Oliver Townend, who has never made any secret of his desire for another MARS Badminton Horse Trials victory, is now at the head of the leaderboard at the conclusion of the dressage phase.

The former world number one and Olympic gold medallist conjured a superb performance from his exciting grey mare, Cooley Rosalent, who showed all her star quality and potential to score 21.1 penalties.

This puts Oliver 1.3 penalties ahead of his Tokyo Olympics team mate, Tom McEwen riding JL Dublin, and 3.6 penalties in front of Gemma Stevens on another mare, Jalapeno, in an all-British top 10.

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