Sarah Bullimore and Corouet
An Eventful Life filmed all competitors on cross country at
Osberton International & Young Horse Championships - find out more here
A Championship win is always special but winning the 7-Year-Old class at The London Capital & Finance Osberton International Horse Trials was extra special for Sarah Bullimore on board her home bred Corouet
The chestnut gelding by Balou Du Rouet is out of Sarah’s 4* mare Lilly Corinne and, although he may not be very big at 15.2h (‘He grew until he thought he was perfect then stopped’), he has the heart and jump of a much bigger horse
His size certainly didn’t stop the judges being impressed in the dressage, leading after this phase on 25.5 and he stayed on that score until the very end. With the Mondial Du Lion 7 Year Old Championship in sight, Sarah was only going to run if the conditions at Osberton were good but, after walking the course for a final time, she decided to ‘crack on’
Sarah had three talented young stars at Osberton with Quimira (Quidado/N-Celin) finishing sixth in the same class and Coroyale (Royaldik/Lilly Corinne) 13th in the 5-Year-Old Championship, not to mention a few younger ones at home. While Sarah, who is currently ranked fourth in the world, may sell some of these youngsters down the track, this still gives her an impressive stable of young horses to progress through the grades in the future, a vital key to staying at the top end of the FEI World Eventing Rankings
Sarah Bullimore
Another horse heading to Le Lion is Laura Collett’s Calmaro, who had another good prep run for the World Championships, backing up their win in the Open Intermediate at the South of England International with second place (27.9) in this class and Ireland’s Aoife Clark took third place on Celus D Ermac Z (28.8)
Laura Collett and Calmaro (above) and Aoife Clark on Celus D Ermac Z (below)
CIC1* 6 Year Old Championship
The last combination on course at Osberton 2018, Oliver Townend and Weston Goodfella
While the world number four won the 7-Year-Old Championship, it was the world number one rider, Oliver Townend, who took the win in the CIC1* 6 Year Old class
Riding Weston Goodfella, Oliver moved up from third place (27.0) after dressage when the overnight leader, William Fox-Pitt on Grafennacht, added 10 penalties in the show jumping.
The winner of the 5-Year-Old Championship, Vicky Tuffs was keen to add another win to her belt as she headed out on cross country riding Heartbeat in second place, but an unlucky 50 penalties stopped her chase of the top spot. Not surprisingly Oliver kept his foot to the floor and came home double clear for the win while Piggy French on Emerald Jonny moved up to second place, finishing on their dressage score of 28 and Liz Halliday-Sharp took third on Flash Cooley and fifth on Cooley Moonshine
Liz Halliday-Sharp and Flash Cooley
