Bicton Horse Trials cross-country: Piggy March takes over lead

Bicton Horse Trials cross-country: Piggy March and Vanir Kamira — Piggy March and Vanir Kamira at Bicton five-star.

(Image credit: Nico Morgan)

Piggy March has taken over the lead in the Chedington Bicton Horse Trials cross-country standings.

Piggy and Trevor Dickens’ Vanir Kamira, the 2019 Badminton Horse Trials winner, put in the second clear inside the time to sit 2.4 faults ahead of long-time leaders Gemma Tattersall and Chilli Knight.

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Pippa is a true eventing geek and has been H&H’s eventing editor since 2005. She has first-hand experience of competing up to British Eventing intermediate and international CCI2*-L level, and has worked in the industry on a top event yard. Pippa enjoys nothing more than immersing herself in the sport at the highest level, reporting from the five-stars and international championships, including the Olympics.

Piggy March takes over Bicton five-star lead: ‘She puts her snout down on the floor and off she goes’

“It takes a lot of years of trust, but that’s just how she goes. It feel like I’m always sat right at the back of her, she sees flags and is like, ‘I’ve got that’. If I try to say balance or do something that feels nicer for me, she’s like, ‘Absolutely not’.”

Piggy said the terrain was the toughest on any five-star course she has ridden, but that the layout of the track is “fabulous” in terms of having kind fences on the last loop to let the horses get home.

She added of her round: “When you want to pick up, she can go – you’re lucky when you’ve got an old horse that’s been five-star fit so many times, she expects the distance, and she’s fast.”

Ros said: “The time is very gettable – I went a long route and I really set her up even for some of the tables, whereas on a more experienced horse or one with a little bit more fine-tuning on the steering, which she doesn’t have, the time is definitely there to get.

“But I really couldn’t fault her, she was like a hare in between the fences and she galloped up that last hill like it was the first. There’s no doubting her stamina or ability.

“The hills are nothing to her – I’ve had her since she was a three-year-old so she’s grown up on the Lincolnshire wolds. It’s just the steering with her, she just runs a bit off adrenalin and doesn’t quite listen, so I wasted time setting up for some of the turning lines.”

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