De Pleasure comes of age
Eliza Stoddart takes her second consecutive five-year-old title, while a four-star horse puts a water problem behind him
THE first three in the British Eventing five-year-old championship – which moved to Oasby this year – were separated by a mere 0.5 of a mark, but
Eliza Stoddart and De Pleasure, a striking grey German-bred gelding by Diacontinus, emerged at the top of the pack.
The duo were foot-perfect in both jumping phases to land up on their dressage score of 28.
“We bought him as a threeyear-old from the Brightwells sale,” explained Eliza, who owns De Pleasure along with Georgina Stoddart, Sue Brankin Frisby and
Heather Sandell. “He was third in the Burghley young event horse final last year as a four-year-old, but he’s a big horse [16.3hh] so we’ve taken our time with him. He’s really strengthened up in the past couple of months and was pure class here, especially in the showjumping, which was a big, testing track for a five-year-old.”
This was a second five-yearold title in a row for Eliza, who took the same class last year at Osberton with Codebreaker, who is owned by the same group of owners.
“I feel very lucky to have some lovely young horses at the moment, but it’s taken a lot of hard work to get to this point,” she said.
Jess Corser and Moangarriff Duke put an uncharacteristic mistake at Thoresby firmly behind them to take the honours in the under-21 open intermediate.
“He took a dislike to the water at Thoresby,” explained Jess, who had jumped clear around Burgham CCI4*-S earlier in the season with the nine-year-old gelding. “He hadn’t had any problems with water for a long time and he said no twice, so I put up my hand. He used to be a little lamb when he was younger, but now he likes to keep me on my toes. I think he had an aversion to the wet going at Thoresby, but he really enjoyed himself here.”
“He was pure
class here, especially in the showjumping” ELIZA STODDART ON
DE PLEASURE
Alex Hill piloted Katie Woodall and her mother Gill Greeves’ bouncy Connemara Ardbear
Ray to a BE100 win. The gelding began his eventing career in a BE90 at Oasby in the spring and signed off the season with an assured victory on a score of 30.5.
“He fulfils many roles – as an eventer, a safe hack for granny and he looks after Katie’s ninth-month-old son, Harry, who rides him in a basket saddle,” said Gill.