Townend takes back control as Tindall tumbles
Oliver Townend, who provided Britain’s discard score at the European Championships two weeks ago, reasserted his authority in a sensational finish to the cross-country at the Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials.
The top placings changed constantly amid a catalogue of major upsets, with overnight leader Mark Todd and Olympic champion Michael Jung among the major contenders crashing out.
Townend – drawn last on Ballaghmore Class – was forced to linger around the start box for 15 minutes after warming up due to a hold-up on the course. But he kept his horse’s attention, conjuring a flawless round from his relative newcomer to displace Gemma Tattersall and Arctic Soul from the top of the board. Just 0.4 time penalties brought their score to 40.6.
However, just one show jump down today could hand the contest back to Tattersall. She, in turn, is stalked by a closely bunched group, Britons Izzy Taylor (Trevidden) and Piggy French (Vanir Kamira), and New Zealanders Tim Price (Ringwood Sky Boy) and Andrew Nicholson (with 2017 Badminton winner Nereo), all within 1.5 points.
Tina Cook rode the other ‘round of the day’ when cruising round inside the time as first to go on Star Witness, who is 10th. Only two others achieved that feat. Cook planned to utilise that experience with second ride Calvino II, fifth overnight. Like Townend, Calvino was held up by a horse needing some veterinary supervision on course.
But unlike Townend, the pair had already jumped two-thirds of the fences clear, were up on the clock and about to tackle the troublesome Discovery Valley complex when told to pull up. Calvino then cleared the next two fences but jinked past an angled brush, having clearly ‘switched off ’ in a scenario all riders dread.
Meanwhile, the unblemished record of dual Olympic gold medallist La Biosthetique Sam, third here after dressage, came to an end. Jung, revered as the most composed rider of his era, inexplicably lost control after jumping awkwardly into the Trout Hatchery, ran out and decided not to continue.
In his 55 previous international cross-country starts, Sam had not dropped a single cross-country jumping penalty and had only finished outside the top three eight times. Jung blamed himself, and may run the veteran elsewhere this autumn.
Todd’s attempt at a sixth Burghley win also ended at Discovery Valley, where his overnight leader Leonidas over-jumped the brush parallel and landed steeply in the dip below, ejecting Todd over his head.
Zara Tindall sustained the Trout Hatchery’s only ducking. High Kingdom met the narrow fence, set in the water itself, on a wrong stride, skewed his body in mid-air and gave the rider no chance.
Townend, 34, is the only rider to have won Badminton and Burghley in the same year (2009), though since then he has grappled with remaining competitive in major three-day events while producing competition horses, mostly for sale.
He was clearly overwhelmed to have found in Ballaghmore Class a horse of true four-star quality.
“You’ll have seen me on a lot of horses, but when you get on one like him, it’s a different world,” he said. “He’s always been tricky, but over time I’ve become fond of him. And it’s a good thing I became fond of him, for otherwise we’d have got rid of him as a young horse. He was pretty wild – as in running through a fence instead of jumping over it.”
There are 11 Britons in the top 20, a resurgence already credited to the coaching style of super-trainer Chris Bartle. Bartle transformed the Germans in the early 2000s and remained with them till last year, when a similar vacancy arose with Team GB.
Bartle reckons he does not need to advise riders as experienced as French, Cook and Townend on the finer points. “What I do want to emphasise is, ‘Yes, we can’,” he said. “Oliver is an out-andout competitor. He has the will to win, the interest in the detail and the mental toughness. It won’t be long before he’s a champion again.”