BRITAIN’S Francis Whittington proved an extremely popular winner of the 24th Blenheim Palace International Horse Trials, jumping a perfect clear round on Catherine Witt’s Easy Target to give the sporting runner-up, William Fox-Pitt, no room for error on Freddie Mac.

Crowd figures were up 15% on last year and they had plenty to cheer about. In comparison to the antipodean bonanza in the CIC, this was a British one-two-three, with William second after Freddie Mac hit the first part of the treble, and Jodie Amos thrilled to find herself in such distinguished company, scoring a career best with third place on Wise Crack.

Flying the flag for Ireland at the top event was Joseph Murphy who enjoyed a top 10 finish with Westwinds Hercules, owned by Alison Schmutz. The duo were one of only three combinations to make the time cross-country.

However Blenheim 2014 belonged to the British who occupied the top six slots. Pippa Funnell, already a record four-time winner of this competition, was fourth on Second Supreme, Francis Whittington was fifth on another horse owned by Catherine Witt, Fernhill Highlight, while Kitty King was sixth on Persimmon.

New Zealander Tim Price was best of the overseas riders, dropping from third to seventh with a couple of rails down on Ringwood Sky Boy.

Becky Woolven (25) had a brilliant first three-star, finishing 11th on LB The Phantom and collecting the Horse Trials Support Group’s cheque for £500 for the best British rider 25 and under plus the prize for the highest-placed Blenheim first-timer.

The main causualty was Italian rider Vittoria Panizzon who had a disastrous round on Merlots Magic dropping from sixth to 28th with eight fences down.

It has been a long wait for international success for Whittington, who 21 years ago, became the first boy to win the Pony European Championships. A great all-round horseman, he has been second twice in major competitions this summer, at Barbury and Gatcombe (both times behind Andrew Nicholson on the triple Burghley winner Avebury), and this is his first major international win for the 37-year-old equine dentist.

“I am just so pleased. It’s been a long wait and so it means an awful lot. But I remember back when I won that pony title, that I had been second a lot and then suddenly I had a feeling that it was all going to go well. In fact, the reason we came here was because we felt we had every chance of winning,” said the delighted winner.

Whittington will now return the 13-year-old “Smokie”, an Irish-bred grey gelding, to four-star level – they’re aiming for Badminton next year – with an eye on the European Championships at Blair Castle and then, in 2016, the Rio Olympics.

Earlier Jonelle Price rode a sparkling cross-country round on Trisha Rickards and Jacky Green’s homebred grey mare Faerie Dianimo (by Keystone Dimaggio) to lead an antipodean whitewash in the prestigious CIC for eight and nine-year-old horses at Blenheim.

The New Zealander’s dressage and show jumping score of 43.2 was sufficient to keep her in a narrow lead with 4.4 time penalties. The competition came to an exciting climax against the clock as the optimum time of six minutes 49 seconds proved elusive.

Only three riders achieved it, the best of whom was fellow Kiwi Andrew Nicholson on Sally Egginton’s Irish-bred Cillnabradden Evo, a horse he has taken on this year from Lucy Wiegersma, who rose steadily up the order from 11th to second place, just 0.2 of a penalty behind the winners. Cilnabradden Evo was bred by well-known show jumping course building Tom Holden and his wife Orla.

Third-placed Australian Paul Tapner was just one second over the optimum on Indian Mill and that cost him second place – he finished only 0.1 penalty behind Nicholson.

New Zealander Jock Paget was fourth on Clifton Signature while Australian Sam Griffiths, the dressage leader, was fifth on Favorit Z after adding seven show jumping penalties and eight across country.

France’s Thomas Carlile was the highest placed European and best of the Blenheim first-timers in sixth on Sirocco du Gers.

The Dutch leader after the first two phases, world bronze medallist Tim Lips, was also paying his first visit to Blenheim. He dropped to seventh place with 15.2 penalties on Bayro.

The main casualty among the higher placed riders after the first two phases was Britain’s Oliver Townend who had an awkward jump over the first brush into the water on Cooley Master Class and glanced off the second two strides later.