British rider Selina Milnes and the exciting Cooley Snapchat lead the way after the first day of dressage in the five-star at the 2025 Longines Luhmühlen Horse Trials.
There were consistent mumblings among riders that the ground jury of Katrin Eichinger-Kniely from Austria, Merel Schurink from the Netherlands and Ernst Topp from Germany were being frugal awarding marks. Indeed, not one of the 23 combinations who came forward in the first phase today broke the 30 barrier.
Selina and the 11-year-old Cooley Snapchat, who is owned by Angela and William Rucker, sit atop the leaderboard on 31.5. Their test was smooth with no obvious errors, so Selina, although delighted with the efforts of her horse, was left wondering why her mark didn’t reflect their performance.
“I’m disappointed with the mark – I actually thought he’d get into the 20s,” said Selina, who was third in the seven-year-old World Championships with this horse at Le Lion d’Angers and went on to win the CCI4*-S at Bramham in 2023.
“He didn’t really do much wrong, did he? Dickie [Waygood] said my first centre line was slightly quarters right, but other than that, I thought he was on the button.”
The judge at C, Katrin Eichinger-Kniely, placed Selina in eighth on 64.81%, while the other two judges placed them in first and second on 70.96% and 69.62%.
“I saw the judge at C’s mark first and I was surprised, but the other two judges liked it, and as long as the judge at C’s marking doesn’t change, that’s the main thing,” continued Selina. “He’s a super horse. He always stays really relaxed, so you can ride him. He needs a little bit of buzz to spark him up a bit, but he was really good today.”
Fellow Brit Aaron Millar is just 0.1 of a penalty behind Selina in second on 31.6. He was another rider to produce a virtually fault-free test and was pleased with the efforts of his horse, KEC Deakon, a 15-year-old owned by Heidi Bates.
“I slightly, slightly overworked him beforehand,” admitted Aaron. “He doesn’t need much work before he goes in, but he just dropped in the poll a little. His trot work would normally be better, we had a slight mistake in the last flying change and one of his halts wasn’t square, but he’s a performer and he always just wants to go in and do a good job.”
Further explaining his warm-up today, Aaron said: “We were down here for 25 minutes, but his best work probably came before we went in. He had last year off through injury so he hasn’t been in this sort of atmosphere for a while, so perhaps it was better to have him slightly underpowered, rather than [boiling over].”
Ros Canter on MHS Seventeen: “I’m over the moon with him”
Ros Canter and the former Nicola Wilson ride MHS Seventeen sit in third after day one of Luhmühlen Horse Trials dressage. Ros and this 12-year-old, owned by Deirdre Johnston and Lady Milnes Coates, put in a solid performance to score 33.5.
“I’m over the moon with him as he’s a horse that really hates being by himself, so going into the main arena has historically been quite a difficult experience for him as he has tended to get quite tense,” explained Ros, who used the opportunity to perform one of the guinea pig tests at Bramham last week as preparation for this week.
“We’ve worked really hard to develop a system for the run-up to the event and while we’re here, and I’m just really pleased that the system worked. He came out happy and relaxed, and he went in happy and relaxed, and I think he was probably a bit harshly marked, to be honest.”
Expanding further on the system Ros has implemented to try to ensure a good first-phase performance with MHS Seventeen, she said: “He’s come out to be ridden quite a few times since he’s been here, but not for too long and never so long as to make him tired or frustrated.
“He’s been practising the trot work in the test over and over again – yesterday he probably went through the trot work 12 times. I haven’t done any other movements that weren’t in the test so as not to confuse him, because he gets better and better when he knows what he’s doing and gains confidence.
“He knows all of the movements now, but when he goes in there, sometimes he completely loses his concentration, and then me asking an aid is in the back of his mind, not in the forefront of his mind, but today he was definitely listening to me, so that was great.”
Luhmühlen Horse Trials dressage: Laura Collett and Hester sit fourth
Laura Collett and the 14-year-old grey mare Hester, who is owned and bred by Lucy Nelson, sit in fourth on 33.9. Their score was trending in the mid-20s throughout some very smart trot work, but their flying changes let them down.
“It would be good if it was just a walk/trot test!” said Laura, who rides the favourite for this event, London 52, tomorrow afternoon. “She’s got so good now – she used to be hot through the whole test. She really struggles with the changes and when there’s four of them in the test, it’s really costly.
“That was a big atmosphere for her and historically it was like riding on eggshells the whole time, so for her to be able to let me in and ride her in the trot work today was great. It’s all going in the right direction and she is really starting to trust me and relax – she just makes mistakes because she struggles to wait for instructions because she’s trying too hard.”
The five-star Luhmühlen Horse Trials dressage continues tomorrow (13 June), with 24 combinations – including 10 Brits – still to go. The action in this class kicks off at 12.15pm UK time (1.15pm local time), after the CCI4*-S dressage in the morning.
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