Burghley Horse Trials - A Great Result

Caroline & Lenamore | Burghley 2010 Winners

As you will have read all over the internet already, Lenamore is a very popular winner, and an extremely well deserved win it is too. I've always liked this horse and rider, since I first saw them at Badminton in 2005, and I'm probably a little bias as Lenamore is a lovely grey!

A win like this is bound to lift the spirits going into the World Equestrian Games, and I've long thought the New Zealanders are on song this year, and have an excellence chance of at least a team medal, and Andrew Nicholson should be able to drum up a good dressage score without the day-to-day distractions he would usually face here at home.

Alex Hua Tian | Has Experience Of Frangible Pins

Watching a little more of the cross country today, I wonder whether Burghley will need to adopt the same additional entry qualifications that Badminton have done, to maintain a stiff 4* track and avoid further potential disasters. Apart from the unfortunate fall Nicola Malcolm had at the big ditch brush fence, there were two other very nasty looking falls at the Rolex combination (Georgie Strang on Master Monarch & Alex Hua Tain on ESB Irish Fiddle).

The fence in question required a big leap over a ditch rail, followed by two long-ish strides to an open corner. Not something for the faint hearted, or anyone still earning their 4* stripes, so I was particularly surprised to see this fence combination numbered as an "A & B" or with no alternative. Alex survived this fence better than Georgie, more by luck than judgement, and not the first time he's had a problem at this type of fence. If you ever needed justification for all the money going into safety and the frangible safety pins then just watch the coverage from fence 15 A&B at Burghley 2010.

It'll be very interesting to see  if these 'open corners', which have proved quite popular since Badminton this year, will make an appearance in the WEG 2010 course.

Another pleasing thing I noticed from watching more Burghley Cross Country is how the construction of the brush fences is more forgiving this year, you really can brush through the top of them. Watch the French man Jean Luc Goerens go through the Discovery Valley!

Another fabulous Burghley.......

I leave you with two final thoughts:

Should we increase the number of penalties for Dressage Errors at 4* level?

Six horses withdrew after cross country and only a dozen or so show jumped clear, is it time to switch the order of running at this level?

Next week I'm off to Blenheim (weather & small children permitting), and I'll be blogging about the London 2012 site at Greenwich, and no doubt something on WEG.