No wonder he looks happy - Chris Burton and Lawtown Girl
An Eventful Life is filming all competitors on cross country at South of England (1)
“He has a rail in the show jumping, some time penalties on cross country and still finishes on a score I could only dream of getting in the dressage” sighed one competitor as she surveyed the final scores of the Day Equestrian Novice Section H at the South of England (1) today
The ‘he’ was Chris Burton who took an emphatic win in this class today on board the mare Lawton Girl. They finished on a score of 26.2, with one rail in the showjumping and 4.4 time penalties on cross country but it was the dressage score of 17.8 that made a big impact.
Two fancy young stars; Lawtown Girl (above) and Lawtown Boy (below)
Chris is no stranger to excellent dressage scores but this one must be a record of some kind. Even his past star Santano II, that scored 16.5 in the dressage at his first BE90 start in 2014, didn’t score a sub-20 at Novice level.
Lawton Girl was joined by her stable mate Lawtown Boy today to finish eighth in the West Kent Saddles Novice Section G, a class won by another Australian, Kevin McNab - more about that to come. Both horses are owned by Sue Lawson and Carolyn Townsend (hence the Lawtown prefix), the owners of Chris’ Burghley winning Nobilis 18,
“They look so similar and we already had Lawtown Boy so when we found the mare, we decided to just call her Lawtown Girl” explained Sue Lawson “We’re going to have think harder about what we call any future ones!”
Gemma Tattersall may have been a little off Chris’ dressage score but double clear rounds on cross country and in the showjumping put her into second place on Billy Hopefull (above), finishing on their dressage score of 30
In third place was Australian Emma McNab on INXS (above) who added just four time penalties to their dressage score of 28 to finish on 32
Chris also had a very good start in the Spidge BE100 Section C, leading the dressage on his young superstar stallion Caliber Royale with a score of 22.8 and finishing in third place overall
