Kitty King wins World Eventing Championships for Young Horses

Kitty King scored a win for Britain in the prestigious seven-year-old FEI World Eventing Championships for Young Horses at Le Lion d’Angers, France, last week.

Riding Ben Walden’s Dutch-bred mare Zidante (pictured), Kitty added just one showjump down to her dressage score of 44.1.

“She’s very trainable, has nice paces and does an accurate test, staying forward without getting tense,” said Kitty. “She loves jumping and didn’t find the cross-country here at all tricky – she was looking for all the fences with her ears pricked.”

Zidante has had several good results this year, including winning the CIC** at Longleat. Kitty now hopes to aim her at some advanced classes in the spring, with Blenheim’s eight- and nine-year-old class as a possible end of season target for 2012.

Piggy French and the Irish-bred Kiltealy Spring were equal third equal after dressage with Kitty and Zidante, and held that place, finishing just 1sec over the cross-country time and having a showjump down.

“He hasn’t done a lot as he’s a lovely big horse and we haven’t wanted to run him too much on the hard ground this year,” said Piggy. “But as soon as I got the ride [January this year] I rang his owner [Sue Soley] and said he could be a horse for Le Lion, so this has always been the aim.”

Ruth Edge moved up from ninth after dressage to finish fourth on her own and Kevin and Sandra Hassett’s Bojack JX, who was bred in Perthshire by the renowned stallion Baloubet Du Rouet.

Nicola Wilson took fifth place on Annie Clover, who was bought from Vere Phillipps as a four-year-old and hunted by her owner, Nicola’s mother Mary Tweddle, before she went eventing.

German rider Franziska Haunhorst led the dressage on Songline 2, but dropped out of the reckoning with cross-country penalties. Her countryman Andreas Brandt finished second on Hannoverian FRH Escada JS from 14th after dressage.

Britain enjoyed more success in the six-year-old championship, with Rosalind Canter taking second place on Constance Copestake’s Aprobanta, another Dutch-bred.

This class was also won by a mare when the Hannoverian Rocana FST triumphed for Germany’s world and European eventing champion Michael Jung.

Paul Tapner led after dressage and cross-country riding the McGinns’ thoroughbred Indian Mill, but four showjumps down and a time-fault sent him tumbling down the leader board to 13th.

Full report in H&H next week, 10 November issue.

Le Lion website with full results

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