Ballaghmor Class – celebrating the career of this outstanding five-star eventing hero
Exceptionally athletic and a supreme trier, this sensitive character met his ideal match in Oliver Townend and they went on to become one of the greatest partnerships in eventing history, as Catherine Austen explains in this exclusive article for H&H subscribers
Diamonds are forever – except in the case of horses, they are not. Ballaghmor Class is a diamond. He has dazzled at the very top of eventing for the best part of a decade, illuminating CCI5* level at a time when it has threatened to drop into shade. But he is not immortal, and, at the age of 19, it is time for him to retire.
Oliver Townend, Ballaghmor Class’s partner and jockey for 15 years, says: “Of course I will miss [competing] him – although he’s not going anywhere – he’s my best mate. That’s probably pretty sad, but it’s true. All the things we’ve done together, for so many years… But, touch wood, all my top horses’ careers have finished in the right way, with them well and happy; I’ve always called ‘time’ before they did.”
In a career that started in September 2012 and concluded in October 2025, the standout statistics are these: four CCI5* wins, two at Defender Burghley Horse Trials, one at Defender Kentucky Three-Day Event and one at Mars Maryland 5 Star. Ten consecutive top-five placings at CCI5*. An Olympic team gold medal. Numerous other victories merely as warm-ups for those five-stars. A total of 2,845 British Eventing points. He is a hero of the sport, a cross-country deity whose spiritual homes were the world’s biggest, most challenging courses.
Behind the headlines is a shy, brave, wilful, affectionate and needy character whose relationship with Oliver runs extremely deep. His stable is directly opposite Oliver’s bedroom window and everything about Ballaghmor Class’s life has been meticulously organised to suit the vagaries of his character for 15 years.
How this special relationship began
Katherine Charlton bought the unbroken son of Courage II as a three-year-old from an elite event horse sale at Tattersalls in Co Meath in 2010.
“He was just a lovely young horse – very athletic-looking with correct movement and presence,” she says.
When he was four, she rang Oliver and said that she had a horse she thought he ought to come and see. Oliver remembers the then steel grey youngster putting his back up when Katherine got on him.
“She quietly said to him, ‘Please don’t buck me off in front of Oliver Townend.’ I liked him straightaway – he was big, sexy, rangey. I had a sit on him, not for many minutes, but he felt like he had a lot of power.”
Oliver sent Karyn Shuter videos of him, she bought him, and Thomas – his stable name is that of Katherine’s son – arrived in Shropshire.
“He’s always been very sharp, and difficult to get on,” Oliver says. “I remember the first time I saw him run off with someone. Thomas got something up his tail and ran and ran and ran, and there was very little to stop him.
“But he became professional very quickly at an event, because if you give him something to concentrate on when he’s somewhere he doesn’t know, suddenly he needs you.”
Karyn sold four-year-old Ballaghmor Class to a fellow New Zealander, Garth Davies and his family, who wanted to invest in horses. She bought him back when the horse was six, then shares were sold to Angela Hislop and Val Ryan so that Oliver could keep the ride.
Karyn says: “He is not what you would call an easy horse; he loves attention on his terms, loves work but is insecure, very sharp and brave but also sensitive and careful. He falls in love a lot, which is a nightmare when travelling. At events he doesn’t like other horses going out when he isn’t – so often we had to take extra staff to put all his boots on and take him out for a walk while the other horses were getting ridden or washed. He just doesn’t like missing out.
“He tries to load himself on the lorry but doesn’t want to be there if everyone’s getting off, so he can’t be the first or last.”
Karyn is certain that the consistency of one rider, one home and a long-term plan has had much to do with his success.
“To be in control right from the start with a big, rangey horse was ideal, as we never put pressure on him to do age classes or work him in frames that his body wasn’t ready for. That is one of the reasons he stayed fit and healthy at the top of the sport for so long; the basics have been so true as Oliver worked him in a correct, classical way,” she says.
Ballaghmor Class: the early years
Thomas’s early years as an event horse were quietly successful; he ticked all the boxes of progression neatly and quickly.
“He was a good, scopey horse, but he was very stiff in himself,” Oliver says. “If you arrived at a fence a bit close, he couldn’t get himself out of the way of it for love nor money. But the potential was always, always there. As he became stronger, he became sharper in his reactions and learnt how to use his body more.
“To me, he was always going to be a five-star horse – and a top one – but you had to work round the quirks all the time. I used to have my tailcoat pinned to the saddlecloth or to my breeches, because a tap on the backside and you’d have been gone.”
Karyn interjects: “It has been lucky that Oliver has an extremely good lower leg position, otherwise it would have never worked.”
Oliver continues: “It was about managing everything. And he just quietly went through the motions as a good horse who was making mistakes and learning.”
Oliver had other, more eye-catchingly competitive, horses and Thomas stayed just below most people’s radar. That changed, dramatically and ultimately, at Burghley in 2017.
“I remember coming out of the dressage at Burnham Market in the spring and saying to Karyn, ‘I’m going to Burghley on this one this year.’ She said, ‘Well, one step at a time…’”
Oliver had already won two five-stars – Badminton and Burghley – but in 2009, which seemed half a lifetime ago to him at that point. His entries for Burghley in 2017 wouldn’t have given commentators cause to think that was about to change: 10-year-old Ballaghmor Class, a five-star debutant, and 13-year-old Samuel Thomas II, a good, reliable horse but not a megastar.
“I was still teaching Thomas flying changes in the warm-up at Burghley and I remember saying to myself, if he gets four clean changes, we’re going to win. It felt like a secret. I was absolutely convinced that we could win,” Oliver says.
Many of us can remember the ride Oliver gave Ballaghmor Class across country on that day. For the first half of the course, he held the strikingly talented but green horse’s hand.
“I was just trying to be open, but as quiet as possible,” Oliver remembers.
Two-thirds of the way round, Oliver crouched lower in the saddle and pressed “go”. The response was immediate and by the finishing line, the education was complete. This was a fully fledged five-star horse – and 24 hours later that was franked with the Burghley winner’s trophy.
Consistent five-star performances
There isn’t sufficient space to detail the subsequent years; the clockwork chimes of Badminton and Burghley, spring and autumn, fifth, second, second, third. Not a beat missed.
The sadness about Ballaghmor Class’s career, however, is those missed Covid years and two Badminton and two Burghley chances at his absolute peak.
A daring raid on Kentucky in 2021 delivered a brilliant triumph – a second CCI5* win – but Oliver will always regret opportunities missed.
“He was 13 and that’s often when these horses are at their best. What could he have achieved?” asks Oliver rhetorically.
That strange, postponed Tokyo Olympics in 2021 was Ballaghmor Class’s first team appearance. Sent out first for Britain, they were perfect round a cross-country course a world away from the demands of Burghley, Badminton and Kentucky.
Individual gold wasn’t to be – the pair had a single showjump down in each of the two rounds and they finished fifth. But Oliver, Tom McEwen and Laura Collett had secured team gold, and humans and horses flew home national heroes.
“The nicest thing for me was that when we won the team medal [after the first round of showjumping], Thomas was the best scorer in the team. I’ve never been happier on a team than I was with Laura and Tom; we respected each other and it worked very well,” says Oliver. “All three of us were there on horses of a lifetime.
“It was very special for us and for eventing, but also for people outside the sport, such as the local community. Not everyone in the village here knows what eventing is, but they do know who Ballaghmor Class is.”
Third and fourth five-star wins
After another second place at Badminton, they came back to Burghley in 2023 for the first time since 2019. The weight of expectation they carried was immense, but the nature of diamonds is that they are formed under great pressure. To triumph at what is acknowledged as the world’s most challenging CCI5* for a second time, with six years and thousands of miles galloped and flown in-between, placed Ballaghmor Class in the pantheon of all-time eventing gods.
“I was incredibly proud – of Thomas and also of the team at home. It made me very emotional and I cried my eyes out on the podium,” Oliver says with an embarrassed grin.
A minor foot problem lingered for too long in the spring of 2024, and Thomas missed Badminton. He had a holiday, got fat and came back delighted with himself and as arrogant as a multiple five-star winner has the right to be.
“I couldn’t quite get him ready for Burghley, but we agreed that if we could find a way to finance a trip to Maryland in October, we would,” Oliver says. “For me, that was one of his greatest performances. He was 17 and he had the time of his life. I could barely hold him across country – he tore round – and then, showjumping-wise, I jumped four warm-up fences and that was it. In we went and I’ve never felt him like that. To win a fourth five-star there was very special.”
There was one more Badminton, in 2025, where they were outstanding across country but a small injury – “like a paper cut” – meant they didn’t showjump, and a final, almost surprise CCI5* at Pau that October, as the horse felt so fit and well that Oliver thought he deserved one last party.
“It wasn’t the dream ending, but I didn’t want this greatest of all five-star horses to end his career by not finishing one. I always want my horses to bow out on a good note.”
“Do I think he could come out and win a four-star next season? I could sit on him backwards and win a four-star next season,” Oliver says. “But does he need to do that? Of course not. He’s Ballaghmor Class.”
A full retirement ceremony is planned at Burghley this autumn and he and Oliver may go “on tour” together, to let Thomas see his fans – and they him.
“I think he’d love that,” says Oliver. “Like me, he needs to be active, or we’ll end up in trouble.”
Enjoy more exclusive insight from Ballaghmor Class’s travelling groom Jess McKie, his part owner Karyn Shuter and Equiratings’ Sam Watson in Horse & Hound magazine, in shops from Thursday 29 January
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You may also be interested in:
Oliver Townend and Ballaghmor Class win Maryland: ‘I wish he could carry on for another 10 years so we could retire together’
Burghley champion claims his third title – with a second win for an outstanding horse
Britain win Olympic eventing team gold at Tokyo 2020
Oliver Townend wins Kentucky on Ballaghmor Class: ‘It wasn’t the way I believed he’d do it, but we got there in the end’ *H&H Plus*
Watch how Oliver Townend won Burghley Horse Trials 2017
An emotional Oliver Townend clinched his second Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials title yesterday (Sunday 3 September 2017), this time
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A St Andrews’ graduate, Catherine joined Horse & Hound in 2002 and stayed for 11 years in a variety of roles until she went freelance in June 2013. She rejoined the team part-time in November 2016 as hunting editor. She pretty much lives on the hunting field or at the racecourse, but also loves eventing, as a journalist, press officer and competitor. She was H&H’s sole accredited journalist at the London Olympic Games and has reported from major race meetings and eventing, showjumping and dressage championships and shows round the world, and has hunted all over Britain and Ireland.