Gemma Stevens and Chilli Knight. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
When it comes to sixteen-year-old Chilli Knight, winner of the ‘pop-up’ pandemic five-star at Bicton in 2021, dressage isn’t about flash or fandango – instead, says rider Gemma Stevens, he just has to do “his best shuffling.”
“He can’t trot at all,” laughs Gemma. “It’s just not his forte. But the one thing that makes up for the fact that he can’t trot is his heart – he’s always trying his best.”
If any event requires heart beyond the average, it’s Defender Burghley. And today, that deep well of ‘try’ made all the difference, propelling Gemma and Chilli Knight straight to the top of the leaderboard in this morning’s inaugural session as the only sub-30 scorers of the class so far.
Their 29.7 isn’t quite their best result between the boards – that came at that fateful Bicton, where they posted a 27.9 – but it does represent both a very competitive score in this field, as well as the just reward for a bit of risk-taking moments before the test.
“At Badminton [this spring] he was a bit behind my leg, and we made some really stupid mistakes and had the worst score we’d ever had,” says Gemma. “So here, for the first time, we actually tried to razz him up a bit before he went in. It’s not a normal thing for a five-star horse, but this morning Ian [Woodhead] was like, ‘come on, let’s do it – what can it hurt?’ He’s so reliable in the arena, and he’s an old boy now so he knows his job. He goes in there; he does his thing; he only does what he has to do.”
So, she continues, “I started him off like normal [in the warm-up] and then started saying, ‘come on, come on,’ and really razzing him up, and then I gave him a pat and went in.”
It worked. In the arena, the five-star stalwart “didn’t drop off my leg – he stayed lovely and in front of me, kept his frame up in front of me, and was really nice to ride. He’s a horse I can really trust not to run off with me in there; the worst he’d do is spook at a flowerpot, and he’s not going to get whizzy on me, so it was something I could afford to try with him.”
‘Alfie’ is probably best known for his serious turns of speed on cross-country, but in the first phase, finding the ‘oomph’ has been a long game.
“He’s so full of go on cross-country, but to him, dressage is dull,” says Gemma with a laugh. “Jumping jumps is much more fun, and galloping fast is what he loves to do. He loves it when we come to these big ones, because he knows that I’m not going to have the handbrake on, and that’s the best thing ever – at the other events he knows I’ll have the handbrake on and he gets a bit cross with me, to be honest!”
It’s that inherent joie de vivre that Gemma hopes will be the pair’s driver for a sea-change in fortunes on Saturday, after a lost shoe at Badminton forced them to pull up while in a strong position – and after a tough World Championships run for Gemma, who is still mystified by an uncharacteristic couple of refusals from Flash Cooley, her ride in Germany.
“As long as we’ve got a bit of luck on our side, and we keep our wheels on and keep galloping, there’s no reason [Chilli Knight] won’t gallop to the end,” she says. “He’s fit, he’s blood, and he’s done it before – we just have to have that bit of luck to not stand on ourselves and pull a shoe off like we did at Badminton, because he’s got such flat feet that we’re not very good when we haven’t got our wheels on. It’s like being on an ice rink – not very nice going around Burghley!”
Tim Price and Global Quest. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
The margin at the top of this early stage is a reasonably comfortable one: second-placed Tim Price and Global Quest sit 2.5 penalties behind Gemma and Alfie on a 32.1 after a conservative but workmanlike test.
“You sometimes forget how long a partnership takes to really cement,” says Tim, who inherited the ride from the late Georgie Campbell in the latter half of 2024. “I’ve had him for a couple of years, and we’re just starting to feel like we’re really a team.”
Something that Tim has learned over those two seasons is the balance in how much he asks and how much he supports.
“For a big fella, he actually has quite a high level of anxiety,” he says. “With me being bigger and stronger than Georgie, it’s perhaps a bit more like, ‘it’s like this, mate’, but that’s not always been to his benefit. He can just get a little bit upset, and then he goes in his shell and everything’s a bit forced, and you lose the balance and the impulsion and things like that. So as we’ve gone on I have, for a start, got him a lot fitter and a lot lighter and his body a lot stronger, and then I really try not to come in and say, ‘it’s like this.’ I want him to show himself off, not me to say ‘this is what you need to do’, so I try to just achieve more softness and cadence and things that aren’t that natural to him.”
Today, he says, “I tried to ride smoothly, which comes at the cost of a few crisp transitions, and I ride for changes that are small, but clean. In the past I’d really go for the change and he’d throw his head down and go, ‘why did you do that?!’ So now, I just try to show him the way, and I hope that over the next couple of seasons that’ll mean he actually gets much better.”
Already, the progression is evident: “it was a nice, smooth, flowing test, and while he doesn’t have the flamboyance of the ones that’ll be at the front of the pack in this phase, it’s a great baseline to move on from. He tried his hardest in there and didn’t get distracted, even when things like the flowers caught his eye.”
Tom Jackson and Hawk Eye. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
Tom Jackson and the first of his two rides, the former Nicola Wilson ride Hawk Eye, step into third place at this early stage on a 34.1 – nearly bang-on their average at this level in their third start.
“Overall I’m really pleased with him – obviously there’s bits to polish up, and he just slightly dropped behind me on a couple of the halts, but he doesn’t find this phase the easiest and it actually felt a big improvement from the last couple of five-star tests he’s done,” says Tom.
Tomorrow will see both Tim and Tom return with second rides: for Tim, it’ll be the evergreen Falco, 21st at the World Championships last month, and for Tom it will be five-star sophomore United 36 who, at just ten years old, is one of the favourites in this year’s field after taking fourth place at Badminton on his debut this spring.
“They’re extremely different horses to ride, and it takes a slightly different riding style for both of them,” says Tom. “But they’ve done quite a lot together this year and the back end of last year, so hopefully I’m used to changing between the two now!”
Caroline Pamukcu and HSH Tolan King. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
Pathfinder Caroline Pamukcu is also double-handed in her long-awaited Burghley debut, and while her top horse, Aachen-rerouter HSH Blake, will come forward tomorrow, a steady test from HSH Tolan King was good enough to put the pair into provisional fourth place this morning on a score of 34.4.
“He was fantastic,” says Caroline. “He’s a funny story – he was a failed sale horse of mine, and so I took over the ride three or four years ago and he’s just exceeded all of our expectations.”
HSH Tolan King arrived on Caroline’s yard in the States in 2021, and the following year, Caroline relocated to the UK for a season to base herself with Pippa Funnell.
“We didn’t bring him, because we were just trying to sell him – and only for $20,000. He went to three separate professionals and we were like, ‘you should take this one – he’ll be nice!’ But he was just one of the ones I couldn’t sell. I’d produced him up to Training level at that point, and I went to the investor and said, ‘look, we’ve put so much money into him – why don’t we just kick on and take him up the levels and see what we have?’”
That call, she says, has been “so worthwhile. He’s a bit of a quirky horse, a bit of an underdog, and that’s for sure why he didn’t sell – he’s not an American type of horse. He’s blood, he’s a little small, and for me he’s very fancy, but he’s not the Dutch stamp of a horse that [the market] really like – the big flash, the big jump. But he digs so, so deep, and he’s the ideal type for me – I like the smaller ones that are a little bit rogue.”
Being pathfinder at Burghley on a debut visit might not be many riders’ ideal draw, but Caroline has plenty of trust in the little gelding, who jumped clear around Kentucky this year for fourteenth place.
“He was first out at Kentucky for me this year and first out at Maryland [last year], and I’d say Maryland was pretty beefy,” she says. “So I appreciate him; he just does a really great job and handles it all in his stride, and he couldn’t care less about an atmosphere.”
And, she continues, “I’m so honoured to be here. It’s been a bucket list show of mine, but I’ve been a big believer in supporting our American five-stars, so I try to have a horse for Kentucky and for Maryland every year. Sadly, Maryland is a no-go this year, so I thought it was a perfect opportunity to come overseas and finally do Burghley.”
Clarke Johnstone and Domasco. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
Rounding out the top five at this stage is British-based Kiwi Clarke Johnstone, who piloted the ex-racehorse Domasco to a 34.5 – a smart score for a horse who has often tipped into the high-30s at four-star, though proved at three-star that he has the raw material for some very smart scores in the future.
“I’m really pleased with him,” says Clarke. “He’s a Thoroughbred horse and he does tend to get quite hot, but he stayed really calm and really with me in the arena. I thought his trot work was super nice; he walked really calmly; and while his canter work is his weakness – he doesn’t do a good flying change, so they bring the score down – there must have been some high marks as well to finish on a 34, which I’m pleased with.”
A happy little surprise for Clarke was the ring announcer’s request for the crowd to keep the applause to a minimum when he came into the ring: “That actually wasn’t my doing, but I was quite happy to hear the announcement,” he laughs. “I don’t know who asked for it, but it certainly helped – at the trot-up, after the crowd clapped, he shot off with me!”
Thirteen-year-old Domasco comes into the top levels of the sport with an enviable amount of frequent flyer miles on his roster already from his former career: he was bred in the UK, then sold to New Zealand to race, and after starting his FEI career in the Southern Hemisphere, he relocated back to England at the tail end of 2021 when Clarke moved his business across the world.
It wasn’t Clarke, though, who originally found him after racing: “Helen Tompkins got him off the track, and she rode him for a couple of months. But he’s very big, and so she sent him to me to ride for her. I did one lap of the arena at a trot and then I rang her and said, ‘Helen, how much money do I need to pay you to have this horse?’ I just loved him from those first steps – it was like, ‘wow, this is my horse.’ It took eighteen months or so to convince her to sell him to me, and although it’s taken a bit longer to get him to this level than I’d hoped – he’s so accident prone that his mascot is Melman the giraffe from Madagascar – he’s still just as beautiful as I thought he was.”
This is the start of a long-awaited return to Burghley for Clarke, who competed here in 2011 with Incognito, finishing 17th.
“It’s taken a long time to feel like I’ve got the right horse to come back with,” he says. “It takes a special type of horse, and I’m hoping he’s that. He’s a fantastic jumper; he’s very clever and careful, and while I wouldn’t say he’s overly brave, and I have to keep him sweet and be very accurate the whole way around, it’s always nice to be sitting on a Thoroughbred once you get north of nine minutes.”
Cassie Sanger and Redfield Fyre. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.
Our second US representative of the morning, British-based Cassie Sanger and Redfield Fyre, slot into seventh on a score of 38.2, just behind British pair Jack Pinkney and Claragh Olala, sixth on 38.
“The marks are never easy for him, especially in a five-star test, but the changes are slowly coming along and we kind of have three out of four now not late behind, which is a big improvement for him,” says Cassie, who balances training her string of horses with Ros Canter with working through a journalism degree.
“We have a really good system with Ros, who I train with all the time at home, and with Ian Woodhead at the events,” she continues. “We kind of go with how he’s feeling in the lead-up – we’ll work hard on the flat, and then take him to the gallops the next day, and he’s actually become quite good at flatting the day after he does his fitness work, which you wouldn’t always think would be the case with a horse who struggles with strength and balance.”
But, she says, “he just needs his brain to switch on and off with it. So we keep him really happy – he’s only had one big session here this week, and otherwise we’ve toned [the schooling] right down. I rode him this morning in the dressage saddle, but just stretching him and making sure he was loose and feeling good, and then we just did a fifteen minute warm-up for the test so we can get the best out of him in the ring.”
We’ll be heading back to the white boards shortly for this afternoon’s dressage session, which will see another twelve horses and riders deliver their tests from 14.00 BST/9.00 a.m. EST. As always, you can follow along live on Burghley TV, and keep it locked onto EN for another full report at the end of the day’s sport. Until then: Go Eventing!
The top ten at lunchtime on Thursday at Defender Burghley.
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