Three-time five-star winners and triple Olympic medallist Laura Collett and London 52 head up the Luhmühlen Horse Trials entries for the Longines CCI5* competition (12-15 June).
Laura and her own, Karen Bartlett and Keith Scott’s 16-year-old will try to recapture the title they won in 2023 when they return to Germany next month. The British rider will also pilot Lucy Nelson’s home-bred Hester, who achieved her first five-star completion here last year.
Recent Badminton Horse Trials winner Ros Canter will try to keep the five-star ball rolling with two entries in the top class – Alex Moody’s and her own Izilot DHI, who was fourth here last year in the CCI5*, and Deirdre Johnston and Lady Milnes Coates’s MHS Seventeen, who was 11th on his five-star debut at Pau Horse Trials last year.
Kitty King will also start among the favourites, with 2023 Luhmühlen five-star runner-up Vendredi Biats, owned by Diana Bown, John Eyre, Sally Lloyd Baker and Samantha Wilson.
The 23 British Luhmühlen Horse Trials entries for the five-star also include Selina Milnes with the Ruckers’ Bramham Horse Trials 2023 CCI4*-S winner Cooley Snapchat and Wills Oakden with the Adams’ Blair Horse Trials 2023 CCI4*-L winner Keep It Cooley.
US-based British rider Lucienne Bellissimo will have another go at five-star after making her first start at the level at Kentucky Three-Day Event in April. Her ride Dyri runs in the ownership of her business, Horse Scout Eventing.
Those re-routing from Badminton to this five-star include Kirsty Chabert with her father John Johnston, Caroline Caines and Kate Monserrate’s Opposition Heraldik Girl and Gemma Stevens with the Stones’ Jalapeno.
Gemma also has the Stones’ clone Chilli Morning IV making his CCI4*-S debut in the Meßmer Trophy. Caroline Harris brings her Pau CCI5* winner D. Day – owned by Lucy Matthews, Fiona Olivier, Marie Anne Richardson and Heather Royle – forward for that class.
Belgium’s Lara de Liedekerke-Meier, last year’s five-star winner on Hooney D’Arville, will return in the CCI5* this year with Johan Vankerschaever’s Origi, who makes his five-star debut after finishing 13th at the Olympics.
The New Zealand entry includes Jesse Campbell, re-routing after a disappointing Badminton dressage test with Jay Jaffar’s Cooley Lafitte, and Jonelle Price with five-star debutant Senor Crocodillo, owned by his rider and the Giannamores.
As usual, most of the German riders contest the CCI4*-S, where Julia Krajewski will start as favourite on four-time four-star winner Uelzener’s Nickel (formerly known as Nickel 21), owned by Bernd Heicke.
Also notable in the CCI4*-S are Andrew Hoy and double Tokyo Olympic medallist Vassily De Lassos, owned by his rider and Dreams Come True V LLC. They have had mixed recent form, but were third in this section in 2020 and 2021.
The only German in the CCI5* is Arne Bergendahl, who re-routes with Helmut Bergendahl’s Luthien NRW after falling in the Mars Lake at Badminton.
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