Husband and wife win four- and three-star events on horses who are half-brothers

It was a good weekend for James and Helen Alliston as the husband and wife won a four- and three-star event respectively, on horses who are half-brothers.

James and Nemesis (below) took the CCI4*-S at the 2023 Twin Rivers Spring International in California, US, on 15 April, then Helen and Flinterro Z (main picture) won the CCI3*-L the following day.

Both bred by Danielle Burgess in British Colombia, Canada, Nemesis, nine, and eight-year-old Flinterro Z are out of thoroughbred mare Sara’s Muse, and by Novalis 46 and Figaro B respectively.

“We just really liked Nemesis, and [Danielle] said she had another one, and she claimed it was even better,” said Helen, of the horse the couple bought as a two-year-old.

“She did say on the phone ‘He’s a bit small right now but he’ll grow, don’t worry’. We bought him sight unseen, and when he showed up – Marc Grandia actually drove him down from Canada, and we met him at one in the morning – I remember he was tiny and pretty weird-looking.

“James and I drove home, and James lay in bed with his eyeballs popping out of his head like, ‘What did we buy?’ He was kind of like an ugly duckling turned swan because now he’s beautiful. As soon as we saw him moving, we knew he was a nice horse.”

Helen and Flinterro Z added two time penalties across country and 1.2 in the showjumping to finish on a winning score of 32.8. And Helen said she had not even intended to run the horse in that class.

“One of our other horses [Addyson] got hurt that was entered here,” she said. “So I took that entry. I don’t really have a plan [for him now] because this wasn’t the plan!”

James and Menesis were using Twin Rivers as their final run before the CCI5* at the Land Rover Kentucky Three-Day Event this month. Nemesis added just 0.8 cross-country time-faults to win the CCI4*-S on 30.0. James also came second on Karma, with whom he is entered for the CCI4*-S at Kentucky.

“I feel good about the preparation obviously,” James said. “I don’t want to put too many expectations on how competitive I think I’ll be with a young horse, and it’s been a while for me personally. It’s a whole ‘nother world out there with the world’s best, obviously. So, I’m happy with how it went this weekend, and hopefully that can be a springboard to a good performance there.”

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