The early riders on the Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials cross-country have had mixed fortunes.
Tim Price took all the direct routes on his first ride, the Numero Uno Syndicate’s Bango, and came home with 14.4 time-penalties, having finished 36 seconds over the 11min 20sec optimum time.
Tim said: “He’s incredibly bold and brave and sometimes a little bit stupid, where he doesn’t back off and then doesn’t back off again. But he’s very experienced and he knows his job and I know him. It just means I have to come away from the clock a little bit, which is frustrating.”
Tim had a slightly sticky ride through the Holland Cooper Leaf Pit at fence seven and added a stride to the final corner.
“I’ve spent a few seconds too long on the top of the step with him before [and been given 20 penalties, in 2016], so I had to sort of kick him off reluctantly and then he ran down there, got a bit close [to the brush oxer] and then we just ended up on the four [strides to the corner],” said Tim.
Tim chose to jump the house on dry land on the way home rather than the trailer under the Lion Bridge (fence 28), an area of water where he has fallen previously.
Tim has withdrawn his last horse, Polystar I, as the horse has had an injury previously and he felt he was too far down the leaderboard after dressage for it to be worth running him. Tim will still ride his second horse, Vitali, who starts at 1.40pm.
“Vitali is completely different to Bango, a small whippety type horse – he’s got some scope and not a lot of experience,” said Tim. “He is much more in the hand. I can do what I want with him a little bit more.
“But I can definitely take a little bit from this first round – that it’s jumpable and the big distances are gettable. For example, the Rolex at the top [fence 16ab] is a big four strides and I made it a bit short, so that I think that means that I could do the four strides comfortably on the littler horse.”
Pippa Funnell and Billy Walk On made it out of the Leat Pit on three strides but were a touch further off the corner than might have been ideal. The horse was quite hesitant jumping into the second pond at the Trout Hatchery and Pippa had to work hard to get out over the arrowhead in the water. They finished with 19.6 time-faults.
The third rider out, Emma Hyslop-Webb, had a fall when Waldo III reached the corner out of the Leaf Pit on a half stride, chipped the back of it and came down.
Woods Baughman, who was the fifth rider on the Burghley Horse Trials cross-country course, had a run-out here at the Leat Pit corner with C’Est La Vie 135 and then another 20 penalties at the corner out of Defender Valley (fence 8b). He was eliminated after having a further run-out further round the course.
HD Bronze, the fourth horse out and ride of British first-timer Harry Mutch, got caught on the Cottesmore Leap, ejecting Harry from the saddle, but he was quickly freed from the fence and seen on camera being attended by officials.
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