Andrew Nicholson of New Zealand had a good day at the Festival of British Eventing yesterday winning both of the Advanced sections on Calico Joe and Quimbo. With ripping dressage scores of 27.9 and 27.5 respectively, Andrew certainly is doing something right in the dressage arena although Australian eventing rider Chris Burton is also holding his own in this area and equalled the score of 27.9 in the Advanced Section One riding Jaybee Calypso. Andrew picked up 4 time faults on cross country while Chris appears to have blitzed around the cross country and was the only rider to come in under time in this section; unfortunately he had 3 down in the showjumping while Andrew only had one so Chris had to be content with 2nd place.
Other Australians in this section of the Advanced class were Bill Levett riding Silk Stone in 5th, Lucinda Fredericks on The Navigator in 7th and, although not an Australian rider the lovely Australian horse Kolora Stud Archie, now ridden by British rider Jo Aston came 8th.
As mentioned before, Andrew Nicholson took home the honours in the Advanced Section Two as well but was chased by William Fox-Pitt in 2nd, 3rd and 4th place. Paul Tapner took 7th place on Caicos while Hamish Cargill was down the field but was apparently "very happy" with Tiger according to the excellent blog, Eventing Nation (eventingnation.com) who we can thank for this good video of the cross country.
http://youtu.be/8KBhIN7fIA8
