Tim Price and Jarillo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
It’s hard to imagine that there’s any accolade that Tim Price hasn’t scooped up for himself, but today, he managed to find something new to add to his CV.
“I’d never won a five-star on a horse twice,” he says with a grin, moments after jumping clear with the 2025 Pau champion, Jarillo, to retain his title.
It very nearly wasn’t to be, though. His closest challengers – wife Jonelle, third after cross-country with Senor Crocodillo, the best-placed of her three rides, and Bubby Upton, second with the double Bramham winner Its Cooley Time, had each delivered one of seven clear rounds inside the time thus far. That meant that Tim wouldn’t have a rail to spare with the twelve-year-old gelding. Ordinarily this wouldn’t seem like much of an issue; the liver chestnut is an extraordinary jumper, and wouldn’t be out of place in that sport. But as Tim came through the middle of the course, he found himself gunning for a stride that didn’t exist at all.
“I tried to muck him up today, but he wasn’t having a bar of it,” laughs Tim. Jarillo, scopey almost in excess, overruled his pilot’s decision-making, and while they gave the oxer a hard rub, it settled back into its cups and allowed the formidable pair to continue on to their second victory.
Tim was, he admits, not as relaxed heading into the ring as he might have appeared.
“It’s amazing to be in this position again, but it’s not what’s going through your head at the time. I was really nervous this time – normally I’m quite under control, and with the first two horses I thought that would do everything to set me up for a nice approach to my round with Jarillo. But I went in and I was nervous; I didn’t really find my rhythm the way I wanted to.”
But, he continues, “this is why we sit on fantastic horses. I’ve had Jarillo for quite a while, and he’s a quirky horse; he needs his hand held in life in general. He runs away from certain things – thankfully, not on cross-country – but today, he looked after me for a change, because I don’t think I rode particularly well.”
Tim Price and Jarillo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Though a shock two rails at Luhmühlen’s CCI4*-S this summer might have cast some unfair doubt on Jarillo’s consistency – and arguably contributed to him being left off the New Zealand team at the World Championships – Tim was pragmatic about his form coming in to Pau.
“He’s been feeling a million dollars for almost all year, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can come and be successful. He’s such a class horse, and it makes my job easy to pilot him around, but there had been so many clear rounds that the pressure was coming further and further on. I had the faith in him, but I had to try to keep myself quite relaxed. Everyone always thinks I am, but I’m sort of paddling underneath the surface sometimes.”
Those seven clears inside the time – eight, once you add in Jarillo’s – were largely grouped in the business end of the leaderboard, and meant that the top five after cross-country was unchanged at the end of the final phase. One of those had already come from Tim himself: his second round, the mercurial Happy Boy, had closed out the weekend on a high, adding nothing in last challenge to the 3.2 time penalties he picked up yesterday when delivering the fastest round of the day.
“When he’s cool he’s really cool,” says Tim, who secured fourth place with the round. “But even when he’s naughty, I still can’t help but like him. We ask horses to do this; they don’t ask to do it, and he is who he is. He’s better in the autumn, or maybe in every second attempt at a big one, but whatever it is, he’s a really fun horse and has been exceptionally fun this week.”
Tim also secured 16th place with first horse Garcon, the greenest of the bunch, who tipped just one rail in the pathfinder round in today’s class.
There was, of course, no time for Tim to think between any of his horses: with just 29 left in the class, it was straight out of one saddle and into the next from the start of proceedings to the finish, and no doubt a really solid lorry nap on the long trip home now.
Jonelle Price and Señor Crocodillo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Mind you, the entirety of team Price will need a good sleep after a week that’s seen all six horses complete – and 50% of the top ten placings go to either Tim or Jonelle. Jonelle, for her part, takes third with Senor Crocodillo, eighth with the 2022 champion Grappa Nera, and 9th with newer ride Capitaine de Hus Z.
“Your performance is relative to your expectation,” she says. “I thought I could jump a good round on Capitaine de Hus, but we just had a light touch at the plank, which was a bit unfortunate in an otherwise good round. The black mare [Grappa Nera], she’s electric. She’s pretty hot, and when they’re that hot, it can go either way, so I was delighted to have just the four faults on her. And then with Crocodillo, he has a really good record on the last day, but in some ways that makes it harder. It’s getting to the point where he’s jumped so many clear rounds that you almost feel more pressure. But I jumped a couple of fences and thought, ‘he’s on’. He was a pleasure to ride.”
Bubby Upton and Its Cooley Time. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Dividing the Prices on the podium is Great Britain’s Bubby Upton, who finished second – her best result yet at the level – with her double Bramham winner Its Cooley Time.
The excellent result comes a year after a tricky run at Pau for the rider: in 2025 she brought three horses, including both her rides this week, to the event and completed with none of them.
This year, her goal was redemption, and she was determined to leave no stone unturned in her pursuit of it, particularly after some mistakes at the start of the season.
“Last year it was completely my fault in Its Cooley Time’s five-star debut, so to come back on his second attempt to finish second… obviously I’d always want to be at the top, but his performance all week has been flawless, and the future is incredibly bright,” says Bubby. “We’re only just scratching the surface of what he’s capable of, and we’ve learned so much about him over the last year or so.”
He can, she explains, “go in quite an extreme way with his head carriage, which is incredibly high, and so it often gives you a false feeling about how far you are away from the fence, because his legs go beyond the length of his neck. That’s what’s run us into trouble, particularly at Kronenberg this spring [where the pair fell on cross-country]. Whereas here last year, I felt we actually nailed 99.9% of it and had really come on from Blenheim [European Championships, where Bubby fell]. So it was easy to think of Pau as a very bad week for him, because of that error coming home, but actually, he got three fences from home in genuine perfection. There wasn’t anything there that we needed to strip back or change riding-wise, it was just a mistake on my part. Whereas Kronenberg really was an error in the system.”
Bubby Upton and Its Cooley Time. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
That’s when, she continues, “I got on the phone to Andrew Nicholson – and Chris Bartle has been a huge help to me as well. They’ve really rallied around me and given me the time in terms of analysing the rounds and distinguishing between how he’s so different from my other horses. I can’t shake, rattle, and roll around the cross-country like I can with Cola and expect the fence not to get in the way, because they do with him.”
She’s also had to learn to ride and embrace the quirks in his way of jumping: in showjumping, he’s an orbital, stylish jumper, while on cross-country, he’s much lower and more economical, so she’s switched him to open-fronted boots for cross-country to help him feel his way through and over brush fences without getting too low.
And when he’s sharp? That, too, is something to celebrate.
“He’s so feisty, but he’s like a cat – he’s the quickest animal on his feet, and he’s so obnoxious,” she laughs. “He’s like, ‘let me go! I know what I’m doing!’ And I’m like, ‘no you don’t!’ But that’s just him. The feistier he is, the better he is. I remember William Fox-Pitt saying that about Chilli Morning once: the more he’s fighting, the better he is, and it’s the same with him.”
Sofia Sjoborg and Bryjamolga van het Marienshof Z. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
The top five is rounded out by Tom McEwen and the leggy nine-year-old debutant Quintus, who added nothing to their scoresheet today, while Great Britain’s Lizzie Baugh completed her climb from first-phase 38th to final 6th place with a clear inside the time with Piltown Concorde. Willa Newton did much the same with the former Izzy Taylor ride Hartacker, which completed her own climb from 20th to 7th, just ahead of Jonelle and first ride Grappa Nera, who had started the week in 40th place. Sweden’s Sofia Sjoborg delivered a smart clear and added just 1.6 time penalties to climb up to tenth place with her Olympic ride, Bryjamolga van het Marienshof Z, having started the week in 47th place.
Hallie Coon and Kapriccio. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Our sole remaining US competitor, Hallie Coon and Kapriccio, added 8 faults to move to a respectable 12thplace, just missing out on another five-star placing for their resume in the horse’s sophomore run at the level.
We think it every year, but truly: if anyone else wants to idly call Pau an ‘easy’ five-star, we will just start screaming and screaming and never stop.
For now, that’s all for us from Pau, and on the European end of EN, we head into the off-season a bit bruised, a bit battered, and really quite damp, actually. Thank you for following along with all our reporting this year – we’ll see you very soon to Go Eventing again.
The final top ten at Pau 2026.
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