Sunshine for the jog this morning and this time Tim was preceeded by fellow Kiwi rider Lauren Innes and Global Vision M (Flipper) who had been far wilder than Vitali at the first jog. Vitali was very well behaved all things considered and looked fabulously fit and well before heading back down to the stables for some R and R before the afternoon showjumping session.
Jess, like her fellow grooms, would have spent the morning packing down the stables and loading up the truck for the return to Dorset tonight. The clouds came over but it stayed dry and there was plenty of atmosphere in the packed main arena for the 2.30 start for the top 20.
All good plans and all that….Shane Breen had planned to be at Burghley to help Tim in the warm up but a blow out an hour into his drive up from Hickstead scupperd that carefully laid out scenario. Jonelle was on hand and she was the first to say how well Vitali warmed up which is testament to the athlete he is after an endurance day like yesterday.
Vitali started off looking simply class and it looked great until the in of the treble which he had down and Tim said afterwards that his stride was a little longer than he expected coming in and he got a little too close. 7 to 8 was a related distance down to a plank which had been riding fairly short and Vitali loped on down to it like the cross country pro he is and tipped that as well. Then he finished his round beautifully which he is starting to do more and more.
8 faults is disappointing but as Tim said, he doesn’t need an excuse to have a rail and there was a reason he had the 2 he did today, it wasn’t some random ‘why the hell did he do that’ type of rails. He dropped from 3rd to 6th which is costly but Tim was fairly relaxed about it and commented that it’s not so bad to slide when you are not in the lead for sure!
And let’s not forget that that is Vitali’s 7th 5 star start and he has still never finished outside of the top 10. Which is incredible when you think of all the things that can, and do, go wrong at 5 star cross country. Thats a weapon in any riders armour.
Huge admiration for Lordships Graffalo (Walter) and Ros Canter as always. As Pippa Funnell commented, we are witnessing history here with one of the greatest of all time event horses who has now, at the age of just 13, won 2 Badminton’s, 2 Burghley’s (becoming the first horse in history to do so), an Olympic Gold and a European Championship. And as Walter took his victory lap Tim quietly sent Vitali out of the prize giving with Jess and walked out on foot. Ever the horseman, he was clearly thinking of next year at Burghley when he wants Vitali to go into the main arena for the dressage relaxed and not with his last memory of galloping around in front of the stands.
It’s not worth it for 6th. But when he does win, and that we all believe he will, then he can throw caution to the winds and revel in it!
