As ever there were plenty of promising young horses on display at the Eventing World Breeding Championship in Le Lion d’Angers in France last weekend. A strong team headed across the channel to represent Britain in the Championships for both six-year-olds and seven-year-olds, including some super young horses bred here in Britain.
Six-year-old Championship
Sarah Bullimore and the homebred gelding Corimiro ended up the best of the Brits in this Championship, finishing third on a score of 30.4, They were joined on the podium by the 2022 Champions, Thomas Carlile and Golden De Beliard AA for France (27.6), and the USA’s Caroline Martin and HSH Connor in second (29.2).
Sarah was delighted with the horse, but after a mistake in the dressage and an unlucky pole in the show jumping, she definitely felt it was a case of nearly but not quite! “He’s a really, really exciting horse for the future and I’m chuffed to bits with him,” she said. “But overall, it was a little bit the story of my year – it’s not been bad, but it’s not been great.
“He did an absolutely awesome dressage test, and was trending on like 21 and 22, but then he made quite a big mistake in the canter loop where he threw in some changes behind, which bodes well for the future but sadly was not required as yet! That dropped him about 5 marks, so it was a woulda, coulda, shoulda kind of weekend – without doing that he probably still would have won. And then to have the very last show jump after he jumped beautifully, sometimes your luck is with you and sometimes it isn’t.
“We were so close and in my eyes he’s a world champion, but it would have been lovely to prove it to the rest of the world. He is only six and he is a really exciting prospect for the future. He’s got an awful lot more to come.”
It was promising to see all three of our British combinations finish within the top 10 of this closely fought championship. Tom Jackson and the mare Midnight Endeavour had a brilliant weekend. They kept a clean sheet to finish on their dressage score of 30.5, taking fourth just behind Sarah and Corimiro. And Max Warburton and United 36 kept up the strong showing for the Brits, adding just 0.8 time penalties on the cross country to their dressage score to complete on a total of 31.8 and take eighth.
Seven-year-old Championship
There was an equally strong showing for our British combinations in the seven-year-old Championship, with top four finishes for both Piggy March and Dassett Arthalent and Izzy Taylor and SBH Big Wall.
Piggy and Dassett Arthalent just missed out on the top spot, which went to Anna Lena Schaaf and Lagona Old with a winning score of 18.6. Remaining on their dressage score throughout the competition, Piggy and the gelding owned by Peter Harris gradually made their way up the leader board, finishing in second on a score of 22.7.
“I am delighted with my horse,” said Piggy. “He has performed as well as he could have done in all three phases and he’s a very exciting horse for the future. I think and I hope he is a future Championship team horse. He has a lot of talent and ability and so I’m very excited for this week but also the future with him.”
Such was the closeness of competition in this Championship, less than one fence separated the scores of the riders from third to fifteenth. At the top end of this group was Izzy Taylor and SBH Big Wall, who finished on their dressage score of 25.5 to take fourth. Wills Oakden and Keep It Cooley were another pair to keep a clean sheet, they finished on a score of 27.7 in eleventh; as was Piggy March and her other ride, Brookfield Future News, who finished thirteenth on a score of 27.9.
Full results available here.
