|
On the final day of the Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials the heavens opened and the grounds which had been drenched in sunshine were now drenched in rain.
Lucinda Fredericks and Prada Photo: Libby Law
The morning saw only light showers and the lower placed riders didn’t suffer too much with the weather. Australian Lucinda Fredericks and Prada had one rail down which left her in 33rd position at the end of the day but by the time the final 20 started to show jump the rain was bucketing down and the going became quite heavy.
Rails fell for horses that are traditionally good showjumpers but there were some good clear rounds for promising riders such as Clea Phillips (GBR) on a lovely jumping machine, Lead the Way, who finished in 6th place and Jonathan Paget (NZL) on Clifton Lush who finished in 5th place.
Mary King went out of turn on Apache Sauce and had 4 rails down to put this horse out of contention but she still had Kings Temptress to come. Zara Phillips had the first fence down on High Kingdom but then jumped well after that momentary lapse to finish in 10th place and she looks to have a good replacement for Toytown who was retired at the British Festival of Eventing recently.
Sam Griffiths and Happy Times Photo: Libby Law
Sam Griffiths and Happy Times are normally strong in this discipline but had the second fence down. Ian Stark was just commenting that he would expect the horse to go clear after this when they had a further two down! This dropped Sam down to 16th and gave the last few riders room to breathe.
Andrew Nicholson and Avebury Photo: Libby Law
Mary King and King’s Temptress had one down, Caroline Powell and Lenamore had an uncharacteristic two rails and Avebury had three down resulting in William Fox-Pitt “feeling sick as I watched the rails go down”. William had already jumped Neuf des Coeurs and had 3 rails down, dropping him to 18th and he was worried that Parklane Hawk, his less experienced horse who was in the lead would struggle in the conditions.
William and Parklane Hawk Photo: Libby Law
Despite his nerves, William and Parklane Hawk jumped a wonderful clear round with only one time fault and he went into the history books as the first person to win six Burghley titles.
“I can’t believe it,” said William who first won here in 1994. “He was superb. I might have looked cool but deep down this mattered a lot – it is huge and a real honour”.
William - the winner! Photo: Libby Law
Andrew Nicholson and Nereo were second and Mary King with King’s Temptress was third. The Land Rover Perpetual Challenge trophy went to the winning owner,Catherine Witt and the Burghley Challenge cup to the winning rider, William Fox-Pitt
A miniature of the Land Rover Perpetual Challenge trophy to the highest placed British rider competing for the first time at Burghley went to 20 year old rider Tom McEwen who had such an amazing event and developed quite a fan club; Tom also received the HSBC classics training bursary
The 50th Anniversary of the Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials was a marvellous event. The trucks now load up, a change of horses and they roll on to the Fidelity Blenheim Horse International Horse Trials from 8th-11th September. Join us then on the Equestrian Life web site, Facebook and Twitter sites for more great eventing action
|
