Laura Collett and London 52 (pictured) showed their class when winning the hotly contested eight- and nine-year-old CIC3* class at the SsangYong Blenheim Palace Horse Trials today (16 September). Laura and the nine-year-old were just one second over the optimum time to finish on a score of 27.9.
“It’s scary how easy he finds it,” Laura said of the horse owned by herself, Keith Scott and member of Blenheim’s organising committee, Karen Bartlett. “He’s pure class and he gave me some feeling around the cross-country today. He doesn’t have that much thoroughbred blood in him, but he has a massive stride. There’s so much more to come from him too.”
Izzy Taylor was the only rider to achieve the optimum time of six minutes, 47 seconds. She finished a remarkable 13 seconds inside riding Springpower, who is owned by Andrea Brereton, to finish on 29.5.
“He travelled across the ground very well and made the course feel like we were just schooling at home,” said Izzy of the nine-year-old. “The time was very easy to achieve on him.”
Laura Collett’s overnight leader, Dacapo, dropped to eventual third with 3.2 time-faults.
“Dacapo is as honest as the day is long,” said Laura. “As long as I show him the flags, he’ll do his best to jump through them.”
Richard Jones continued his run of good form to finish fourth with Dinah Saunders’s and his mother Ros Jones’s Kilballyboy Bob. They were another to stop the clock just one second over the optimum time to finish on 32.1.
“This is his first three-star and he felt class,” said Richard. “I just steered him and enjoyed it!”
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Laura Collett 1-2 after Blenheim young horse CIC3* showjumping
Vittoria Panizzon was fifth with Super Cillious, while dressage leaders James Avery and Vitali, the highest placed eight-year-old, finished sixth.
Keep up-to-date with all the latest reports from Blenheim via horseandhound.co.uk and don’t miss the full report in next week’s issue of Horse & Hound magazine, out on 20 September
