It have been such an exciting 2 weeks for the International  scene of eventing !!!!
23-25th April , Rolex Kentucky CCI**** was wonderful as always.  Leading UK rider William Fox-Pitt won  with ease , jumping without faults to  finish on his winning dressage score , riding the  good looking  10 yo TB  "Cool Mountain ". William had a crazy  adventure getting to Lexington  as the closure of many  European airports caused massive travel disruptions, but where there's a 'Will '  there's  a way.  A kind neighbour  offered to fly William to Madrid in a  private jet , where he met up with fellow UK rider Oli Townend ( who had taken a train to Paris then a taxi to Madrid ) and after several connecting flights ,  they arrived at final destination .
Sadly Oli had a nasty fall during the XC  on "Ashdale Cruisemaster"   and now has 7 broken bones ( ouch !!!) . This brought an abrupt end to his campaign to win the Rolex Grand Slam but Oli  is very lucky , he is up and out and about  and his injuries are  not life threatening.
NZ's sole entry  Jonathon 'Jock' Paget riding "Clifton Promise"  flew his horse from NZ prior to the event  and completed his first 4* safetly finishing 27th.  Although not a competitive score, it was a great experience for the partnership to build for the future , so well done Jock !!!

Badminton was so exciting this year and the dressage leaders all dropped by the way after after the imposing  XC course.
What  an amazing  job Hugh Thomas did designing the course. It had perfect results with problems spread over a variety of jumps and only 3  clear xc rounds inside the time allowed.
The very popular Australian Paul Tapner had the biggest win of his career , taking out the title with the  experienced 4* horse "Inonothing" moving up from  11th in the dressage phase. Other remarkable statistics in  the final placings were, Daisy Berkeley on
" Springalong "  moved up from 25th after dressage to finish 3rd and Caroline Powell moved up from 33rd to finish 5th ........WOW   !!!!
Click here to hear Paul, Andreas and Daisy speak  at end of competion.  Good story to hear how  " Inonothing" was a bit of a nightmare  as a young horse. These extremelly talented horses are often extroverts at the end of day and are usually quirky in some way so it sort of comes with the goods really !!!
Also interesting to note all the top placed horses were very experienced, successful 4* horses.
NZ had 4 of our riders in the top 20 placings , with Caroline in 5th on her wonderful
" Lenamore" finishing the best .  It was such a pleasure  to watch  Mark Todd  guide ' NZB Grass Valley ' around the XC ,  building the horse's  confidence as they went. Mark is really thrilled with  the relatively inexperienced horse's performance this weekend and hopes this fine show of form may catch the NZ selectors eye for the upcoming WEG games later this year in Kentucky to finish 18th.
Click here to here interview with Mark  Todd straight after his SJ ing round.