Rosalind Canter and Izilot DHI. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.
We’ve got a new leader in the clubhouse today at the MARS Badminton Horse Trials, which felt like a given with a couple of serious heavy-hitters on this morning’s roster – the only question, really, was whether it would be Burghley dressage record-breakers Tim Price and Vitali or 2023 Pau champions Ros Canter and Izilot DHI, both of whom are perfectly capable of going sub-20, that would swing the lead.
In the end, it would go the way of Ros and ‘Isaac’ – though neither she nor Tim and Vitali would ultimately flirt with the teens. Which is, in hindsight, one heck of a way to put that, but look: I’ve got a full dressage report to write in a reasonably short lunch break, so I’m going to commit to it and delight in the fact that my words won’t throw either rider into a Kendrick and Drake-style diss-track battle. A relief!
Anyway – back to the safe ground of the dressage arena, where it’s also been a relief to see that yesterday’s standard of judging has continued today. It won’t be a Badminton in which we see records broken, perhaps, because our ground jury are hard to please this week, but when that stringency remains in place across both days of dressage, it does at least create a level playing field, with less risk of bias towards Friday riders.
For Ros, at least, a score of 25.3 is well in the mix for what could realistically be expected from the eleven-year-old Izilot DHI; he put a 24.3 on the board at Pau last year en route to the win, and while he’s exceptionally capable in this phase, he’s also a quirky-brained horse who’s prone to quite a spectacular spook. At Pau, we saw that tendency writ large as Ros struggled to get him around the outside of the ring thanks to an evidently terrifying cameraman, but the moment he entered at A, he focused wholly on his job. Today, his focus was in place earlier, without any moments of panic before, during, or after his test, save for a couple of tiny bobbles near A when something caught his eye.
The difference now, though, Ros explains, is that as he grows up and matures, he’s learning to have his look at whatever’s surprised him and then get back to business.
“I’m absolutely delighted with him,” she says. “He’s been doing some really good work this week, although he did have a little spook in there – it was a camera, and while he didn’t mind it from the left rein, but he didn’t like it from the right rein. But that’s him – and the fact that now, he can have a little spook and then come back to the quality of work he had before it is great.”
Rosalind Canter and Izilot DHI. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.
Age, experience, and mileage are three of the key components in Isaac’s ongoing development, she continues – but just as essential is compromise and creative thinking.
“He’s eleven now, so he’s getting better and better,” she says. “But also, I’ve done a lot less schooling, and actually just hacked a lot more at home. I think part of it is I’m learning to ride him and to know him and react less myself. If I think he’s going to spook, I almost drop the reins now instead of trying to help him away from it. I think it’s definitely a trust thing, and he doesn’t cope that well with pressure, this horse, when he’s feeling spooky. So it’s my job to interpret what he’s thinking and how much pressure [he can handle], and when and where to put it on.”
There’s still an afternoon of dressage yet to unfold, but it’s looking likely that Ros, who won here last year on Lordships Graffalo, will go into tomorrow’s tough cross-country test as the head of the pack. But even in that exalted position, her goals and expectations are a little different this year than they were with her 2023 champion, who’s sitting out this year’s competition in preparation for a bid for Olympic selection.
“We’re very open-minded about tomorrow,” says Ros. “I intend to go out of the start box meaning business, and we’re here to be competitive if we can, but the length of this course, and the ground and everything else, would be a bit of a question mark for this horse. He’s a bit less proven, and he’s less blood than [Lordships Graffalo], so if at any point I think he’s done, we’ll be calling it a day. But up until that point, I’ll be going out trying to knuckle down and get on with it.”
With her own set of aims, and her understanding of her horse’s capabilities and potential limitations at the forefront of her priorities, Ros isn’t letting the pressure of anyone else’s expectations affect her mindset for the weekend.
“Plenty have people have told me [I’m the favourite], but I’m not particularly bothered this year,” she admits with a smile. “I’m the favourite when it comes to statistics, but I know my horse; I know how unproven he is around this length with the stamina and endurance. So I’m very open-minded that [being favourite] hasn’t really impacted me.”
Tim Price and Vitali. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.
Thursday leaders Bubby Upton and Cola, who made just about everyone cry yesterday on their return to five-star, now sit second as of the lunch break on their score of 27.3, just 0.4 penalties, or one second tomorrow, ahead of Kiwi duo Tim Price and Vitali on a 27.7.
Hopes were high for this test, particularly after last year’s Burghley, where they put an eye-wateringly good 18.7 on the board – but it wasn’t to be today. Vitali’s excellent trot work put them in good stead early on, with their medium trot earning them a 9 from judge Christian Steiner at B, but the walk work looked less settled and the 14-year-old gelding began to bobble on the contact midway through. They very nearly had a perfect halt just after this, though a fidgety step marred the immobility of the movement, and their subsequent reinback suffered from some rushing, at which point it was achingly clear that Vitali would really just like to get on with the canter segment.
There was lots to like there: Vitali is a horse with a well-established, neat change, and two-and-a-half of the four were just that. But just before the right canter half-pass, the gelding did an almost imperceptibly quick lead swap, and back again, behind, which looked to drain the flying changes bank account ahead of the last, where each leg tried something a little bit different and the resultant change was significantly late.
Tim Price and Vitali. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.
A test of two halves, or four quarters, then, perhaps, but pragmatic Tim, who’s often found himself in the lead with this horse and then lost out in the final phase, is looking on the bright side: “Maybe I’ll do a conventional result here, where he’s somewhere near the top [in this phase] and then just gets better through the next few phases – I’ll take that happily,” he laughs. “We all know how capable he is, so you could, on one hand be a bit disappointed – but you never know [with horses]. It’s a big unknown every time you take a horse into an arena like that.”
His preparation this week, he says, has gone very smoothly – and that, in a funny sort of way, could be part of the reason we didn’t see him replicate his Burghley brilliance.
“He’s been getting better and better with every ride, but that’s just such a different approach to Burghley, and it’s something for me to take on board and think about going forward. Today he just really wasn’t quite the same. At Burghley, he he was sitting and I was able to ride forward into a balance that wasn’t speeding up. But here every time I went to do that he just wanted to go a bit faster,” he says. But then, “at Burghley it was madness in the last final ten minutes of the warm-up — he was mucking around and I just had to go in and just go for it a little bit with his blood up. But then, [getting their blood up is] not really me either, although he had such a good result there. Here, he’s been relaxed, and had a lovely warm-up, and then he just got a little bit on edge and took away his focus. He’s a horse who misses a change one time in a hundred, and I think he missed one and a half out here today! I’ve got to stay in contact with him, otherwise his mind would go, so you’ve just got to take your medicine in places – but I’m happy enough.”
Emily King and Valmy Biats. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.
Overnight runners-up Boyd Martin and Tsetserleg move down to provisional fourth place at this stage on their score of 29. They’re joined in the top five by Emily King and Valmy Biats, who looked on excellent form while delivering a very nearly clear-round test for 29.2.
“I’m really pleased — he was so rideable,” says Emily, who comes to Badminton off a second consecutive victory in Thoresby’s hotly-contested Grantham Cup CCI4*-S with the French-bred gelding. “He’s very, very sensitive; he’s quite a hot horse and constantly thinks about everything, so it’s really about tuning him in and getting him to take a breath. He felt just the same in there as he did in the warm up, which was probably one of the first times he’s felt as consistent.”
Getting that clear round, she explains, was priority number one: “I was conscious to try and do a really mistake-free test, and maybe taking a little bit of a flare out but trying to be really precise, and he really felt like that happened. We had a little jig somewhere but generally, he was so with me and listening. In my canter stretch he was quite keen to get out on the cross country and I was like, ‘we’re going to exit the arena!’, so we had to end a little bit early for that — but I’m super pleased; he felt fab.”
Valmy, who is part-owned by the Event Horse Owners’ Syndicate microsyndicate programme, is fifteen this year – but, Emily explains, she’s constantly finding new depths of strength and progress in him in this phase.
“He’s working so much more uphill [this year],” she says. “He’s a horse that has so much power, and he has a lot of knee action, but he would be quite low in his carriage when he first came [to me]. [At the start] it felt like it was there, but he really needed to learn to sit and work uphill, and then just open his stride up a bit more and that’s something that he’s been getting better and better with and he’s understanding more. He’s getting stronger, so he can hold that for longer.”
That progression has been aided by the help of several seriously good dressage coaches: “Ian Woodhead and Ferdi Eilberg helped me a lot, and Kyra Kirkland – there’s a bunch of them that have all helped his his career,” says Emily. “He’s 15 this year, but whenever we go out and he’s really fit and really pushed and strengthened up in places, he keeps feeling just better. He’s going to be the best 20 year old event horse in the dressage!”
Last year, Emily and Valmy made a great start to their bid around Badminton’s tough track, but commendably, the rider opted to pull her horse up when she felt him begin to tire in the tricky conditions – a decision that initially baffled onlookers, to whom the horse looked full of running. But horsemanship wins out – or it should, anyway – and this year, Emily hopes that Valmy’s day-to-day exposure to soft going at home will help him see the course, which she describes as a “proper, proper track”, through.
“It’s drying up, so hopefully it’ll make a little bit easier for them – but still, I think they’re going to be feeling the softness there, so we just have to look after them, and I think we’ll all have that at the forefront of our minds that we might need to be a bit steady in places to just get them home and feeling good and safe,” she says. “He’s had three runs this year and two of them had been on the soft going — and Thoresby was very soft. But he lives out in the field in the very soft ground and he gallops on the grass at home, which has obviously been very soft this spring, so I’m hoping he’ll be as prepped as possible physically with his joints, his limbs, and fitness-wise, for the going – but still, you’d be mindful of how he feels.”
Tiana Coudray now sits sixth with Cancaras Girl (and if you haven’t read their emotional story, you should catch up on it here!), while Georgie Goss and William Fox-Pitt move down to equal seventh, and Max Warburton is now in ninth.
Just one further rider cracked the top ten in this morning’s session: Britain’s Kirsty Chabert, fresh off a trip to Kentucky with her top horse, Classic VI, posted a smart 32.4 with the very-nearly-pony-sized Opposition Heraldik Girl to move into tenth place provisionally.
Grace Taylor and Game Changer. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.
We also saw the last two of our strong US contingent in the ring: British-based Grace Taylor, who has dual citizenship thanks to her mother, US Olympian Ann Sutton, was disappointed to post a 35.4 with Game Changer after cracking the sub-30s, and the top ten, at Burghley last year: “I’m disappointed with the test but it is what it is – I would say probably we deserved the mark we got,” she says. She sits 25th currently, while Allie Knowles and Morswood sit equal 27th, tied with New Zealand’s Caroline Powell and CBI Aldo on a score of 35.6.
While Allie might have hoped for a score closer to the 28.8 they received at Maryland in 2022, she’s not planning to dwell on the numbers – because just being here is the culmination of a long-held dream.
“I’m relatively [pleased] – I think he can do better, but it’s a lot of atmosphere in there and it’s a massive deal just to be in there, so I’m not too disappointed,” she says. “Being here is just amazing – it was my childhood dream. This was the event I wanted to make it to. So I’m trying really hard not to be disappointed with any part of the experience because we can move up from here – but at least we made it!”
Allie Knowles and Morswood. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.
The early formation of that Badminton dream, she explains, kick-started everything that’s led her to this moment.
“I was nine and I had Thrills and Spills on on a VHS tape, and I watched it until it didn’t work anymore,” she laughs. “Ian [Stark] coaches me now, and he’s been telling me stories from throughout the years, and I’m like, ‘I know what you’re talking about – I watched every year from the nine years old on!’ Obviously Burghley is a dream as well, but for me, it was always Badminton. Maybe it’s just because it was the first VHS I had, I don’t know, but it’s always seemed like the most prestigious event.”
Allie has made it here once before, but in a very different capacity: “I groomed here, almost 15 years ago now, for Hawley Bennett – she was my first job as a working student. This is the first time I’ve been back. I was like a deer in headlights back then, so I only remember bits of it. Probably the scariest bits, when i did wrong grooming! It’s like a whole different thing now.”
Allie Knowles and Morswood. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.
And how does the reality of the place stack up to the dream of Badminton that’s been so well-architected in her head?
“It’s not all that dissimilar! I think the main ring was bigger than I pictured it,” she muses. “On video, it doesn’t look as big and I was like, ‘oh, no, this is really big!’ But I walked [the course] for the first time and I was like, ‘Ian, are those the Beaufort steps?!’ I know where everywhere is – I watched it so many times.”
Take heed, keen live-stream aficionados – we know you’re probably not wearing out VHS tapes these days, but you, too, could be making it all happen for yourself here one day.
We’ll be back in action shortly with the last couple of sections of dressage, starting at 14.15 BST/9.15 a.m. EST with Helen Bates and Carpe Diem first up to bat. Keep up to date with all the action as it happens – or catch up on all the nitty-gritty of this morning’s tests – with Cheg’s live updates, and stay tuned for another full report on the afternoon’s movers and shakers. Go Eventing!
The top ten at the lunch break on day two of dressage at Badminton.
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