Burghley fifth for youngest rider: ‘Family friends remember me crying at jumping 70cm’
Alice Casburn and Topspin finish fifth at Burghley 2022.
(Image credit: Peter Nixon)
Alice Casburn finished fifth at the Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials this afternoon (4 September), moving up the order with a clear showjumping round – a phenomenal result for the youngest rider in the field.
Alice, 20, rode beautifully to rise from eighth on her mother Caroline’s Topspin, a second-generation home-bred.
“He was phenomenal,” she said. “I was really nervous going in. I was quite relaxed in the lorry park, came down, saw quite a few people and I was just thinking, ‘You’re not here, it’s just showjumping at home.’
“Then I went in the ring when the crowds were cheering for everyone else and I was like, ‘Oh OK, I really am here’, and my heart started to go and he spooked at the plant pot going in, in his usual fashion. I think that’s when I know he’s up for it and he wants to have a good crack. He jumped exactly like he was up for it.”
“I’m just in shock,” said Alice after her round. “I shake when I get off and I stood there shaking for a good couple of minutes. I can’t believe it – to have finished off my year like this is phenomenal. I’m so grateful, he was fantastic.”
Alice has impressed many with mature riding beyond her years and apparently ice-cool nerves at the British five-stars this year, but says she isn’t naturally a brave rider or person.
“I saw some family friends yesterday and they said they remembered when I was crying my eyes out refusing to go in the ring for a 70cm,” said Alice Casburn after her Burghley Horse Trials showjumping round.
The rider copes by blocking out social media and has a “nice small bubble”.
She says: “I’m just in denial when I’m there, it’s just riding round blanking everything out and just imagining I’m at a training show. So I never was that brave. I hit the hunting field a couple of times and got more competitive, and my competitiveness and my trust in him overpower that fear.
“I’m still a nervous person, I’m still sometimes – or rather mostly – sick and stuff like that. It’s like my body registers with it but my brain doesn’t any more.”
Asked if she hunts Topspin, Alice laughed: “No, I think I’d end up in Yorkshire from Norwich – he’s quite a live wire. I’ve got an old horse called Ruby, who I did my first few events on and he loves it. He’s one of those that you go out on with snacks and a pocket full of sweets, like I’m still seven, and have a lovely day.”
You might also be interested in:
‘I was talking to him the whole way round’: youngest competitor stuns on Badminton debut on home-bred
Piggy March and Vanir Kamira win Burghley: ‘This horse deserves to have her name on a plaque on Winners’ Avenue’
Festive stars: the teenager making waves at five-star on a second generation home-bred horse
Top-10 contender among two horses held at Burghley final trot-up, plus three withdrawn
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