Chris Burton and Lawtown Boy
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The Lawtown girls and boys are doing well at Barbury with Chris Burton’s young stars impressing the judges in the dressage ring
While Chris still leads the CIC2* Section C on Lawtown Boy, Friday at the St. James’s Place Barbury International Horse Trials is the big day for the Novice classes and Chris Burton on Lawtown Girl, the six year old mare owned by Sue Lawson, showed once again that she has the future star quality often seen in Chris’ young horses.
They led the Novice Section I after the dressage on a score of 14.8 and added nothing to it to for their win ahead of Georgie Strang on Capels Hollow Drift on a score of 22.7 and Blyth Tait on Superstorm Sandy (22.8). Lawtown Girl won a Novice class at the South of England earlier this year where her dressage score was 17.8 and, although she doesn’t always hit these low marks, this is definitely one to watch
Blyth Tait and Superstorm Sandy
William Fox-Pitt’s Georgisaurous is another impressive young horse that scooped a win here on Friday, adding just 0.4 time penalties on cross country to win the Novice Section G on 21.2 ahead of Oliver Townend riding Kroongraaf Hallo (24.8) and Sweden’s Ludwig Svennerstal on Fialotta (25.5). William’s lovely big six year old bay gelding, owned by Tara, Robert and Pep Glen, also picked up a win at Chatsworth – it seems that these horses (or their jockeys) know how to rise to the occasion at an International!
The USA’s UK based Tiana Coudray didn’t need as many letters in her horse’s name to win the Novice Section F, taking the class on a horse simply called G (apparently called Rupert at home). This is yet another six year old and it wouldn’t be surprising if we see several of these quality Novice class winners here aimed at Le Lion at the end of the year
Oliver Townend and A Sportsfield Diamond
The winner of the Novice Section H may have been British, the prodigious Oliver Townend who is still storming the British Eventing points table at the mid-way part of the year, but his horse in this section, A Sportsfield Diamond, is owned by Australian Tim Boland.
They won this class on their dressage score of 22.8 while John-Paul Sheffield took the Open Novice on the black stallion Woodlander Wesuvio ahead of the recent CICO3* winner at Weiner Neustadt, Georgie Spence riding Calvin II and, at the other end of the scale, the Novice Pony winner was Georgina Herrling riding SF Detroit
Georgie Spence had a good day at the office with 6th in the Novice Section G on LSS Lanzarote as well
We’ll take a look at the winners of the Intermediate Novice sections later in the week
CIC*** Competition
Tina Cook and Billy the Red
While Britain’s Tina Cook picked up a ribbon for third in the Novice Section F on Rebeliant , her big news of the day was finishing as the overnight leaders ahead of tomorrow’s show jumping phase of the CIC3* competition.
The former European Eventing champion and three times Olympic medallist produced a stunning test riding the ten year gelding, securing a mark of 40.4 however Australia’s Bill Levett performed the best test with the only-sub-40 score of 36.1 on Lassban Diamond Lift. Sadly, the combination withdrew from the competition following their test, leaving Tina in pole position and William Fox-Pitt, the overnight dressage leader after the first day of dressage riding Clifton Signature, in second place on 40.7.
Kitty King and Vendredi Biats
Locally based riders Tim Price (NZL) and Kitty King (GBR) lie in third and fourth place respectively. Tim riding Ringwood Sky Boy delivered a smart dressage scoring 41.3 while Vendredi Biats and Kitty scored 42.2, with Kitty a little miffed that the score differential between the judges was quite large
However Tina was very pleased with her young Billy the Red
“I am really pleased. Billy is only a young horse and there is masses of atmosphere here today. He can be a buzzy, which makes him good on the cross country, but means he can show some tension in the dressage, but he was great in the arena today and I am delighted how he responded”
CIC2*
As previously mentioned, Chris Burton still leads the Section C on Lawtown Boy (37.4) and Emily King has maintained her second place on Cooley Currency (37.5) but Pippa Funnell (GBR) and Billy Cuckoo have moved into thirs with a score of 39.7.
Pippa is also up there in the Section D in second place on Sandman 7 (41.3) ahead of Tim Price (NZL) and Xavier Faer (42.3) but it is Austin O’Connor’s lovely wife Amy O’Connor on the 2016 Osberton Young Horse winner Sankro who is leading the field on 41.1
Section E
1st - Laura Schroter (GBR) William Van Wup (38.9)
2nd – Wills Oakden (GBR) Ballbreaker SD (39.5)
2nd – Ludwig Svennerstall (SWE) Box Leo (39.5)
4th – Willa Newton (GBR) Caja 20 (39.8)
The CIC3* competition continues tomorrow and culminates Sunday with the cross-country, run in reverse order of merit. Saturday at the St. James’s Place Barbury International Horse Trials also features the dressage phase of Leg 3 of the Event Rider Masters, the CIC** show jumping and cross country as well as the JCB Champions Challenge.
Saturday 8 July Dressage coverage from 10.15am (GMT)
Sunday 9 July Showjumping from 9.15am and cross-country from: 2.15pm (GMT)
Watch live and for free at Eventridermasters.tv
Zara Tindall checks out the CIC3* course she will ride on Fernhill Facetime (below)
