‘It was a challenging 12 minutes’: rider jumps around Burghley cross-country with broken stirrup

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Published In Features
Burghley Horse Trials Sam Watson
Sam Watson riding Ballyneety Rocketman with a broken right stirrup at the 2025 Defender Burghley Horse Trials.
(Image credit: Peter Nixon)

Ireland’s Sam Watson and Ballyneety Rocketman have risen from 33rd after the dressage to 16th going into the final showjumping phase at the 2025 Defender Burghley Horse Trials. But his cross-country round wasn’t without incident.

Sam and the 11-year-old he co-owns alongside his wife, Hannah, picked up 23.2 time-faults around the Derek di Grazia-designed cross-country course, mostly due to the gelding becoming very keen after jumping the Irish Horse Board Cottesmore Leap at fence 11. But Sam also suffered a tack malfunction just one minute into the course, when the outside of his stirrup snapped.

Gemma Redrup
Gemma Redrup
Former web features editor, point-to-point editor and digital racing editor

Gemma is an experienced journalist, who was a member of H&H staff from 2014 to September 2025. She is passionate about all equestrian sports, including racing and point-to-pointing. She has enjoyed riding out for top trainers Nicky Henderson and Charlie Appleby and took part in a charity Flat race at Epsom in August 2018. Gemma’s has reported from numerous five-star events around Britain and Europe, as well as European championships.