In the 75th Anniversary of the Badminton Horse Trials and its inaugural year with Mars as the title sponsor, the sun shone over two days of fantastic sport to give us the phase one leader of Ros Canter with Izilot DHI. Riding into second place is Bubby Upton on Cola for Great Britain, and in third, is New Zealand’s Tim Price on board Vitali.
Tim and the 14-year-old black gelding produced their customary fluid test to finish on a first phase score of 27.7. The result wasn’t quite their Burghley record-setting score of 18 from last September having had a few miscommunications in the flying changes, but the score was enough to leave the combination in a competitive position ahead of the cross-country phase tomorrow.
“He’s come into this competition in really good form” Tim said of his seasoned 5* campaigner, “he’s such an amazing horse in the dressage department and we’ve seen what he can do, of course you’d like to do that time and time again, but that’s horses, they’re a living breathing animal and with the electric atmosphere, I do excuse him a little bit for his focus coming and going, and to sit on the podium at the end of the day is a good place to be”. The pair would certainly leave themselves in contention for yet another top-ten finish if they can manage to tackle tomorrow’s cross-country course without fault, but it all remains to be seen considering they completed last year’s track a minute over the optimum time.
Thursday’s overnight leader, Bubby Upton, withstood another day of dressage scores coming and going to lie in eventual second place with her long-term partner, the 14-year-old bay gelding, Cola. The British rider made an incredible comeback after what could have been a career-ending injury back in August last year. After having a fall doing flatwork, the then-22-year-old required extensive surgery to stabilise her spine which incurred multiple fractures.
Understandably, Bubby was emotional being interviewed after her round and score of 27.3. “I never thought I’d ever be sat here after dressage, I’m so proud of him, he was incredible,” Bubby said of sitting just 2 penalty points behind the leader. “If you’d have told me 9 months ago that I would be here, I wouldn’t have believed you!” She smiled through tears.
In a familiar position after her win in 2023, Britain’s Ros Canter finds herself in the top spot after dressage once more, but this time on board the 11-year-old bay gelding Izilot DHI. The dressage judges were certainly not throwing their marks at riders this year. The horse took offence to a camera by the entrance which hindered their marks for every movement in that top left corner. Still, their score of 25.3 doesn’t necessarily reflect the quality of the work the combination were producing and is certainly not the score on paper that we were expecting.
“He’s one of the best in the world I think, and he’s an absolute pleasure to ride, he’s been challenging as a young horse but this year he seems to have grown up a huge amount and he seems to really enjoy being here, so roll on tomorrow!” Ros said of the talented young gelding who shows an incredible amount of promise with so many years of competition still ahead of him. “He’s really performed well so far this year, so I definitely feel confident on the horse I’m sat on tomorrow.”
The remaining top ten combinations after dressage are sitting neatly behind the top three allowing barely much breathing room heading into the cross country. Britain’s Emily King and Valmy Biats lead the charge, followed by USA’s Tiana Coudray on Cancaras Girl and New Zealand’s Caroline Powell with Greenacres Special Cavalier for the mare’s second attempt at a clear round at Badminton. Georgie Goss and Feloupe riding under the Irish flag for the first time are in equal 8th position with British stalwart William Fox-Pitt on the exciting Grafennacht, and Badminton first-timer Max Warburton rounds off the top ten riding Monbeg Exclusive, a previous ride of the legend that is Andrew Nicholson.
But with only ten penalties between the top thirty riders, it is certainly all to play for ahead of tomorrow’s imposing 5* cross-country course.
The general consensus amongst riders of the 2024 course is typically “It’s Badminton, Isn’t it?”, followed by, “It’s big!”. Eric Winter certainly hasn’t held back in this Olympic year, and the middle third of the course is a continual assault of an open ditch after an almost impossible corner – or a terrifying combination of the two – followed by technical combinations testing a horse’s boldness, agility and obedience, and certainly only the bravest combinations will make it through penalty-free.