“Her mother will be proud of her,” said Vittoria Panizzon, after finishing third in the Rathbones CCI3*-L at Aspen Cooling Osberton with Borough Tuppence.
The nine-year-old is a daughter of Vittoria’s London 2012 Olympic ride Borough Pennyz and by Timolin, a son of Totilas. A princess by name and by nature, Borough Tuppence is strikingly beautiful, light across the ground and extremely athletic.
“She’s stunning and moves beautifully. Timolin has given her fantastic paces and a lovely uphill presence,” said Vittoria, adding that the mare looks like her sire and has a similar character to her dam.
“She is very princessy and can be tricky if you don’t get the buttons right. But that’s what is great about mares – they can have quite a lot of character, but if you get them on side and loving their job, they’ll dig deeper for you.
“She’s brilliant across country and very athletic, which she gets from both sides. You come out of the start box, she puts on her game face and goes into lion mode.”
Borough Tuppence.
(Image credit: Vittoria Panizzon)
There’s a lovely family story behind Borough Tuppence and her full brother, Borough Threpence. Borough Pennyz is owned by Sally Bullen and Timolin belongs to her sister-in-law Jennie Lorriston-Clarke.
“I put together a syndicate for her when she was still an embryo,” said Vittoria, who owns Borough Tuppence with Ann Dowty, Lucy Mackenzie, Dani Charleston-Gallacher, Ian Robinson and Eddie and Amanda Benson.
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“I have produced her slowly because she is quite sensitive and needed time to strengthen and feel comfortable with the flat work mostly, and it's paid off.
“It is awfully special, and you've known the previous generation as well. Certainly with her more sensitive parts, it probably helps a bit having worked with her mother, who equally could have clear opinions.”
Vittoria credited Flo Dawes and Lisa White for their help with the mare’s dressage, which she said has “really progressed in the last year or two”.
“They really understand her and she’s taken a huge leap forward, which is what she needed as she’s always jumped a lot of double clears, we just needed to get the competitive marks,” said Vittoria, who finished on her dressage score of 29.5
Osberton was Borough Tuppence’s first long-format event; she already has one CCI4*-S under her belt, so the plan will be to move towards her becoming more established at four-star level with the hope she could be a team contender in future.
“Osberton has been a fantastic test because it was a pretty challenging course, it had a whole range of different questions and I feel there was plenty of variety that was educational for her to move up to the next level,” said Vittoria.
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.
