Superstar mare delivers fastest cross-country round at Burghley as top-three horse retires

Classic Moet put in her habitual stunning round for Jonelle Price jumping clear inside the time in the Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials cross-country phase.

This was the outstanding cross-country mare’s 12th clear round at five-star level, and she made the tough track look straightforward. She was so nimble through the wiggly combinations, enabling Jonelle to be up on her minute markers the whole way.

Jonelle just had to give her a little bit of encouragement after the Lion Bridge two fences from home, when she rapped the penultimate Parasol Table, but she came home three seconds inside the time.

Extraordinarily, Jonelle was riding just by feel, as her stopwatch wasn’t working.

“My watch stopped when I left the startbox, so I was on my own,” said Jonelle. “I just tried to ride an economical round, and she is a quick horse. I shouldn’t be complacent because there aren’t many like her around.”

The Rickards’ mare is now 19, which makes her cross-country speed particularly outstanding.

“We brought her here because she was fit and well but we take it one step at a time,” said Jonelle, who now lies second behind Piggy March and Vanir Kamira.

Burghley Horse Trials cross-country: third-placed Corouet ducks out

Sarah Bullimore’s bid with her European Championship individual bronze medallist Corouet came to an early end, when she ran out at the Holland Cooper Leaf Pit and pulled up.

Sarah was studded in the knee the previous weekend and it was touch and go whether she would be fit to compete.

Corouet jumped down the drop at fence seven well and jumped the following brush oxer, but was too far off the final corner element, and ducked out.

Meanwhile the youngest rider at Burghley, Alice Casburn, 20, was very quick across country on Topspin. She added just 6.8 time-faults with the bold-jumping home-bred to move up the order from 30th to third at this stage.

“I’m so lucky to ride a horse like him who doesn’t mind what stride you’re on,” said Alice. “I had to tell him to simmer down in the first part of the course.

“It’s so special as mum bred the dam and grand-dam. He has grown up in the stable he was born in. He’s like a family member, the favourite child.”

Tom Crisp and the diminutive Liberty And Glory were another pair to put in a lovely clear round, despite the rider nursing three broken ribs.

“She found it easy enough but I’ve not ridden with any meaning for the last three weeks, since I fell off and hurt my ribs,” Tom said. “It was harder than I thought. To do a clear round a course like this is very special.”

You might also be interested in:

‘I treasure every moment’: Classic Moet’s groom on tending the no-fuss veteran star

Piggy March puts in brilliant Burghley round on 17-year-old Vanir Kamira: ‘She was really up for it’

Seven feeds a day and bawling like a baby: Piggy March’s groom Amy Phillips on looking after Vanir Kamira at Burghley

Mixed fortunes for early riders on Burghley cross-country course, plus one horse withdrawn

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