William Fox-Pitt and Chilli Morning at Rolex. Photo by Jenni Autry.
The cross country took a major toll on the leaderboard today at Bramham, and William Fox-Pitt and Chilli Morning now lead the CCI3* after putting in a double clear trip. Overnight leaders Pippa Funnell and Or Noir De La Loge picked up a stop and 14.4 time penalties to drop all the way down to 23rd. Other top 10 riders after dressage suffered similar fates. Maxime Libio and Cathar De Gamel had been sitting in third place overnight, but dropped down to 29th after a refusal and subsequent 15.6 time penalties. While William moved to the lead on Chilli Morning, his luck didn’t extend to his trip with Doug Payne’s former mount Running Order; they picked up a stop and 9.2 time penalties to drop to 27th place. William and Running Order had been sitting in seventh place overnight.
There were 14 double clear trips in all across the Bramham CCI3* cross country course. Five riders retired on course, while 12 were eliminated, including Zara Phillips and Lord Lauries, who were sitting in fourth place overnight. The top three going into the show jumping tomorrow are now William Fox-Pitt and Chilli Morning, who were second after dressage; Mark Todd and and Leonidas II, who were fifth after dressage; and Mathieu Lemoine and Quickness, who were sixth after the dressage. All the riders in the top five had double clear trips across the country, and all were rewarded by moving at least one spot up the leaderboard. We’ll be back tomorrow with a full report on the show jumping from Bramham.
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