A smart five-year-old catches the judge’s eye with his va-va-voom.

Darryl Thickitt delivered a clean sweep of wins in the novices at Richmond and Port Royal to complete winter qualification on John Minion’s Faszination I.

The Foundation five-year-old, bought by John at the Brightwell sales in May, was having his third competitive outing and scored between 71% and 76% in his tests.

“He has a huge engine, and Andrea Smith, one of the judges, wrote that he has plenty of va-va-voom,” said Darryl, who is enjoying concentrating on competing and training with Gill Liggins and Carl Hester, having given up his job as BD pony team trainer a few months ago.

“He’s been gaining confidence with every test, so he’ll move up to elementary now,” he said.

Zoe Rymer won the medium qualifier and was just touched off in the advanced medium at her first attempt at the level with her event horse Bishopshall Golden Beach.

The 10-year-old evented in Italy for three seasons, returning to Carol Gee’s in Ireland after Zoe spotted him last year.

“Someone has spent time on his flatwork in the past — I thought we’d have a play at the advanced medium test, expecting nothing, but he came down the centre line and said, ‘Yes I can do this!’ He’s an exciting prospect,” Zoe said.

Six months ago, Marie Priest was wondering if she would ever ride competitively again after neck and spinal surgery left her stiff and sore. But she has bounced back with a new training regime, and won the advanced medium qualifier at Richmond with over 69% on her eight-year-old Elvis P (see box, right).