National Dressage Championships day three round-up: ‘cheese factor’ delivers, prospects shine and riders win first national titles
(Image credit: Kevin Sparrow)
More thrilling action was witnessed at the 2022 LeMieux National Dressage Championships, day three. We round-up all the key winners who took home the championship sashes at Somerford Park on the third day of competition:
Golden girl Becky Moody, who recently suffered a collapsed lung, continued her stunning form to lift the TopSpec medium gold championship — her third title win of the nationals — with Anne Moody and Jo Cooper’s Lancelot BS before she took the Saracen inter I freestyle and overall inter I champion, highest score in the inter I classes, with 80.12% on Jagerbomb.
This was a second outing for her music put together by Tony Hobden of Equidance. The choice of music was Beckys.
“Well, when I say it was mine it was actually Kim Masson’s; Kim has a proper job as a marketing manager but gives up 98% of her annual leave to come and help me at shows,” said Becky. “She’s been trying to persuade me to use Tom Jones for over two years but I’ve resisted the cheese factor until now. Eventually I caved in. It’s the second time I’ve ridden to it and I love it now.”
It’s no secret that Becky considered her home-bred a tad dull to begin with:
“He was lovely, sensible, super trainable but if I’m honest a tad boring and possibly lacking the wow factor but how wrong was I? He’s got an incredible engine and just gets better and better.”
“The lung is holding up well, I’m just a little bit wiped,” added Becky. “I’m thankful for the team behind me. The guys at home have done so much to prepare for us to come here, so a lot of this is down to them.”
The Dream Boy six-year-old Lancelot BS (Lance) was bred by Julie Lockey.
“He was bought as a yearling,” said Becky. “He was quite a quirky horse as a four-year-old; he was sharp and sensitive. But he’s really coming good. He’s a really promising horse for the grand prix work and he shows a lot of potential for the piaffe. He’s got a good engine, and despite being a little sensitive he has a great brain. As a four-year-old, he was a horse to be produced and sold on, but like I do with all of them, I got to the point where I didn’t want to sell him.”
Team Moody’s stable jockey Anna Burns rode Lance in last year’s five-year-old classes and she steered him to eighth in this year’s KBIS British Dressage six-year-old final.
“He’ll be back for the elementary tomorrow,” said Becky. “Today, he did a secure, neat and tidy test. He was a little tense as there was a lot going on in the other arenas. But he grew in confidence as the test went on. By the time we got to the last quarter he had relaxed and I could ride him more boldly.”
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