British riders play leaderboard snakes and ladders as Kentucky cross-country proves influential

David Doel scaled the leaderboard to finish up best Brit after the Defender Kentucky Three-Day Event cross-country today (25 April).

The time on Derek di Grazia’s course proved achievable, with four riders making it – but only one of them, David with Galileo Nieuwmoed, was British and the other leading British combinations all had some penalties. David has moved up from 12th after dressage to fourth overnight.

David Doel was held at the Kentucky Three-Day Event cross-country start because US rider Mary Bess Davis had a fall at fence 16, after which she was taken to hospital to be checked. Her ride Imperio Magic walked away.

“He made me work today. That wasn’t quite as easy and free flowing as as he has been sometimes – I think the 20-minute hold beforehand meant it just took a little while to get going,” said David, who was eighth at Kentucky on Galileo in 2023.

“And there are so many undulations and ups and downs, I think it just really took it out of his brain a little bit. Our last ride here was smoother.

“But he is a real galloping machine – he’s a bit of a freak when it comes to the galloping side of it – and he’s still towed me down the hill home. He lost his left front shoe too, which was a little bit annoying, but he’s such a cool horse.”

David went round the trees to the direct corner out of the Defender Head of the Lake (fence 19b) because he said the horse “just emptied on me a little bit, and I didn’t quite have the oomph to get the four strides up to the corner”.

David co-owns the seasoned Galileo with Mary Fox and Gillian Jonas, who is 93 years old and has made the trip to Kentucky to watch her horse.

Tom McEwen drops out of podium places

David’s compatriot Tom McEwen was third after dressage, but slid to sixth today with eight time-faults on John and Chloe Perry and Alison Swinburn’s Brookfield Quality.

“Fence three here for the past two years, with the big ditch underneath, hasn’t been ideal for ‘Norris’. For any other five-star horse, it’s a perfect fence just to run and jump at, but with Norris it sends him up and it starts a catalyst of more ditches coming, and we just get higher and higher and slower and slower,” said Tom.

“But I was absolutely delighted with him – he was honest as the day is long. I don’t think I could have got many more inches or seconds out of him.”

Tom had a bit of a dicey journey through the rail, ditch, box shoulder hedge question at fence 7abcd, the Care Credit Question, saying his ride at the fence last year had been playing on his mind although he has jumped numerous ditches schooling last year.

“To be honest, for him to have such big spook at the ditch and to actually get out over the final part – I couldn’t be happier with him. He’s fantastic. He tried his heart out,” he said.

Harry Meade moved up from 10th to eighth with six time-faults on his own and Mandy Gray’s Superstition and slid from eighth to equal 11th with 11.6 time-penalties on Amanda Gould’s Grafennacht.

Tom Jackson finished the day in 16th, a rise from equal 23rd after dressage, having added nine penalties for taking out a flag and 12.4 time-faults with Ruth McMullen and Mary Harris’s Plot Twist B.

His fault came Pete’s Hollow, where the direct route was two triple brush arrowheads on a turn around a rise, after a drop from the initial log.

“It’s frustrating from a results point of view, but he didn’t really know that he’d done anything wrong,” said Tom.

“Just as he took off, he went left a bit and kicked out the flag with one of his front feet and I didn’t know whether I was quite on the line or not, so I had to go around and do the alternative. But he was up on his minute markers to that point and everywhere else he was straight as a die.”

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