a couple of weeks preparation, I suppose, after Paris, I was really happy with everything I achieved in a couple of weeks running up to Burghley,” she says. “I felt like I made a few key changes to the way I was riding Walter, and it made quite a big difference to the way he was going. So I came in here quite excited to be able to put that into practice and see how it made a difference to his dressage — and I was really delighted with how the week started. And then it just continued from there, really. I was quite determined to be really positive this week. I wanted to enjoy it as well. I’ve got my family here and things like that, and I wanted to be really focused when I needed to be and have a bit of downtime too. Sometimes I can get a little bit — I struggle to enjoy things, because I feel like I ought to be working harder than everybody else and thinking more than everyone else. And this week, I felt like I got the balance right.”
Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
In taking this exceptional win, atop the best Burghley field we’ve seen perhaps ever, Ros also closed the book on a couple of tough ‘nearly’ moments that affected her more than she’d expected, including that contentious 15 penalties for a flag at the Olympics, and the shock loss of Luhmühlen in the final phase in June.
“It means an awful lot. And I think when I went to Luhmühlen this year [with Izilot DHI], I went from being fairly comfortably in the lead to finishing fourth, and it really struck me then that actually it did mean a lot to me,” she says. “I was bitterly disappointed with that, and I maybe hadn’t realized quite how much it all still meant to me. And so doing Paris – Paris was amazing, and I feel so grateful to have won the gold medal, but obviously it came with its ups and downs. There were lots of challenges to overcome, so whilst I was there, it wasn’t all ‘this is great’ and positive, positive. So to be able to come here, I feel like what happened at Luhmühlen, what happened in Paris, it’s just kind of built up for me to be able to learn from those things and to bring my best performance here, and then, of course, to be able to do it with Lordships Graffalo makes my job a whole lot easier.”
Tim Price and Vitali. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
One of the banner moments of the day was the very nearly foot perfect showjumping round delivered by Tim Price and Vitali, who lost the win here last year when tipping three rails, and who, in five previous five-stars and the Tokyo Olympics, had never had fewer rails than that on the final day.
But today, after so much patience, and so much tact, and so much commitment to a horse who wants to do everything right, it just about came off, and Tim and Vitali tipped just one rail to retain their runner-up place.
“He just was with me, and I think it’s physical and mental with him, and I know he’s got the ability,” says Tim. “So I just had him in a nice way where he was listening to me, and it’s always that [you’ve] just got to keep tweaking and fiddling and have 100 attempts, like I’ve had, to finally get somewhere close to a clear round. So I’m really happy.”
One of the most promising moments in the round came when Vitali kept his confidence after a bit of a change of plan mid-course.
“I was happy because I hooked and changed my mind a little bit down to number seven after the four stride line. And I thought, ‘shit, if I have a rail now, then we’ve got quite a lot more jumps to jump, and it’s kind of my fault that then he’ll throw his cards to one side and march out of the room’,” says Tim. “It’s so hard because he’s a trivial horse, and it’s my job just to try and ride him like a normal horse and have him behave like a normal horse. So that was my task today: have him relax, him with me, and jump each fence as it came along.”
One of the things that’s probably been the most frustrating about Vitali is his evident talent for this phase – and in one-day events, he’s a frequent clear-round flyer.
“He’s actually jumped clear rounds all year, except for Badminton. So he is actually a good jumper, which is probably a weird thing to say for a horse that’s had probably 48 rails in the last couple of years! It’s just when you switch the cross country [to the day before], and the atmosphere, I think are the two big things,” says Tim. “So it’s just been a matter of trying to have him with me and a little bit more think of dressage – like, I probably did six flying changes in there when I went in today, which is a bit weird. It’s like you’re showing off, but it’s just to check he’s on the aids, because he cocks his jaw, looks at the crowd, and then I ask for a change, and he’s like, ‘Oh yeah, I do those.’ And then he looks over there, and I do a wee change. And it just keeps him a little bit more the way that he can do what he does on the dressage. It’s just, I think, to keep him with me, and then for me to try to not ride him in some crazy, random way to the magical clear round. I just try to ride him really normal.”
And, he continues, it’s also about forgetting the disappointments of the past and trying to hope again each time.
“You’ve got to put all that to one side and just stick to trying to reinvent the wheel each time and figure out, because I believe in the horse, and he’s an athlete, he’s a great jumper. But to actually find the key to his long format show jumping issues has been a long and enduring task, and so I’m just thrilled that I think I’m on a page with him now that I think not only was great for today to keep me in the mix, but also for the future with this horse. It’s one thing putting a great score on the board in the phase A, but you need to be able to go and do what he does cross country, which maybe is shadowed by his great performances in the dressage and not-so-great performances in the show jumping. I’m looking forward to hopefully being in the mix in the future a few more times, and hopefully sitting where Ros is sitting a couple of times, maybe. But I’m just so super happy today, for him, his connections, his owner, and we’ve all tried so hard — today was a good day that I think will go down in my books as one of my greatest days in the sport.”
Harry Meade and Cavalier Crystal. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
Split as it is into two halves, the final day at Burghley is often actually one that affords a bit of time to relax and process it all. Not so for Harry Meade, though, who had three horses here this week, and piloted all three of them to competitive placings yesterday, which meant that – in order to give him enough time to adequately prepare each of them – he had to jump his fifteenth-placed Superstition out of order in this morning’s session.
But what a walk in the park he made it all look: they delivered one of the three clears inside the time in that section to move the smart gelding up into an eventual twelfth place, and when he returned to pilot his two top-ten rides, Cavalier Crystal and Annaghmore Valoner, this afternoon, he did so again with the former. The latter, making her debut at five-star after winning Bramham CCI4*-L this summer, tipped just one rail, giving the two mares a swap-around in the rankings, and ultimately putting Cavalier Crystal into third place and Annaghmore Valoner into fourth.
Harry Meade and Annaghmore Valoner. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
“For me, it’s been a bit of a whirlwind week, just trying to stay at the moment the whole time, and give every horse the best opportunity in every phase, and do them justice,” says Harry, who was one of just two riders to finish on his dressage score today, with Cavalier Crystal. “And I hopefully did that. I think with all three horses, it was a great outcome. They’ll all go home better horses than they arrived here, and [I’m] really happy. Cavalier Crystal’s hopefully cemented her place as not just a sort of anomaly, but Annaghmore Valoner was my wildcard coming here, and for her to pull out that kind of performance was really exciting. Hopefully she’s got bigger things in her.”
There is, of course, nothing that’s an anomaly about Harry’s extraordinary efforts this week with three very different horses.
“I grew up as a little boy wanting to do the sport, and it’s really simple: I wanted to ride at the big events, and that includes Burghley. It’s been a long, long project to try and produce horses that are happy and confident and resilient and able to not just flourish, but really flourish when the conditions at their absolute worst. [Martyn Johnson, Burghley director] said it was perfect weather, and I thought it was totally imperfect weather,” he laughs. “I was hoping we were going to have really heavy rain and make everything even tougher, but to produce horses that can come to the fore around a cause like Burghley is what I’ve tried to dedicate my life doing, and in a way, I’ve got a wonderful team behind me that we’ve now got multiple horses at that level. It’s what keeps me going every day of the year, and I just really hope to one day be sitting where Ros is sitting.”
Tom Jackson and Capels Hollow Drift. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
Fifth place was well-earned by 2022 runners-up Tom Jackson and Capels Hollow Drift, who jumped an effective clear inside the time to move up three places in the final standings.
“I mean, I keep saying it all week, but he just delivers every single time, doesn’t he?” says Tom. “[It] probably wasn’t my most perfect round, but he just jumped his socks off in there, and just tries so hard in every single phase. I couldn’t be prouder of him. Another five-star, another top ten result with him, so what more can I ask for? He definitely deserves a holiday, and then we’ll make a plan [for what comes next] after that.”
Gaspard Maksud and Zaragoza. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
France’s strong initial line-up of four competitors thinned to just two yesterday, but the two still in the hunt made sure to give the tricolore its share of the glory: British-based Gaspard Maksud completed his Burghley debut with a one-rail round aboard his World and European Championships mount Zaragoza, earning them a final sixth place, and championship stalwarts Nicolas Touzaint and Absolut Gold HDC finished seventh in their own debut after adding nothing in the ring.
“I just added to come to the first fence, and I lost the power – and then that will happen. It’s totally my fault,” says Gaspard, who finished sixth with the then-nine-year-old mare at the 2022 World Championships, but hadn’t ticked the five-star box yet. They made their debut at the level at Pau last year, but a fall in the water on cross-country meant the week would be an educational one, rather than a competitive one. This week, though, they’ve made up for that abortive start – and proved themselves as fierce competitors after being left off the French Olympic team – with a very competitive first-phase score of 26.8, just 3.6 time penalties across the country yesterday, and today’s one-rail final round.
“I had a fence down, but it’s totally my fault. I’m really happy with the horse; it’s another day we are both learning, it’s a first five star completion for the both of us, and we finish on a score of 34,” says Gaspard. “I mean, we’d have signed for that before coming here! So, you know, I’m very chuffed with her. This one’s on me – I let her down [with the rail], but she was class.”
Nicolas Touzaint and Absolut Gold HDC. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
Nicolas Touzaint’s Absolut Gold HDC has been such a mainstay of the French team at championships in recent years, including as part of the bronze medal-winning line-ups at the Tokyo Olympics and last year’s European Championships, and so it’s almost hard to believe that the fourteen-year-old hadn’t yet done a five-star before this week. It was even harder to believe when watching his prowess across the country yesterday on Derek di Grazia’s tough track, and today, his fluid, fresh, and faultless showjumping round sealed the deal that he’s a horse who can do it all.
“This is an extraordinary horse, and everything went very well today,” says Nicolas, who’s produced the gelding from two-star up. “I know him by heart. He jumped very well outside and then in the arena, he was really focused. I had the feeling that if I didn’t make any mistakes, he wouldn’t either. Everything was with us — the horse was calm, was concentrated. I’m over the moon.”
Alex Bragg and Quindiva. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
Alex Bragg combines being a top-level event rider with farriery, and so it was a cruel irony that his showjumping preparation with the smart Quindiva was very nearly wholly derailed by a last-minute issue with the mare’s shoes.
“The ground in the warm-up is a bit deeper than in the ring, and I was panicking because I have these aluminum front shoes on her, and the stud holes went and we couldn’t get studs in,” he says. “So all this was going on the last few minutes before we go in. Nobody sees that in the stands, but it’s quite stressful outside, and going in knowing that your horse’s front feet are going to move when she goes to plant in the ground to take off. I felt like I supported in the rein when I wanted to, but [was] desperately just trying to control her front end. With some horses, that will upset the jump and close the back end down — but she’s so phenomenal and she just pushed and tried. And it just shows how talented she is that even a bit under the [pressure] there, she did fantastic. She’s been great all weekend.”
“[The aluminum shoes are] something we’ve done with her at five-star because of the distance, to try and make life a little easier for her,” he continues. “So she only goes into those for this moment. The rest of the time she’s in steel shoes, because aluminum is much softer. It’s not so great for their feet to live in those, so you want them in them for a purpose, and that’s the purpose really — just because it’s less weight on the end of the leg, which you hope is going to cause less fatigue and also less risk of the leg swinging and injury. But obviously to every pro, there’s always a con, and this sometimes arises. It’s not what you want, but it happens, and it was pretty stressful. [It’s] tough for the team, because everybody’s panicking a little bit, and then you just have to make this decision — like, it is what it is, you’ve just got to go in and cover it up. It’d be so awful if you felt the horse slip and have a rail because of that, but she didn’t. She did that so we can all breathe a sigh relief and, you know, thank God for her, eh?”
The pair delivered a clear round inside the time, allowing them to finish on their first-phase score of 35.1 – the only combination other than Harry and Cavalier Crystal to do so.
“Not many people have ever done that around Burghley, so I’m so proud that we can add ourselves to that list,” says Alex, who took eighth place – an accolade that follows the pair’s third-place finish at Badminton.
Gemma Stevens and Chilli Knight. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
Gemma Stevens was one of our most joyous finishers on cross-country yesterday, when she whooped her way through the flags after a speedy clear aboard Bicton CCI5* winner Chilli Knight – and today, she was more quietly pleased with her final round, which saw the pair add just one rail and drop from sixth to ninth.
“I’m absolutely thrilled with the horse, not cross with him at all. He just made one mistake, annoyingly,” says Gemma, who also showjumps at top level. “He just came down too early on an oxer and actually touched it in front, which is a weird mistake for him to make, and actually unusual for him, but it is what it is — they’re horses, at the end of the day, and he galloped beautifully around across country yesterday.”
“The ground,” she continues, “was actually pretty soft in there. And actually just a little bit, I think he was just a little bit feeling the softness of the ground. He probably wouldn’t love that – jumping in that in there – but he tried his little heart out, and I’m thrilled with him. Yes, I’m gutted, for me, because it means I’ve lost out on a top five placing, but still — top ten and a sound horse, a happy horse, and his owners are really happy. We’re all really proud of the horse.”
Alice Casburn and Topspin. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
22-year-old Alice Casburn rounded out the top ten with her sixteen-year-old homebred Topspin, whose dam and granddam were evented by Alice’s mother, Caroline. Since partnering with the rangy gelding in her teens, Alice has logged plenty of mileage in the jumping ring – including the odd puissance class for fun – as well as in eventing, and so they can ordinarily be counted upon to deliver the goods on the final day.
And deliver they did: their clear inside the time, and their scant 1.6 time penalties yesterday, were combined with their first-phase score of 36.6 to give them their third Burghley top-ten finish, and a three-phase climb from 48th place.
“He’s absolutely incredible. I sort of came out today, and I thought, all three, clear rounds in a row, that’s a rather big ask,” laughs Alice. “And actually, he never jumps very well in the warm-up. So it’s always quite frightening for me, because every single time I jump in the warm-up and he goes, ‘tap, tap, tap, tap, tap,’ and I think, ‘oh, here we go.’ And every single time he goes in there, he absolutely lights up. He loves his job, and he was phenomenal today.”
It’s a brilliant return to form for the pair, who’ve been exceptional at this top level but had a couple of surprise 20 penalties on their form sheet earlier this year at both Burnham Market CCI4*-S and Badminton. For Alice, this year has been about re-finding their mojo.
“I think it’s different things for him and I. So for me, it was finding another goal to keep myself motivated. I said to mum, it’d be really easy to go home and say, ‘Oh, well, you know, Badminton didn’t happen, so I’ll wait till Burghley,’ but obviously Burghley is such a long way away,” says Alice. “So even if I create a goal with a younger horse, just to keep myself productive and stuff like that. And for him, I think it’s just because he came out so excited at Badminton, like he was [yesterday], and I wasn’t really used to it, and we just sort of went back to basics at home. I did a lot of show jumping, anything to sort of build confidence, really. It was never a matter of, did he love it? But, you know, I think it’s very difficult, because when he reached 16 this year, I thought, ‘Oh, is this his sign that actually it’s a little bit too much for him?’ And then I thought, ‘No, it’s not. He just got overexcited.’ And I think sometimes you can get really destructive [in your thinking], so I think it’s a matter of also, you know, looking at a record and looking at your horse and making sure that actually you’re making decisions, not just based on how you feel, but factually.”
Cosby Green and Copper Beach finished their week as the highest-placed of our US contingent, knocking just one rail in an otherwise classy round to take 16th and complete their three-phase climb from 26th.
“I’m really happy with that. It’s a bit of an improvement from last time, and he really was trying for me out there. So I’m really, really pleased with him,” says Cosby, who finished 31st at Badminton after a tough day saw them add 28 penalties in the final phase.
Of her Burghley campaign, Cosby admits that she wasn’t sure that it would actually happen.
“I wasn’t sure if I was going to be here a couple months ago, and he just proved me wrong. So I’m really happy. I think it was the Sunday of Badminton, Jonelle [Price] said we’re going to Burghley. And I was pretty convinced he was going to retire after that. So Jonelle has been having me prepare him for Burghley this whole time. And I’d say I’ve just been in denial about it, because in what world would an 18 year old do a third consecutive five-star? I thought, ‘we’ll see when we get there’. And I was preparing him, but myself mentally, I was not completely prepared to be here. But he’s been steady Eddie on the prep, and it’s gone according to plan. About a week ago, when I had my last jump on him, and I was like, ‘wow, he’s ready.’”
A new addition to their tack locker also played a role in the great result.
“This was my third time jumping him in [a hackamore] ever in having him four years,” says Cosby. “And it worked out! I wasn’t sure how it was going to go, but he seemed to like it, so I think we might do that again next time. He just wasn’t responding positively enough in the bit, and he just kind of kept coming inverted, and especially at Badminton, I kept pulling and nothing was happening. So just tried a bit of a different approach, and especially after a hard day of cross country, it worked out.”
Jennie Brannigan and FE Lifestyle. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
Jennie Brannigan and FE Lifestyle finished in 23rd place after tipping a frustrating two rails, while Andrew McConnon and Wakita 54 took 27th place, also knocking two in their round. Mia Farley and Phelps took four down in the ring, giving them a final placing of 32nd and plenty of insights to take away for their next campaigns.
“We know Sunday’s not his strongest day, but I’m happy with how he came out of the barn this morning, and he’s happy and healthy. So we’ve done our Burghley completion. We’ve worked really hard all week, and I’ve always wanted to come here, so it’s been an accomplishment, and to be here with some great riders is really special,” says Mia.
Mia Farley and Phelps. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
“I think what we took away from this weekend is that we both know that we have the will to be the best,” says Mia, who had a tricky day across the country yesterday with an uncharacteristic runout at the second of the influential Rolex Corners at 16AB. “So like, especially with the mistake yesterday, I didn’t know that I could want it even more. I had no idea. And Phelps just proved that he loves what he does, and he loves cross country. He is an amazing cross country horse. The corners were my fault. That was at fence two, because I took about six strides out to fence two and then never got him back. So yeah, I think I can take away that we just cannot wait to come back. I’ve got a whole year to manifest!”
Jesse Campbell and Cooley Lafitte. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
A nod, to, must go to the most popular finisher of the day, with one of the rounds of the day. That was New Zealand’s Jesse Campbell, whose spicy Cooley Lafitte began his Burghley debut this week with a tricky test that earned the pair a 41.1 and sent them nearly to the bottom of the pack. But their clear round with 15.2 time penalties gave them a serious boost yesterday, and today, they nailed down the clear inside the time to secure 21st place in an arena packed full of folks rooting harder for them than anyone else.
“It’s been a big week, with lots of learnings and I’m just delighted with my horse. He tried really hard today. He’s been fairly troublesome all week, but today made up for it, definitely,” says Jesse, who rode with the purple and white colours of his late wife, Georgie, pinned to his coat. “It’s always this sort of chicken-egg situation. You know, do you want a really good dressage score? Do you want to jump double clear? And, yeah, it is always nice to finish the week on a positive. This year’s had a lot of challenges, and getting here has been one of them, but the horses do give me a purpose.”
And so we come to the close of another brilliant Defender Burghley – a week that’s given us an exciting spread of influence while remaining refreshingly horse-friendly. We’ll have plenty more thoughts and musings to bring you on how the week played out soon – but for now, it’s goodbye from us from a suddenly rather sleepy Stamford. Go Eventing.
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