In our chats with Alex Postolowsky and Clarke Johnstone at the Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials, they both mentioned the Dubarry Burghley Young Event Horse championships.
This is a side to the prestigious event that we don’t get to see much of in Australia as all eyes are on the 4* event but we took a look at the Five Year Old class on the Friday morning and found a whole different side to Burghley.
10th placed Time for Harry ridden by Nini Fench shows his jumping style
Ring Two is a world of tweed jackets, reminiscent of hunter showing, rather than the top hat and tails of the main arena. However the aim is to try and identify the young horses that show potential and ‘the best material to make a world class three day event horse’
Straight after dressage and jumping, Piggy French's helpers get ready for presentation to judge Jane Crofts (below)
The judges who decide this are Judy Harvey and Stephen Clarke (dressage – 30% of the marks) Richard Waygood and Debbie Edmondson (jumping - 40% of the marks), Jane Crofts (Conformation and Type – 20% of the marks) and Ian Stark had the interesting task of assessing Potential and Suitability (10% of the marks) in the final phase. Once each competitor had performed their dressage test immediately followed by the jumping (which includes show jumps and cross country type obstacles) they stripped the horse down and present for a trot up.
Ian Stark's top mark of 10 went to Emilie Chandler's DHI Jet Set (below)
The top ten from these scores were then presented to Ian Starke who was looking for that 'star quality' as he assessed them at the walk, trot and canter on each rein then each horse was asked to gallop individually.
Time for a gallop
The final winner was Zoe Wilkinson’s Five Year Old winner Parkfield Quintessential. The rewards for this win are not in the big league of the 4* star class - £50 prize money and a pair of Dubarry boots (of course) but the prestige is enormous.
Zoe Wilkinson and Parkfield Quintessential receive their Dubarry boots
Emilie Chandler and DHI Jet Set took second place and Lucinda Fredericks on her home bred stallion Britannia’s Mail, out of the Burghley winning mare Headley Britannia, was third (below).
In the afternoon, Lucinda scored another third place on Ebolensky while Piggy French took the honours on Duke of Love and Alex Postolowsky was runner-up on All Or Nothing II
