Gemma Stevens and Chilli Morning IV top the Thursday leaderboard at Boekelo. Photo distributed by the Boekelo press office.
Gemma Stevens has intentionally produced the Chilli Morning clone, Chilli Morning IV, since he was a just-saddled three-year-old. “Four” is one of three clones of the great eventing stallion who won Badminton in 2015; all three clones were birthed in the U.S. via ViaGen Pets and Gemini Genetics and surrogate mares before coming to the UK. The cloning was an endeavor on the part of Christopher and Lisa Stone, who also owned Chilli Morning (the stallion passed away six years ago at the age of 20). The other two clones have been ridden by Julia Krajewski (GER) and Alex Hua Tian (CHN). Much like her recent Burghley champion, Chilli Knight (all in the family, a Chilli Morning offspring himself and also owned by the Stones), it’s been a relationship built very much from the ground up.
The 9-year-old clone comes into this first CCIO4*-L at Military Boekelo sensibly prepared; Gemma believes in cultivating longevity at the top levels, and that means creating a schedule that allows them to grow and learn without being overly demanding of their bodies. The production in this phase paid off on Thursday as Gemma and Chilli Morning IV took the lead with about half the field seen, scoring a 25.4 from the judging panel comprised of president Andrew Bennie (NZL), Angela Tucker (GBR) and Polly Ann Huntington (AUS).
Statistically speaking, there aren’t any horses coming forward on Friday’s start list that have a better 6 Run Average (6RA) score, but most riders will tell you to not put a ton of stock into numbers. They tell a part of the story, to be sure, but for example, Chilli Morning IV shaved 4.3 marks off of his 6RA today — in fact, all three of the top Thursday horses were at least 4 marks better than their 6RA. It shows that little improvements accumulate over time and sometimes pay off all at once. Applying this thought process and early average widens the field on Friday considerably, and in fact Gemma’s one who could usurp herself on Friday, with Cooley Park Muze (the top-rated pre-competition pair in the EquiRatings Prediction Center) coming forward as one of the last to see.
Also delivering strong marks that were better than the 6RA forecasted were Brazil’s Marcio Carvalho Jorge and his Pan Ams silver medal partner Castle Howard Casanova, who took 4.2 points off his 2025 Boekelo score (he finished 14th on that effort) to score a 26.0, as well as Germany’s Nadine Marzahl and Victoria 108, who earned a four-star personal best of 27.1 in their first 4*-L start together since 2020. 2026 Boekelo champion Lara de Liedekerke-Meier (BEL) is positioned in fourth with Call Me Senorita (28.3).
For the USA, Allie Knowles is leading the early charge with her individual horse, LS Crown Royal. It was a big day in the sandbox for the 8-year-old Hanoverian owned by Katherine O’Brien as he earned his first sub-30 FEI score and a personal best with Allie in the irons. Their 28.6 is good for fifth in the early going. This was the sole U.S. pair to see on Thursday; the remaining riders will go as follows on Friday as the Nations Cup Final competition kicks off:
- 10:38 am local / 4:38 am EST: Lauren Nicholson and Landmark’s Jungle Gold
- 11:34 am local / 5:34 am EST: Jack Curtis and Luska Candy Clover
- 1:49 pm local / 7:49 am EST : Allie Knowles and Montpelier Scais
- 3:06 pm local / 9:06 am EST: Hallie Coon and Sirius SB
Dressage continues on Friday starting at 9:07 am local time / 3:07 am EST. The full Friday starting order can be found here. To see what time the dressage will take place in your local time zone, refer to the widget below or this website.
Time converter at worldtimebuddy.com
Time converter at worldtimebuddy.com
Click or tap the image to see the fence-by-fence map on CrossCountry App.
Adrian Ditcham’s reversed cross country course has also been unveiled, and a fence-by-fence preview is now available over on CrossCountry App. This will be the first time we’ve seen this course run counterclockwise since 2017, when Sue Benson was still the designer in residence.
L: the 2026 track, R: the 2018 track
The tracks run a remarkably similar loop in this direction, save one more visible deviation toward the end of the 2026 version, as you can see above. The optimum time is 10:00.
More to come from Boekelo!
Tap the screenshot above to view full live scores.
Military Boekelo / FEI Eventing Nations Cup CCIO4*-NC-L (Netherlands): [Website] [Entries/Timing/Scores] [CrossCountry App XC Map] [Live Stream]
