Christine Bates and Adelaide Hill
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Australia’s Christine Bates on board Adelaide Hill and Pippa Funnell on Billy The Biz share the lead after the dressage phase of the Advanced Section L at Aston-Le-Walls (3) with both on a score of 30.3 and Pippa is just a tad behind on her other horse in this class, Maja’s Hope on 30.5
“I’m pretty happy with that” said Christine as she came out of the arena “I brought him out earlier for a look around then went back, got ready and came back out for the proper warm up and that did the job”
Adelaide Hill was injured last year in the lead-up to selection for the World Equestrian Games and Christine has been back in the UK for eight weeks now to do the fitness work and get him ready for some bigger events. They started well last weekend with a win at Tweseldown in the Intermediate Novice on their dressage score of 23.9 and have backed that up with a good start here but Christine is aiming for ‘just a steady run’ around the seven-minute-long Advanced cross country tomorrow
Pippa Funnell and Billy The Biz
Pippa also leads the Advanced Section K with a score of 27.2 riding Billy Walk On while the recent team gold and individual silver medallist at the European Young Rider Championships, Bubby Upton leads the Advanced U25 on Eros DHI.
As predicted, Andrew Nicholson’s Barbury 3* winner As Is is doing well in the Advanced 8/9 YO class, currently leading the way on a score of 29.0 but Sarah Bullimore’s homebred pocket rocket, Corouet is not far behind on 29.7 with more riders to come in the dressage tomorrow
Andrew also took home a win in the Novice Section B today on Monbeg Exclusive while Willa Newton won the Section C on the 2017 Osberton 4-Year-Old Champion, Just Soda No Ice. Australia’s Sammi Birch riding Calcourt Verona won the Novice Section A and JP Sheffield had a good day, winning the Open Novice on Future Gravitas and the Novice Section F on Schindlers Boy as well as finishing second to Izzy Taylor riding Happy Days in the Novice Section E
JP Sheffield on Schindlers Boy (above) and Sammi Birch on Sheepdrove Cariad (below)
