Piggy French Makes it a Double at Blenheim

Piggy French Makes it a Double at Ssangyong Blenheim Palace Horse Trials, 2019

Britain’s Piggy French jumped two spectacular clear rounds to finish first and third in the principal CCI4*-L class at SsangYong Blenheim Palace Horse Trials on Alison Swinburn and John and Chloe Perry’s Brookfield Inocent and Susanna Paybody’s Castletown Clover.

She had already jumped clear on fifth-placed Castletown Clover when she entered the arena on Brookfield Inocent. To beat Japan’s Kazuma Tomoto’s round on Brookpark Vikenti, French knew she could not be one second over the time, let alone have a fence down.

Piggy, who last won Blenheim in 2011, commented:

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Everyone keeps saying how well I’ve been doing this season, but I still couldn’t jump a clear round when it matters,”

Now I’ve done two! I was wondering what I should do differently but in the end I just tried to stay in my bubble. Both horses were in amazing form.”

Piggy won Badminton earlier this season, finished second at Burghley two weeks ago and was part of Britain’s silver medal-winning team at the recent European Championships.

This is the second time in three years that Kazuma Tomoto has been runner-up at Blenheim, by the tiniest of margins, but he was sporting in defeat. Speaking of French, Tomoto said:

Piggy is the best in the world so I knew I could never catch her,”

On his hopes for Tokyo 2020 he continued:

but having results like this really does give me confidence for the Olympics in 2020.”

Australia’s Sammi Birch, whose clear round on Direct Tullyoran Cruise elevated her five places to ninth, could also have an Olympic possibility on her hands.

New Zealander Andrew Nicholson also benefited from a clear, rising from 11^th to fifth on the Spanish-bred As Is.

He is amazing for an eight-year-old – I’ve never had one like him before. He’s so settled in his temperament as well as talented. I’m lucky to have him.”

Four-time Blenheim winner Pippa Funnell just hit the penultimate fence on the impressive Billy Walk On to drop from fourth to sixth place.

There were 14 clear showjumping rounds from the 57 finishers, but the time was tight and only eight were completely penalty-free. The top three horses – two of them Piggy French’s – finished on their dressage scores.

Event Director Mandy Hervieu said:

We’ve had bumper crowds all weekend, fantastic weather and a really exciting competition. I am very proud of the volunteer team, who have worked their socks off to pull off an amazing event. The outside officials couldn’t praise enough the efforts of the different teams here in all areas, which is great to hear.”

Visit www.blenheimhorse.co.uk for further information about the event.