A trio of brilliant Dressage tests lit up a wet and blustery afternoon at the Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials (GBR), fourth leg of the FEI Classics™ 2013/2014.
Two Australians, Paul Tapner and Lucinda Fredericks, both former Badminton winners, flank Britain’s Francis Whittington as the only riders to break the 40-penalty barrier after the first day of Dressage.
Tapner, 38, leads with 36.0 penalties on Fred and Penny Barker’s Irish-bred grey Kilronan, on which he finished 20th last year. He has a 0.2 point lead over Whittington on another grey, Easy Target, both riders having wrought considerable improvement in their horses’ flatwork over the winter.
“Kilronan was getting very good marks at three-star level, but it was eating away at me that I couldn’t get the same at four-star, so I’ve been working hard over the winter,” admitted Tapner, who won Badminton in 2010 on Inonothing.
“But I don’t think I’ve ever felt so relaxed about the Dressage before. I’m not sure it matters too much about the marks because the Cross Country course is going to be extremely influential.”
Whittington, who was 31st at Badminton on Easy Target last year, has achieved a 15-mark improvement in 12 months. “The big thing is that over this winter I’ve been learning to ride again,” he explained. “We knew ‘Smokey’ had the movement and could do it.
“But it was really the warm-up which made the difference. Ian Woodhead, who trains me, worked out exactly how long it would take to get to the arena, and we timed everything to perfection.”
The last British rider to win Badminton was Oliver Townend in 2009. Whittington’s best Badminton result to date is 15th in 2009 with Sir Percival lll and he was careful not to get too carried away. “I’ve been in this position twice before and then ended up doing the ‘walk of shame’ home from Cross Country,” he joked.
Accomplished Dressage rider Lucinda Fredericks, the Badminton winner in 2007 on Headley Britannia, scored 39.0 on her 2012 Olympic ride Flying Finish which has completed Luhmühlen and Pau but not a British CCI4* before.
Sir Mark Todd, who first rode at Badminton 34 years ago – and won – showed he is still ahead of the game when taking fourth place with a score of 40.5 in a beautifully presented test on NZB Campino.
The 12-year-old Hanoverian by Contendro has not done a three-day event since the London 2012 Olympic Games, where he was third after Dressage and part of the bronze medal New Zealand team, because he suffered a minor injury at the start of the 2013 season.
The German-bred gelding made a couple of mistakes with a missed strike-off in the canter work, but otherwise scored highly throughout. “He felt amazing,” said 58-year-old Todd.
“He has come back much more strongly and feels more mature. Normally the canter work is the best part of his test, but he perhaps got a little tense. I can’t repeat what was going through my mind when he made the mistake, but it’s still a very good mark.”
Another former winner, Pippa Funnell (GBR), pulled off a soft and responsive test with the home-bred Billy Beware to lie fifth on 42.3.
“He has been a lovely horse to produce,” said Funnell. “The only thing against him is his size [17hh] and balance. He’ll be an unknown quantity across country because he hasn’t been further than 10 minutes, but he is a very scopey jumper. When he was only six, I jumped 1.85m in a charity competition on him.
“Billy Beware has upgraded quite quickly, but gut instinct made me bring him here because he has always stepped up to the mark before.”
All talk at Badminton is of the challenges facing riders on Saturday when they test the Cross Country track produced by Giuseppe Della Chiesa (ITA), the first new Course Designer here for 25 years. Andrew Nicholson (NZL), who has more Badminton completions (33) to his name than any other rider, was full of praise: “Giuseppe has done a great job,” he said. “He’s changed the style without going overboard.”
The complex that is most perplexing riders is the Swindon Designer Outlet Mound at 18abc, where a log on top of a bank is followed by a sharp right-hand turn to another log followed by a curving line to a third.
“This will be something different, because you’ll have to slow up and sit on your backside and that’s hard when you’ve been jumping big fences on a forward stride, but that’s what cross-country riding is all about,” said Nicholson, who is in seventh place on his 2013 Kentucky winner Quimbo.
“I think it’s great,” was the view of Mark Todd. “Giuseppe has breathed new life into the course. It’s a proper four-star test which makes you concentrate all the way.”
Results after first day of Dressage
1 Paul Tapner/Kilronan (AUS) 36.0
2 Francis Whittington/Easy Target (GBR) 36.2
3 Lucinda Fredericks/Flying Finish (AUS) 39.0
4 Mark Todd/NZB Campino (NZL) 40.5
5 Pippa Funnell/Billy Beware (GBR) 42.3
6 Neil Spratt/Upleadon (NZL) 44.2
7 Andrew Nicholson/Quimbo (NZL) 44.7
8 Carolyne Ryan-Bell/Rathmoyle King (GBR) 46.8
9 Pascal Leroy/Minos de Petra (FRA) 47.3
10 Bill Levett/Silk Stone (AUS) 47.8
Full results here.
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