Bubby Upton retains her lead at the top of the CCI4*-L after the Defender Bramham Horse Trials cross-country today. The British rider and the grey 10-year-old Its Cooley Time, owned by his rider and the Five Time Syndicate, cruised round five seconds inside the optimum time to retain their top spot.
“He honestly made it feel like a BE100,” said Bubby. “He just stepped round and it’s my job just to steer him a little bit. He is phenomenal. Will I ever ride a horse as class as him again? Who knows? But he’s got it all and he proved that again today, having been fantastic in the first phase. Fingers crossed I can get him the win he deserves tomorrow.”
Bubby Upton was under-25 champion here in 2023, as well as at Bicton in 2021, but is bidding for her first senior CCI4*-L win if she can hold onto her Bramham Horse Trials cross-country lead in tomorrow’s showjumping.
Asked about how the other horses she has ridden have helped her develop to produce Its Cooley Time, Bubby said: “He’s so different to any horse I’ve ever had before. He’s unbelievably sharp and spooky. [My top five-star horse] Cola was very spooky as a young horse, so that’s helped me a little bit with him, as have all the horses that I’ve been lucky enough to ride – Clever Louis and Jefferson, those bright, sensitive types – particularly in the dressage.
“Cross-country, there’s no comparison between him and my other horses. He goes in a unique way. He’s so low and fights a bit with his head. I’ve just had to learn over the years to ignore the fact he doesn’t go like my other horses, who go a bit softer and rounder and it potentially looks a bit smoother with them – he never feels as smooth as my other horses, but I’ve learned that not to try and mould him to be like them.
“All my horses are so different, which I love, because it means that my job every day is to unlock the best of them, but they’ve all got kind of different keys to their locks. That’s where I implement my brain into the analytics and trying to get the best out of them, as opposed to just having one rule and one system for all.”
Bubby, 26, has fought back to the top of the sport after suffering a potentially career-ending spinal injury in the summer of 2023.
Izzy Taylor and Jane Timmis’s SRS Big Wall, third following the first phase, had a somewhat sticky ride out of the Womble Bond Dickinson Pond at fence 19abcd and were initially shown as having a flag penalty at the corner, the final element. But this was subsequently removed and they now hold second, having added just 0.8 of a time-fault to their dressage score.
Caroline Harris, heading out near the end of the class, moved up from sixth after dressage to third overnight with a fault-free round on Cooley Mosstown, owned by Gail Sinclair, Karen Dunford and Dinah Posford.
Similarly, a clear inside the time elevated Tom Jackson and Michael Stenning’s nine-year-old United 36 from seventh after dressage to fourth. The British rider also holds sixth on a relatively new ride, Helen Scott’s Hawk Eye, up from 13th after dressage
Ireland-based Brit Daniel Alderson sits fifth on Blarney Monbeg Pepper, moving up from 12th after dressage and building on their good result at Boekelo last year.
Sarah Bullimore was second after dressage on home-bred Corimiro but had a refusal at the first element of the Rail, Ditch, Rail combination at 8abc, with Sarah retiring further round the course.
Heffernan’s first Bramham track
This is Andrew Heffernan’s first year as Bramham Horse Trials cross-country course-designer, taking over from Ian Stark, and his Defender CCI4*-L track rode well, but also proved influential. Thirty-five of 52 starters (66%) in this CCI4*-L class jumped clear, with 43 finishing the course (82.7%). Problems were well spread around the 24-fence track.
Bubby said: “I think he’s made an amazing track and also put his own twist on it. Ian Stark is a legend and he’s been here for so long, and Bramham was renowned for being such an unbelievable cross-country track, so it would have been easy for Andy maybe to try and change it too much, equally, just to keep it the exact same. But I think he did a really good job of changing it enough to put his stamp on it without taking away the essence of Bramham.
“I loved the angled brushes down the hill [The Defender Trail at 21abc] – I’ve always been surprised that hill hasn’t been used before – and maybe he’ll get a bit braver on what he puts on the hill in the future. But he’s done an incredible job and we need people like him in the sport.”
On excellent going, the optimum time of 10min 3sec turned out to be very achievable and 17 pairs came home inside the target (32.7% of starters).
Against that landscape, any time-penalties were expensive. Young Brit Barnie Brotherton, 22, had 6.4 time-faults on his recent Bicton Nations Cup ride DHI King Nelson, sliding from fifth after dressage to equal 17th.
Sweden’s Louise Romeike and Caspian 15 also lost their provisional fourth place when they incurred 8.4 time-faults. They now share 17th with Barnie and DHI King Nelson.
Daisy Berkeley (Diese Du Figuier) and Toshiyuki Tanaka (Jefferson JRA) both notched up 8.4 time-penalties and so moved from eighth and 10th after dressage to 22nd and 23rd following the cross-country.
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