Exciting Ex-Racehorse Eventing Challenge to Launch in 2025

A new class for ex-racehorses will launch in 2025, thanks to Cornbury House Horse Trials and Jayne McGivern of Dash Grange Stud.

The class, The Racehorses Eventing Challenge, to be held at Oxfordshires Cornbury House aims to raise the profile of thoroughbred horses’ suitability for eventing, and comes with a whopping first prize of £45,000.

Both Jayne McGivern and Cornbury House Horse Trials’ founder and president David Howden are owners and breeders of racehorses as well as event horses, and bringing these two equestrian sports closer together is a shared passion.

The Cornbury Racehorses Eventing Challenge will be run at British Eventing Open Novice level, but using an FEI CCI2*-S dressage test in a long arena and with the showjumping phase last and in reverse order. The aim for subsequent years will be to run the class at British Eventing Intermediate level.

Entrants must have achieved two Minimum Eligibility Requirements (MERs) as a combination at novice in the current season (2025). Horses must not have competed at CCI4* level or above in the past two seasons. Riders will be restricted to two entries each, and horses do not need to have raced or to have been in training, but must be registered with Weatherbys or the appropriate thoroughbred studbook of their country of origin.

The 2024 running of Cornbury House Horse Trials is underway, and runs from 11-15 September. Tickets may be purchased online at Cornbury House Horse Trials or on the gate, and all the cross-country action from the event will be shown live on Horse & Country TV.

Feature image: Jayne McGivern’s former racehorse Our Old Fella competing with Piggy March at Cornbury House Horse Trials in 2021. Image credit Sarah Farnsworth.

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