Imogen Murray and Ivar Gooden on their way to winning the Advanced Under 25 Photo: ESPhotography.co.uk
New Zealand’s Tim Price, who has been sunning himself in Spain until recently on the show jumping circuit, won the Advanced Section N riding Xavier Faer while Paul Sims riding Glengarnock won the Advanced Section L. These were both combinations that were waitlisted for Badminton when Belton began but Tim and Xavier Faer have since moved into the main list and Paul is, at the time of writing, only fourth down the Wait List. You can watch our video with Tim here and listen to our audio interview with Paul here
Another rider who took honours at Belton and who is anxiously awaiting the green light from Waitlist to All Systems Go is the young Leicestershire based rider Imogen Murray. 23 year old Imogen and the 10 year old Irish Sport Horse with the great name of Ivar Gooden won the Advanced Under 25 Section at Belton, finishing sixth in the class overall.
The pair started with a 39.6 in the dressage, jumped double clear in the show jumping and then produced the third fastest cross country round of the class with 2.8 time penalties. Only the class winner Tim Price on Xavier Faer (1.6 time penalties) and speed demon Oliver Townend, in second place on ODT Ghareeb thanks to the only cross country round under the time, were ahead of Imogen.
Ivar Gooden’s speed may be one of the reasons that Oliver has been angling to get the ride on this horse for a little while but the horse’s owner Aivar Ward, a friend of Oliver’s, keeps knocking him back
“Oliver’s a great rider and a good mate” laughs Aivar when I bumped into him on cross country and he filled us in on the story of the horse whose name has intrigued me for a little while “But the ride stays with Imogen. It is a fun journey with Imogen and her team bringing this horse on and now we’re hoping to get to Badminton this year”
Ivar Gooden was bought by Aivar and his wife Terry Morris at the Gorsebridge Sales (“for not a lot of money” smiles Aivar) with the intention of re-selling him then a chance meeting in a pub resulted in Imogen, who lives locally, getting the ride
Imogen tried the horse and liked him but couldn’t afford to buy him so Aivar and Terry decided to try their hand as owners. From their smiling faces all weekend, it seems a perfect match and it has certainly worked well for Imogen who says “I really, really love riding him, he’s such a talented horse”. She told us more about Ivar Gooden (aka Charlie) who we will hopefully see at his first 4* start in May
Imogen Murray
Terry, Aivar and Imogen celebrate their win
