Le Lion World Championship bronze medallist franks form in early stages of Blenheim dressage

It was an exciting start to the dressage at Blenheim Horse Trials, with the eight- and nine-year-olds clustered tightly at the top of the leaderboard. Selina Milnes holds the early lead on 28.4 with Cooley Snapchat, just 0.8 of a penalty ahead of Tom Jackson (Newton Belize) and Georgie Campbell (Darcy De La Rose).

This is Cooley Snapchat’s first attempt at four-star, but he was on the podium at last year’s prestigious young horse World Championships at Le Lion, and he’s rarely been out of the top three all season, including a third place down the road at Cornbury last weekend. The eight-year-old is owned by the Ruckers and is an Irish Sport Horse by Kannan.

A fortnight ago, Tom Jackson recorded the best result of his life, finishing runner-up at Burghley Horse Trials on Capels Hollow Drift. Here he rode another stunning grey, Newton Belize, into second place at this stage, on 29.2. This is only a third outing for the pairing, as Tom is riding the Belissimo M gelding for Tim Rogers, who is on the sidelines.

“He is very green at this level, but he tried really hard and there is so much more to come from him,” said Tom, after a wonderfully expressive test. “He’s extremely talented in his movement, but the thing that comes across is his brain – he’s very trainable. For such an inexperienced horse to go in there with all that atmosphere and not bat an eyelid bodes very well for the future.”

Tim started riding the horse as a five-year-old, and was comfortably scaling the ranks when he suffered a bad bout of appendicitis.

“I ended up in hospital for a few weeks, and I’m having more surgery in October,” said Tim. “Luckily I have a good group of friends and can pick one of the best riders in the world and say, ‘you have a go’.

“He’s such a special horse. He has the talent to go like that on the flat, but he also has gears and can gallop.”

This could come in handy on cross-country day with the scores so tightly bunched.

Blenheim Horse Trials dressage: early leaders

Georgie Campbell also sits on 29.2 with nine-year-old mare Darcy De La Rose. A slight blip in the final flying change, which then lingered on as the grey continued disunited round the corner, pegged back their score.

“She’s still pretty green,” said Georgie. “The left-right change is a challenge for her. She tries too hard and gets herself in a muddle. It will come – she just needs a winter solidifying the work. I was very happy with the trot work.”

The French-bred mare is 16hh and petite, but Georgie described her as having “the heart of a lion”.

“She’s little and I don’t realise how little until I walk round next to the other horses and she looks like a pony,” she said. “But she has as long stride, a great jump and she loves her job. So we’ll keep cracking on and see how far she goes.”

The final score under 30 at this stage was Bill Levett. The Aussie was thrilled to score a four-star personal best for his horse Sligo Candy Cane, who was “almost selected” for the World Eventing Championships in Pratoni. They lie in fourth on 29.9.

“I’m glad we didn’t go to Pratoni because he’s a bit young and lacks experience,” said Bill. “He knows his job, but he’s a sensitive horse with lots of adrenaline, and over the past couple of months we’ve been struggling to manage him because he knows what’s coming next.”

Bill has found that by working the horse for too long, he gets tired due to lack of strength, but when they have underdone the warm-up, he is too wound up.

“Today we had the best set-up,” he said. “He had two lunges and a couple of calmers and it was about right. It is very satisfying.”

Just over five penalties cover the top 10 at this early stage, a quarter of the way through a large field of more than 70 starters.

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