The Houghton International Horse Trials on this weekend includes a Nations Cup competition within the CICO3* and New Zealand is fielding a team.
Sir Mark Todd makes yet another appearance on a New Zealand team, riding Obos Colombus. His team mates are Tim Price on Bango, Caroline Powell with Onwards and Upwards and Jesse Campbell on Cleveland. Megan Heath and Camelot, and Annabel Wigley on Frog Rock are the reserves.
The team draw has been done and New Zealand has drawn sixth. Other countries taking part (with their draw number) are: France(1); USA (2); Netherlands (3); Australia (4); Great Britain (5) and Germany (6).
The event is also part of the Shearwater Insurance Tri-Star Grand Slam, which has a £50,000 ‘winner-takes-all’ prize fund for any rider who can win three of the five CIC3* events in the series: Burnham Market International, Belton International, Houghton International, Hopetoun International and Burgham International.
More than 700 horses will compete at the event which starts overnight NZ time with dressage and the Young Event Horse competition. Dressage continues on Friday, with the Nations Cup dressage on Saturday. Cross-country is on both Saturday and Sunday (Nations Cup) with show jumping also on both days, so it is an action-packed weekend.
There are plenty of New Zealand appearances. It is great to see Caroline Powell back in full steam after having time off with her broken leg. Here’s the list of Kiwi entries:
CICO3*
- Jesse Campbell: Cleveland
- Megan Heath: Camelot
- Caroline Powell: Flying Finish, Onwards And Upwards and Up Up And Away
- Tim Price: Bango
- Sir Mark Todd: Obos Colombus
- Annabel Wigley: Cotswold and Frog Rock
CCI1*
- Caroline Powell: Chance Encounter VII and Shepherds Watch
- Tim Price: Pats Jester
- Jonelle Price: Jacksonlyn
- Hannah Norvill: In the Darco
CCI2*
- Lucy Jackson: Annestown Envoy, The Last Striker and Mercury Bay
- Jonelle Price: Kindred Spirit IV
- Lizzie Brown: Havanna Vant Castanaehof
- Neil Spratt: Director General
- Tim Price: Danturano K
- Megan Heath: Wolke Sieben 49
You can keep up with the live scoreboard on this link.
Libby Law will be there to get some great photos for us and we will be posting these throughout the weekend. At this stage we haven’t discovered any live streaming of the event but we will let you know if we do!
Good luck the Kiwi team!
