The five-time Burghley winner and cross-country coach to the Swiss eventing team, Andrew Nicholson, analyses Burghley’s five-star course and shares which riders impressed him
When I walked the Defender Burghley Horse Trials cross-country course early on the Friday morning of the event, I thought it had a smoother feel to it than in 2022. It posed difficult questions, but riders could get into the swing of it a little earlier, which is a sign of designer Derek di Grazia knowing the place better second time around.
I was still fascinated by the way riders jump off the drop at the Holland Cooper Leaf Pit and are in a hurry to get their horse to the next element – the big brush oxer – forgetting they’ve got to line up the skinny third part. I know the drop and the ground encourages horses to run, but it is the rider’s job to say, no, wait a fraction longer here, and get their line right, rather than only thinking about getting over the oxer.
I thought the Defender Trout Hatchery, with its uphill bounce into water, rode very well. And the carved wooden hare to the two corners at the Joules at the Maltings jumped better than I expected. In my experience, horses aren’t so sharp with their legs over something that appears to look different, as the hare did, but perhaps that made riders respect it more.
I am not a huge fan of open skinny triple bars. After you’re three minutes into a track, they are quite flimsy for a horse that is going well across country to back off and respect, especially placed where they were on the Dairy Mound – which is the most difficult piece of ground at Burghley, given where it comes on the course. These fences are much harder to jump correctly than perhaps people realise, and there weren’t that many pretty pictures over them.
(Image credit: creditUnknown)
I know it is easy to say when you aren’t the course-designer, but I’d like to see more vertical fences and fewer big, wide spreads. They make riders sit down in the saddle and ride a bit more, and they would be easier for horses to jump well than more open, wide oxers. They save a horse’s energy, but you lose time at them and have to ride correctly.
Some superb riding
I thought there was some superb riding. David Doel did a very good job – I see him competing in Europe a lot when I’m working with the Swiss team, and it’s paid off. He knows what he can do, what his horses can do and what speed he can go, and has improved a great deal in the past couple of years. And Wills Oakden is a classy rider who deserves some more good horses.
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Oliver Townend’s winner, Ballaghmor Class, is a proper five-star horse and then some. To win a second Burghley six years after his first is a serious achievement, and the horse has done a lot in between, not missing a beat. That’s a great testament to both horse and rider.
Tim Price will find the key to a clear showjumping round on Vitali. Like quite a few good event horses, Vitali doesn’t find showjumping on the Sunday straightforward, but I am sure Tim will keep trying different things.
From youngster to five-star
My main job at Burghley was judging the final gallop element of the Dubarry Burghley young event horse classes. I’ve never competed in the classes, nor ever really watched them – I just know that when I was doing the five-star at Burghley, I’d look over at the young horses and think that none of mine looked as classy and as polished as those!
But in the early days of the classes, a lot of the finalists would end up back at Burghley in time; that has happened less recently, and I know Burghley director Martyn Johnson is keen for the classes to regain their place as producers of five-star horses.
I’d love to see the finalists in both classes gallop round the ring and jump a brush fence out of their stride as they do so – that would be a useful test of a future event horse, I think.
● What fences would you like to see on five-star cross-country courses? And what do you think of Andrew’s idea for the young event horse final? Write to hhletters@futurenet.com, including your name, nearest town and county, for the chance to have your views published in a future edition of Horse & Hound magazine
This exclusive column will also be available to read in Horse & Hound magazine, on sale Thursday 21 September, 2023
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New Zealand five-star event rider Andrew Nicholson has won Burghley five times and took top honours at Badminton in 2017. He has won two Olympic team bronze medals and a team silver and is currently cross-country coach to the Swiss eventing team.
