‘I’m hoping he will be a team horse for me next year’: Blenheim’s young horse CCI4*-S highlights ones to watch

British-based Irish rider Georgie Goss (née Spence) and Kojak hold the lead in the Blenheim Horse Trials CCI4*-S for eight- and nine-year-olds dressage results at the end of the first phase (20 September).

Kojak, a nine-year-old owned by Georgie, Molly Fisher and Samantha Wilson, performed an eye-catching test to score 27.7, which puts them 1.7 penalties ahead of day one leaders, New Zealand’s Clarke Johnstone and Rocket Man.

“I’ve been working with Liv [dressage rider Olivia Oakeley] and Ian Woodhead a lot and he tried his heart out,” explained Georgie of the son of Namelus R. “We’re not established with the changes, but we somehow managed to get them both in the test. If anything, he can get a little bit flat, so I was pleased that there was enough atmosphere to keep him awake.”

Georgie has had the ride on Kojak for three years and she says she “liked everything about him” when she purchased him.

“I mean, just look at him – he’s beautiful, he moves, he jumps, he gallops, although he’s not the fastest in the world, but he’s learning to gallop and I’m very much hoping he will be a team horse for me next year.

“He’s just one of those horses that just keeps giving and always gives his best and always tries.”

Sweden’s Sofia Sjoborg and Govalent, a nine-year-old she co-owns with Juliet and Mattias Sjoborg, are third on 30.1.

“He’s never really seen an atmosphere before, so I was just hoping to keep him relaxed and with me,” said Sofia of this gelding by Valent, the sire of five-star horses Cooley Rosalent and Jewelent. “He’s quite long and still quite weak and has a lot of muscling up to do still, so I was thinking a mistake-free test would be nice and then anything above that was a bonus.”

Samantha Lissington, who is another Kiwi to impress so far this week, sits fourth with the impressive eight-year-old grey gelding, Quantas R. Owned by The High Flyers, this son of Qualito is on a score of 30.2.

“He’s a proper horse but he’s obviously only eight so he’s got a bit of a disadvantage against the nine-year-olds,” stated British-based Sam. “His change to the right has taken us all year to get – it was consistently a relaxed, late change behind. So we’ve done a lot of work on that with Gareth Hughes, who has actually really helped us use anticipation and activation at home to get the change, because he has quite a relaxed way of going and didn’t realise he was doing anything wrong.”

From a field of 95 starters in this class, only two combinations scored sub-30.

“It’s a bit irritating to score just over 30 when I thought it was a sub-30 test, but I couldn’t have asked for anything more from him,” Sam said frankly. “He could have gone in there and been impressed by the atmosphere, but he stayed with me the whole way.”

Blenheim young horse CCI4*-S dressage leaders after day one, Clarke Johnstone and Rocket Man, have been relegated to second, while the Netherlands’ Andrew Heffernan and SSK Cape Cooley are fifth on 30.3.

Piggy March and Dassett Arthalent are sixth on 30.7, Louise Bradley and Ardeo Mandela are seventh on 30.8 and the top eight Blenheim Horse Trials dressage results are completed by Norway’s Yasmin Olsson-Sanderson and Cos Me Will on 30.9.

The showjumping phase of the CCI4*-S for eight- and nine-year-olds gets underway tomorrow (Saturday 21 September) at 7.45am.

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