Lucy Wheeler and King Creole VD N Ranch
An Eventful Life filmed all competitors on cross country at
the Magic Millions Festival of British Eventing - find out more here
Three ‘newbies’ to Gatcombe Park took the top placings in the TopSpec Challenge for The Corinthian Cup at the Magic Millions Festival of British Eventing.
The TopSpec Challenge for The Corinthian Cup is a National Restricted Novice Championship at the Magic Millions Festival of British Eventing aimed at amateur riders. The riders may not have ridden at Intermediate level or above in order to qualify so this will probably be the first and last win in this class for Lucy Wheeler and King Creole VD N Ranch who are poised to continue their competition career at 1* level next week at Hartpury
It was the first visit to Gatcombe Park for Lucy, who is head girl at a point-to-point and hunt yard in East Sussex, and the eight year old King Creole VD N Ranch who is owned by Graham Jack started strongly with a dressage score of 27.5 for fourth place.
The pair remained on that score but moved up to first place when the dressage leader Harriet Ford on According To Archie picked up four penalties in the show jumping and the leader after show jumping, Jethro Thompson and Seapatrick Hint Of Cruise, added 12.8 time penalties on cross country
Graham and Lucy picked up a swag of prizes as rider and owner, leaving them with hardly a hand to hold the winning horse after the presentation
Lucy Wheeler and Graham Jack
In second place was Morgan Kent, an experienced show jumping rider who only started eventing this year as she was convinced that her eight-year-old mare Felda was suited to all three phases of eventing, so thought they would ‘give it a go’
They started on a score of 29.5 in the dressage and not surprisingly, considering their background, show jumped clear and then finished under time on cross country
Morgan Kent and Felda
Third-placed Harriet Ford and According To Archie also finished on a score of 29.5 and should have been cursing the four penalties picked up in the show jumping which cost them the win
However Harriet was just pleased to have According to Archie, who adores his polos, back in competition this year after missing all of 2017 with a tendon injury
A polo treat for Archie after his leading dressage test (above) and on cross country (below)
