IRISH Sport Horses scooped the top three prizes at this year’s lauded Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials, an event which not only marked a high point for Irish breeding but also a renaissance in British luck. Riders sporting the Union Flag netted the top four placings, Oliver Townend (34), the best of the quartet when he returned to the top step of the podium after an eight-year break.

This brought the home side’s victory drought, which had lasted since 2011 when William Fox-Pitt last claimed the spoils, to an emphatic end.

Yorkshireman Townend earned the victor’s sash aboard Angela Hislop’s precociously talented Ballaghmor Class, by Courage and out of Kilderry Place. The grey was bred by Noel Hickey in Co Limerick and sold as a three-year-old to Judy Tobin and Kathy Charlton by Pat Meagher via the Tattersalls Ireland Elite Event Horse Sale. The son of Courage was eventually sold into Townend’s yard as a four-year-old.

Despite this being the 10-year-old gelding’s first four-star, he tackled the world’s toughest cross-country course with aplomb, his only mistake coming the following day when he levelled a white gate in the atmospheric show jumping arena, but he still earned a standing ovation from the capacity crowd.

“I was looking in the collecting ring and thought that I wouldn’t swap my horse for any of the others,” said an emotional Townend. “It takes a long time to produce horses to this level and you get through a lot of numbers to get to the class ones.”

With a cushion of four faults handed to the winners by Gemma Tattersall and Arctic Soul’s mistake at the penultimate show jump (this ISH, bred by Michael Whitty by National Hunt sire Luso, wound up third), Townend ended up a hair’s breadth ahead of his former partner, Piggy French. Riding the impressive ISH mare Vanir Kamira, by Camiro De Haar out of Fair Caledonian, French, too, was emotional ahead of prize-giving. Demoralised by the sport, she had taken a year out from the competitive fray while she had a baby, and she had returned with a renewed determination to “have fun”.

TOUGH GAME

“Eventing is a tough game mentally and I was close to stopping. I came here hoping for a top-10 finish and [Vanir Kamira] was fabulous. I often eat the Burghley dirt,” said French, who was recording her best result here by a mile.

The highest placed rider sporting the tricolour was Clare Abbott, 13th with her ebullient 14-year-old Euro Prince, who was enjoying his first Burghley run. The pair pulled off a deliberate, steady climb through the leaderboard from 23rd after the dressage.

“We were sixth into the arena on Thursday morning when the judges tend to be conservative with their marks and you have to earn every point,” said Abbott after accruing 48.1. The maths teacher, who took a year’s sabbatical to concentrate on the Rio Olympics, lay 12th following a storming round across the country for 15.2 penalties. A pole dislodged from the vertical in the hot-house main arena saw her slip one slot.

“We got too close. It was jockey error,” said Abbott of her blip. “We were travelling around the corner and I took one pull too many. He literally just tapped it off.”

Twenty-four hours earlier, the chesnut’s trajectory around Mark Phillips’s 34-fence cross-country course had been almost perfect, barring an 11th-hour change of plan at the Land Rover Trout Hatchery.

“I had him going fast around the track, but at the water he was a little too forward going, so I had to take an unplanned long route on the way out. He finished well. He’s feeling the best he’s ever done and I hope that if he keeps going like this there will be a big result on the cards,” said Abbott, just before heading off to catch a ferry to ensure that she was back at work for an early Monday start.

DREAMS

Worcestershire-based business manager Alan Nolan was planning to be back at his desk at Gain Equine Nutrition first thing on Monday morning too, but the rider who originally hails from Shillelagh in Co Wicklow was at least able to celebrate a 27th placing with the 18-year-old Bronze Flight (‘Precious’).

“He was phenomenal across country. It’s what dreams are made of,” said Nolan. “We only had one sticky moment, when he got a bit close to the exit at the Discovery Valley, but other than that he was amazing. He answered question after question. The first person I met after I had galloped through the finish was my vet, who said, ‘You’ll be off to Badminton now’.”

The pair was anchored by a 59.1 from the dressage, but Nolan confessed that he had achieved his aim of netting a sub-60 first phase score at his third Burghley.

“Precious has always been tricky on the flat. He’s sharp and buzzy and the atmosphere can get to him,” said Nolan.

All three Irish riders had clean jumping rounds in the clubhouse by Saturday evening, but disappointment ensued in Sarah Ennis’s camp when she was withdrew her 26th placed BLM Diamond Delux before the final vet’s inspection.

Kiwi Mark Todd and Leonidas II led the dressage, closely followed by America’s Lauren Kieffer and the mare Veronica, with 2015 Burghley winners Michael Jung and La Biosthetique Sam in third.

The leaderboard underwent a hefty Saturday shuffle, however, with Todd and Leonidas hitting the deck at Discovery Valley when the horse failed to engage his landing gear after a big leap over the first element. Veronica – never the fastest around the country – accrued a clutch of time faults, while Jung was a surprise casualty of the first of the triple brushes at the Trout Hatchery, where the bay gelding ducked out.

“I was too slow in my reaction. I lost my reins and the horse didn’t see the jump,” said the double Olympic Champion. Zara Tindall, too, bowed out at a Trout Hatchery triple brush, where she was decanted by High Kingdom leaving a front leg. Andrew Nicholson suffered a crunching fall from Qwanza at Storm Doris’s enormous tree trunk corner. Despite looking sore, he was passed fit to ride his second horse, Nereo (eighth).

During a day of drama, the tough really got going, Townend, French, Tattersall – laid low with a cold and a chest infection – and Tom McEwen (fourth with Toledo De Kerser) all rising to the top, along with Izzy Taylor (Trevidden). The latter duo, though, plummeted from third with a double-figure show jumping penalty score.

There was one serious fall, at the Leaf Pit, for American Lillian Heard and LCC Barnaby. The horse, trapped in the fence and initially winded, was nevertheless reported to be uninjured and doing well the following day.