Burghley and Tokyo prep day

Before West Wilts I managed to get up to Burghley for the day to walk the course.  I very much enjoyed walking with The Eventing Club members, we had a good turnout of enthusiasts and I was very impressed with how many made the finish.

I couldn’t stay at Burghley to watch the cross country but what a fantastic result for Pippa Funnell.  I am very pleased for her that she pulled it off.  She was obviously riding a good horse but it was her sheer brilliance that turned a good performance into a victory.
There was obviously a bit of drama on the cross country but overall it was a high class competition, and it was also a brilliant second for Piggy on her Badminton winner, and Oli did well again yet again, in third place. We had a pre-Tokyo day at Bisham Abbey and Pippa was certainly fairly worn out after a couple of crazy weeks.  

It will be very sad to see Mark Phillips move on from Burghley next year, and new course designer before Derek di Grazia come to the helm in 2021.  It was disappointing for Mark that the frangible pin had such a presence in his penultimate year, and I did come away from watching Burghley hoping that the future of Eventing wasn’t going to all be about frangible pins.