AUSTIN O’Connor and the amazing Colorado Blue finished second at the 2025 Defender Burghley Horse Trials last Sunday for their second podium finish at a five-star event this year. The result was Ireland’s best finishing result at Burghley since Harry Freeman-Jackson won with St Finbarr in 1963. O’Connor’s penalty score was also the lowest ever achieved by an Irish rider at the prestigious event.

Completing on 32.6, O’Connor was nine points off the winner, Ros Canter, who won the event for the second year in a row with Lordships Graffalo, making ‘Walter’ the first horse ever to win two titles at both Badminton and Burghley.