CO Down’s Susie Berry scored a runner-up finish with John The Bull in the CCI4*-S at Aston Le Walls International over the weekend, only being beaten by her partner Max Warburton riding Deerpairc Revelry to their first four-star win.

Warburton scored 24.2 in dressage and only added 1.2 show jumping time-penalties to that to finish on 25.4 - only Warburton and Berry finished within the allocated time across the country.

Berry finished just behind on board Helen Caton’s John The Bull, when they only added 0.4 show jumping time penalties to their 28.9 dressage score to finish on 29.3.

Really exciting

Afterwards, Berry commented: “It’s been a really exciting day for us both. To be fair to Max, having gone early he did give me some feedback, which he doesn’t always do - likes to keep his cards close to his chest - but he knew he’d beaten me whatever I did, so it was fine.

“I don’t think I will ever have a horse like John The Bull again, to be honest. He makes me a bit teary talking about him. He’s been an incredible horse for me. At Bramham, we had a bit of a wild test, but here I was super happy with him.”