In a remarkable comeback to the sport of eventing after breaking her leg badly in March, Izzy Taylor is in pole position at Burgham International Horse Trials (July 30 – August 2) in Holme Dodsworth Metals CCI4*-S section C on Johnny Hornby’s eight-year-old Barrington Boy on a score of 28.1.
“I’m very excited to be here,” said Izzy, who won this feature class at Burgham in 2021. “Barrington Boy was really good – he’s very babyish still, but he tries really hard. He coped with the flags and all the excitement, and did a really nice test.
“I’m really pleased to be back, and the enforced break did me good in a lot of ways. Would I wish it to happen again? Absolutely not! But have I learnt a lot from it? Definitely.”
Izzy is 1.5 penalties ahead of second-placed Gemma Stevens (Chilli Knight).
Tom McEwen and Brookfield In the Spotlight. Photo by Peter Nixon.
British double Olympic gold medallist Tom McEwen holds the lead in two of the Northumbrian event’s international classes.
Riding Brookfield In The Spotlight, Gloucestershire-based Tom scored 24 in An Eventful Life CCI3*-S section A, while in Indoor Climate Control CCI4*-S section D, he posted a mark of 24.2 aboard Brookfield Quality. Both horses are owned by Alison Swinburn and John and Chloe Perry.
In Houghton Country CCI3*-S section B, China’s Alex Hua Tian is on top with an impressive score of 22.6 after dressage on his own Manjushri.
The showjumping and cross-country phases of the CCI3*-S sections take place tomorrow (Friday, 31 July), while dressage continues for the CCI4*-S sections on Friday with the jumping phases on Saturday.
There was a full day of British Eventing national classes at Burgham on Thursday – and the Open Intermediate, sponsored by the charity Day One Trauma Support, was won by Dutch Olympic rider and national coach Andrew Heffernan, who has taken over designing the CCI4*-S cross-country course at Burgham this year. Cheshire-based Andrew was riding SSK Cape Cooley, whom he owns with Gill Shea, Julia Willan and Mary Thelwall, and the pair added just 2.8 cross-country time-faults to their dressage score of 27.7 to beat Tom McEwen (Quintus) by 0.2 of a penalty.
Andrew said: “I loved it! I thought David Evans [Burgham’s long-standing course-designer, responsible for all the tracks except the CCI4*-S] has done an amazing job. It’s good for me – I can’t ride in the CCI4*-S because I have designed it, but this course takes a similar route and as we’ve changed so much about the tracks this year, it gives me a real feel of what we are creating. It felt that the flow was great.”
As well as an increasingly busy course-designer, responsible for, among others, the tracks at Bramham and the new Advanced under-25 class at Cornbury House, Andrew is the Dutch national coach, and very in demand in the UK as a trainer. Finding time still to compete himself isn’t always easy.
“It’s a challenge, but I’m determined to keep mixing it up. I think it’s really important for my designing and my coaching to keep on riding for as long as I can, but I have made the decision to stick to small numbers of horses and try to do them properly,” he said.
Burgham not only offers top-class sport, but also great fun for families, friends and children. There is a fun dog show on both Saturday and Sunday at 1pm, and hobby horses for children to “ride”. Burgham also features great tradestands and lots of delicious, locally-produced food and drink and public bars. It is situated in beautiful, tranquil Northumbrian countryside not far from the A1 between Morpeth and Alnwick.
If you’re looking for a family day out that’s really affordable this summer, you can’t do better than Burgham International Horse Trials – visit www.burghaminternationalhorsetrials.co.uk to find out more and to buy tickets.
All four days of cross-country from Burgham – Thursday, 28 July to Sunday, 2 August – are being shown on Horse & Country TV’s livestreaming platform, H&C+.
Burgham International Horse Trials CCI4*-S (GBR): [Website] [Tickets] [Schedule] [Entries/Ride Times/Scoring] [Volunteer] [CrossCountry App XC Map] [Live Stream]
