Eighty-one horses have been accepted at the first horse inspection and will go forward to the dressage phase at the 50th Anniversary Burghley Horse Trials.
There were a few tense moments when four horses — Fiona Hobby’s Roma ML, Richard Jones’s Highland Ford, Simone Deitermann’s Free Easy NRW and Angus Smales’s Ballyvooney — were sent to the holding box. However, all passed on re-inspection.
Sarah Jewson, who is the chairman’s wife, named the USA’s Julian Stiller as the best dressed. She was trotting up her own and Mr Jules Del Vecchio’s Chapel Amble in a classy fawn cardigan and trousers.
The dressage tomorrow (Thursday) will start at 9.30am with Sam Griffiths and Happy Times. The guinea pig rider, Sarah Cohen, will perform her test on the nine-year-old Treason at 9.10am. Sarah used to live locally and is a former Fitzwilliam branch of the Pony Club member.
Follow all of the action as it happens with our interactive written commentary service H&H Live, starting just before Sam gets underway with his dressage at 9.30am.
Don’t forget to buy Horse & Hound next week (8 September) for our 10-page special Burghley report including comments from Mark Phillips, analysis of every phase and the full leader board
