McEwen masters the field on influential cross-country day at Blenheim Horse Trials
Tom McEwen enjoyed a superb day at the office to hold the first two places in the CCI4*-L after cross-country, and lead the young horse CCI4*-S
Tom McEwen swept Agria Blenheim Horse Trials in his run of blazing form to head both classes overnight – plus a runner-up spot for good measure.
Tom started his day with a clear showjumping round at the crack of dawn to regain his lead in the GFS Saddles young horse CCI4*-S. By teatime, he had completed two belting cross-country rounds in the Agria CCI4*-L, climbing into provisional first with The Fieldmaster (“Trevor”) on 30.4 and second on Brookfield Quality (30.5). A good day at the office.
“Trevor was awesome,” said Tom. “He reacted, listened, got the positive distances when he went, listened to me when I really had to hang on and say, ‘That stride really isn’t there’. I honestly couldn’t be happier with him. He really answered every question.
“When I got to the top of the hill for the last few fences, I asked him to press and he just opened up. I’m absolutely delighted.”
Blenheim has been a happy hunting ground for Brookfield Quality (“Norris”). The now 17-year-old has great course form, finished fourth here in 2023 with Tom and fifth in 2021 with Piggy March. This quirky talent has developed into one of the real stalwarts of top-level eventing, and showed his class again today to join his stablemate on the provisional podium.
“Norris was amazing. He had a super smooth start to his round and relaxed him into it, then we tried to make up as much time as we could towards the end,” said Tom. “He’s a phenomenal horse. He’s an elder statesman and he’s as straight as a die.”
The time was tight, opening the door for those further down the leaderboard to climb if they could get close to the optimum of 10 minutes and eight seconds.
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Of the 72 starters, 33 jumped clear across country – a smidge under 46% of the field. Only Oliver Townend and Somersby finished the day on their dressage score, finishing bang on the optimum, and leaping 29 places from 32nd after the first phase to hold third overnight.
Blenheim Horse Trials cross-country: ‘I hope people appreciated that this is a classy horse’
New Zealand’s Jesse Campbell and Speedwell, second after dressage, delivered one of the smoothest rounds of the day, cruising through the parkland to add 8.4 time-penalties to their dressage score. They’ve dropped a couple of places to fourth, but are just 4.2 penalties off the leader.
“I’m over the moon. He hasn't had the easiest season, we had a great run earlier in the year at Strzegom, then I made a stupid mistake at Bramham, and then things haven’t gone to plan through the rest of his year,” said Jesse. “I was hoping to get him to the worlds, then we went to Hartpury and we had a muck-up there. I was feeling it today; I was quite apprehensive about how today would go. I was confident in my plan and he came out and was just fantastic.”
After Hartpury, Jesse took the gelding cross-country schooling with Jonelle Price for a tune-up.
“She said, ‘There’s nothing really to do – he’s jumped all the tough stuff’, so that was really good,” he said.
“In the past, if it hasn’t gone quite right, I would feed-back on that and think, ‘Oh that last combination wasn’t good’, or I look for inspiration. Actually, just staying in the moment and just jumping each jump has been my motto over the last few weeks. I did that at Burghley, and it worked really well for me, so that was what I was hoping for today.”
He added: “It’s a huge thing for me riding this horse, because Georgie really felt that he would be an absolute superstar, and it’s a lovely responsibility for me to take on. I want to show the world that he is a superstar. So for him to put in a performance like that… and I think the round itself, while it wasn’t super speedy, it was speedy enough and it was smooth, and I hope people appreciated that this is a classy horse.”
Provided Speedwell comes out of Blenheim well, a trip to the US for Kentucky CCI5* could be on the cards.
Blenheim Horse Trials cross-country: how did the dressage leaders fare?
Sam Ecroyd enjoyed a super day, sailing into the top 10 with Bloomfield Manuscript (35.7) and Jackpot (37.6), who are in fifth and sixth respectively.
Dressage leaders Oliver Barrett and Sandhills Briar enjoyed a great spin across country. They picked up 19.2 penalties and are just outside the top 10 (11th) ahead of the showjumping on 44.8.
“It was hard work, he was pretty keen – he really wanted to take me, but he jumped everything great,” said Oliver. “Not once did I think he wasn’t going to jump something. Ideally, I would have liked to have been a bit faster, but I’m just happy that we got round clear.”
Australia-based Oliver extended his Europe trip to divert to Blenheim after the disappointment of parting company across country at the eventing World Championships in Aachen.
“Whatever I do this week is never going to change what happened in Aachen, that’s something I have to live with, but it’s nice for me personally to come here and know that the horse and I can still be good enough,” he said.
Faults were generally well spread. The corners and treasure chest question (9abc) on the palace lawn, GFS Saddles Water (16abc), oxer-corner-brush combination at the furthest point on the course (18abc) and rail-ditch-arrowhead Cross Country App question (20abc) were the most influential fences.
Several of the riders mentioned they had to work quite hard on this year’s course, including Tom, who mentioned that there could have been more flow in places. Course-designer Jay Hambly said he was pleased with the overall picture of cross-country day. He also named a couple of spots that perhaps didn’t ride as smoothly as he had anticipated, for example 9abc in front of the palace, and already has ideas about possible positive tweaks for future Blenheims.
Looking ahead to the final phase, Tom does not have a rail in hand, on either horse, but does have the luxury of being ahead of the rest of the field with two horses.
The trot-up is scheduled for 8am tomorrow (20 September). The first showjumping session is set to start around 11am, and the final at around 2.30pm.
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Lucy is an experienced news journalist, reporter and presenter. Since joining the Horse & Hound team in 2015, Lucy has reported from major global sporting events including the Tokyo Paralympic Games and multiple European Championships, as well as Badminton, Burghley and London, to name a few. She has covered current affairs and sports news across the full spectrum of equestrian disciplines and racing, as well as human and equine welfare, industry news and court cases.