A September to Remember

Burghley Bound with Merlin Vet

In January of this year, Mrs Alison Spence gave me a call.

Kaitlyn had produced and sold a horse for the her last year, and she explained that she had a different horse who she wanted to give one more chance at this eventing business…

He had competed up to 4*L level, and while his record wasn’t particularly inspiring, I was promised he was an exceptional jumper.

Knowing the value of riding good jumping horses at 4* level, I agreed to take this more difficult ride on with one condition – that he ran first amongst the horses on our team. Meaning he gets the benefit of our training, systems and processes, but we also get the benefit of him being a trailblazer ahead of the other horses.

Little did we know that trailblazer would bloody well take us to 3^rd out the start box at Burghley Horse Trials that very same year! Holy Hecka!

Whilst our dressage will always be a work-in-progress, I am so very proud of that class double clear around his first 5*, and eventual 11^th place at the toughest event in the world.

It really took a lot of trust from all parties – Trust in Bertie that he had the talent, his trust in me to answer the questions asked, and faith on Ali’s behalf to not think I was mad by giving it a go in the first place!

You can watch his slick xc round here.

We will now look forward to a winter of dressage before aiming him for Badminton in 2026.

While we were on such a high with Bertie, sadly we had one of those very tough cross country days with Charlie. The day before he had produced the most stunning dressage test I have done to date. Earning him a 24 – just 2 points behind Ros (which was a real pinch me moment!)

Unfortunately, he sustained an injury on cross country and I pulled him up straight after the undulating ground at Capabilities Cutting. He has received world class care from the best vets in the country, which will give him the best possible opportunity to be back doing what we love together. He’s now happy in his stable but if you’ve got some good luck going spare – he could do with a wee bit of it over the next year to see him recover fully.

This has been a massive blow to our team, the reality of these injuries hits home hard when we pour so much of ourselves into these relationships.

Onwards we trudged through the mud at Cornbury, collecting a barrage of good results again in our final preparation runs with Darcy, Malibu, Quantas, Luca, and Kitty – who notably finished 2^nd in her 2* section which was a real thrill!

Our Butet Blenheim Bonanza

I really, really wanted to win Blenheim.

The idea has been festering in the back of my brain probably since the moment I first sat on Quantas as a 5 year old. The more I did with him the more the idea developed. His talent has always been paired with intelligence and a dose of arrogance – something that we grappled with in 2024!

But with each day of training, we inched our way closer, until we were in that final warmup for dressage; putting in the final touches that would earn him the lead after the first phase ahead of 88 other horses on a 22.4.

With that lead came the realisation - it was my class to win, or my class to lose. We stuck to our systems and processes, producing that all important clear show jumping round.

On the final day we jumped cross country in reverse order meaning that I was last to go, I knew that Gemma was (is) one of the fastest riders in the world, and I only had a 0.5 penalty lead. Which meant that I could not afford to be more than one second slower than her if I wanted to take home the win.

Speed, power, strategy and planning. Coming home bang on the optimum time to lock in our name at the top of the leaderboard. 7 seconds faster than the next horse and the only horse to finish on their dressage score.

It really was a lot of pressure, but that is what made this result so exciting, not only for him but also for me.

Because we plan on being under pressure a lot over the next 5 years - and where can you find a better opportunity to practice that?!

We have to give huge credit to Malibu and Luca too though – both horses competing in their first 4* runs and both absolutely class acts. Both sub 30 on the flat, both fast and clear xc just with one pole rolled for Malibu (my one mistake all weekend which I was annoyed about for her sake!) Luca finishing in 7^th and Malibu in 15^th. At 8yrs old Malibu finishes her season here, and Luca (9yrs) will head to his first CCI4*L next week.

Mum and Dad were meant to fly out the Monday after Blenheim, however their flight has been delayed (yippee!) due to a cyclone on their travel route, so that’s been a selfish bonus! They now leave on Sunday. The house (and lorry!) have never looked so clean! And it has been so much fun sharing the highs and lows of our life with them.

Onto our final run of events for the year; We have dressage lessons today (Weds – followed by another celebratory dinner of course!), SJ Thursday, XC schooling on Saturday and we leave for Poland on Sunday with x4 horses;

Luca, Darcy & Lexi (with Kelli) all in the 4*L

Kitty in the 2*L

Following that I’ll drive the lorry home and fly on to Boekelo (Netherlands) where Quantas has been selected for the Nations Cup Team to do the CCI4*L.

Finally, Sooty wraps up the year with our French Finale at Pau in the CCI5*L.

I feel like we are in such a cool space – we have achieved so much this year, that any result in the next 5 weeks almost feels like a bonus.

But equally, we have such an exciting team of horses all of whom I believe could be capable of a podium performance at each of their final runs - What a team!