Find out what Laura thought of her early morning performance on the first day of dressage at this event
Laura Collett has taken an early lead in the CCI4*-L at Bicton International Horse Trials, supported by Chedington, aboard Dacapo (pictured). The pair scored 29.7.
“Ninety per-cent of it felt really nice — all of the trot and the walk was lovely,” said Laura of the 12-year-old owned by Gillian Morris-Adams, Diana Chappell, Carolyn Taylor and Mr and Mrs M. Smedley. “He can sometimes struggle with the walk pirouettes, and he did those as good as he’s done so I’m really pleased. The two canter half-passes weren’t very good and he can normally do those really well but he seems to think that we’re going to do medium canter across the diagonal rather than a half-pass. We got two clean flying-changes though, which has been a struggle for him as well so all in all, I’m actually really pleased with him.”
Although Laura was early in the draw, meaning her dressage start time was shortly after 8am this morning (10 June), she commented that there was still an atmosphere in the arena for her horse to cope with.
“Dacapo would be quite a laid back horse and I even he felt like he had a bit of tension in there so I think there’s definitely a bit of atmosphere. The arena feels like everything is all quite close together and I think that is what is making it atmospheric,” explained Laura .“Normally when you go to a big event, you’ve got a small dressage arena in a massive arena so you’ve got loads of space and loads of time to relax them so it’s a bit different here and it all comes up quite quickly in there. It’s not going to be a dressage competition so I don’t think I need to be worrying too much about our half passes this morning!”
Meanwhile, Irish rider and World Equestrian Games medallist, Padraig McCarthy was eliminated aboard HHS Noble Call while performing his dressage test.
President of the ground jury, Christian Landolt, got out of his car to tell Padraig to stop his test after spotting the horse was wearing a bit which is not permitted in the first phase.
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Padraig McCarthy and HHS Noble Call.
(Image credit: Peter Nixon)
Read the full report from Bicton in the 17 June issue of Horse & Hound magazine and keep checking back to horseandhound.co.uk for further updates and insight
Nine horses were sent to the holding box and two eliminated in an eventful Bicton Horse Trials first trot-up this
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Former web features editor, point-to-point editor and digital racing editor
Gemma is an experienced journalist, who was a member of H&H staff from 2014 to September 2025. She is passionate about all equestrian sports, including racing and point-to-pointing. She has enjoyed riding out for top trainers Nicky Henderson and Charlie Appleby and took part in a charity Flat race at Epsom in August 2018. Gemma’s has reported from numerous five-star events around Britain and Europe, as well as European championships.
