Price toasts feisty mare
As if raising an infant son wasn’t enough, Jonelle Price had to worry about how her mare Classic Moet would behave at Badminton.
On equestrian’s biggest stage outside the Olympic Games, the New Zealander’s feisty 15-yearold mare handled the pressure as calmly as her rider in the Gloucestershire countryside.
‘‘We haven’t ever jumped a clear round on the last day, but sometimes dreams do come true and you have to believe it is possible,’’ Price said of their clear showjumping round which saw her join Andrew Nicholson, Jock Paget and Sir Mark Todd as Kiwi champions at the Badminton Horse Trials.
All this after taking six months off last year for the birth of son Otis in August, the first child for 37-year-old Price and husband Tim, who finished 12th yesterday.
Classic Moet, known as Molly, also foaled earlier this year, and was the subject of one of the more memorable descriptions on the Price website.
‘‘Molly would, if she were a person, come from Swindon [or West Auckland for our NZ followers], be a couple of stone overweight, have several tattoos, wear a too-tight leather jacket over skintight leopard skin pants, have a boyfriend with an IQ of 10 who is a club bouncer, and four children by four fathers,’’ Price wrote.
‘‘Molly is a legend but a kind of rock and roll one like Mick Jagger as opposed to the Princess type!’’
Price, nee Richards, grew up near the beach in Motueka at the top of the South Island and caught the riding bug at Moutere Pony Club.
After gaining a law degree at Canterbury University, Price continued to ride and shifted to the UK with her future husband in 2005.
She won Olympic bronze as different part of the New Zealand team at London in 2012, which also included Nicholson, Paget, Todd and Caroline Powell, and her partnership with Classic Moet gained pace as the pair were third at Burghley in 2016.
At the weekend they were 22nd after the dressage then bolted up to the top of the leaderboard after a superb crosscountry round.
In a tense showjumping finale, Briton Oliver Townend had to settle for second and fifth aboard his two mounts, while Ros Canter lowered one rail on Allstar B to finish third.
Price and ‘Molly’ rattled some rails but went clear, four seconds inside the optimum time to clinch victory.
She was the first woman in 11 years to win at Badminton.
‘‘Last night I told myself it was going to take a clear round to win, there’s some very good horses behind me,’’ she said.
‘‘Classic Moet is a good jumper, she tries, but is a bit unorthodox in her style. It doesn’t come easy to her. Just like everything else she does, she tries her heart out.’’ Jonelle Price
It warranted a celebration, maybe with something resembling the name of her horse.
But, such is life of a busy equestrian in the UK, there wasn’t much time for a big night toasting Price’s biggest individual success.
‘‘I’ll probably go back and pack up and think about the eight horses I’ve got to ride at Aston on Wednesday and Thursday,’’ she said.
Todd was sixth and 14th aboard Kiltubrid Rhapsody and Leonidas II, while Tim Price rode Ringwood Sky Boy into 12th.