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Strap yourselves in and ‘ride’ the winning cross-country round at Burghley


  • Have you always dreamt of riding round the iconic five-star cross-country course at the Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials? Well, now you can thanks to this incredible video, on the day when we should have been at the great event on cross-country day, if it hadn’t been for its cancellation owing to the coronavirus pandemic.

    This great footage by SAP Sports was taken from a hat camera attached to 2018’s winning Burghley combination, Tim Price and Ringwood Sky Boy.

    The pair were drawn as number 96, so they were later to go on cross-country day (1 September). This also means that on the video you can see the hoofprints of the competitors that went before him, giving a great idea of where Tim saved time on the 11min11sec course over the 6374m track.

    The optimum speed Tim and Ringwood Sky Boy were required to travel at in order to reach the optimum time was 570m/m (or 21.25mph), with the course incorporating 30 fences and 52 jumping efforts.

    On this video, you can really get a sense of the speed, distance and terrain horses must travel over at Burghley. And not only that, but also the volume of the crowd and how quickly some of the fences come up.

    Tim and Ringwood Sky Boy started on course in second place after the dressage phase. Tim and ‘Ozzie’ were behind first-placed Mark Todd and Kiltubrid Rhapsody, but the latter pair fell at the seemingly innocuous Gurkha Kukri at fence 10.

    This left the door wide open for fellow New Zealander Tim, and he made the most of it, motoring round with Ozzie to finish just one second over the optimum time.

    Continues below…



    Only four combinations actually made the optimum time — Oliver Townend (Ballaghmor Class), Andrew Nicholson (Swallow Springs), Elizabeth Power (Soladun) and Tina Cook (Star Witness).

    Tim and Ozzie went on to showjump clear on the final day of competition, to win with over four faults in hand over second-placed Oliver Townend and Ballaghmor Class.

    Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday, is packed with all the latest news and reports, as well as interviews, specials, nostalgia, vet and training advice. Find how you can enjoy the magazine delivered to your door every week, plus options to upgrade to access our H&H Plus online service which brings you breaking news as it happens as well as other benefits.

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