Eight British names and three world champions appear among the Land Rover Kentucky Three-Day Event entries for the CCI5* event which runs 26–30 April.
World champions Yasmin Ingham and Banzai Du Loir, who were second at the event last year, will return to the US venue next month. Banzai is now registered in the ownership of The Sue Davies Fund following the death of Sue, who owned him alongside her daughter Janette Chinn, in January.
Tom McEwen will make his first trip to the Kentucky Horse Park with the Lamberts’ and Deirdre Johnston’s JL Dublin, the horse who won the European Championships with Nicola Wilson in 2021. The Lamberts were long-standing owners with Nicola and have previously made the trip with horses they owned with her. Tom and JL Dublin were second at Boekelo CCI4*-L last autumn and this will be their first five-star as a combination.
Zara Tindall returns to Kentucky, the venue where she finished third in 2017 on High Kingdom, with Gleadhill House Stud’s Class Affair. This is not, though, Class Affair’s first US venture as he competed at Maryland 5-Star in 2021.
William Fox-Pitt, a three-time winner of Kentucky, holds an entry with Amanda Gould’s Grafennacht, a five-star first-timer who is also entered at Badminton the week after Kentucky.
Oliver Townend will bid for a fourth Kentucky win this year as he is on the list with Tregilder, owned by the Hazeldines and the Mitchell Fox Group.
David Doel is entered on Gillian Jonas’ Galileo Nieuwmoed, with whom he was sixth at Badminton Horse Trials last year. Gillian is 90 this year and she owned Apache Sauce, who was ninth at Kentucky in 2007 with Mary King. David told H&H she wants to go back to Kentucky while she is still in good health.
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Kirsty Chabert is another potential British Kentucky debutante as she has last year’s Luhmühlen Horse Trials runner-up Classic VI, owned by Carole Somers, Kate Ward and Kirsty’s father John Johnston, on the list.
US-based British rider Leslie Law, the 2004 Olympic eventing champion, is slated to make his fourth Kentucky start on Tre’ Book’s Voltaire De Tre’, their best result being 10th in 2019.
Australia’s Olympic team silver medallists Kevin McNab and Scuderia 1918 Don Quidam, who belongs to Scuderia 1918 Capital SRL and Kevin’s wife Emma, are also set to make the trip across the Atlantic. They finished sixth at Kentucky last year.
Two German riders are also travelling from Europe. Alina Dibowski, daughter of Olympic team gold medallist Andreas, made her championship debut at the worlds last year on her Kentucky ride, Barbados 26, owned by her mother Susanna. The 2004 world champion, Sandra Auffarth, is set to pilot her world team gold medallist, Nikolaus Prinz von Croy’s Viamant Du Matz.
France also has one entry, in the form of Maxime Livio with S.C. Soixante Seize Et Compagnie, Gilles Saiagh and Celine Fronteau’s Carouzo Bois Marotin.
The other Kentucky Three-Day Event entries are all from US riders, with the exception of two Canadians, including the 19-year-old Jollybo, ridden by Hawley Bennett-Awad.
The home side challenge includes three rides apiece for Tamie Smith (including Alexandra and Ellen Ahearn and Eric Markell’s world team silver medallist Mai Baum and last year’s Maryland 5-Star runner-up Danito, owned by Ruth Bley), Liz Halliday-Sharp, Buck Davidson, Jennie Saville (née Brannigan) and Will Coleman.
Phillip Dutton, the most recent American winner of Kentucky, has just one ride in the mix, the syndicate-owned Z.
Boyd Martin, the most recent US winner of a five-star after his victory at Maryland in 2021, brings forward the Turners’ Tsetserleg TSF, a former Kentucky runner-up, and Club Contessa’s Contessa.
Lauren Nicholson has Jacqueline Mars’ Landmark’s Monte Carlo and Vermiculus in the line-up, although Vermiculus is also entered at Badminton the week after Kentucky, so may well not appear at the US spring five-star if he makes the trip to Britain.
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Pippa is a true eventing geek and has been H&H’s eventing editor since 2005. She has first-hand experience of competing up to British Eventing intermediate and international CCI2*-L level, and has worked in the industry on a top event yard. Pippa enjoys nothing more than immersing herself in the sport at the highest level, reporting from the five-stars and international championships, including the Olympics.
