Ros has another accolade to add to her glittering CV. Lordships Graffalo took her to victory at Burghley by six penalites.
Izilot DHI led the dressage on a score of 19.9 – the second best ever score at Burghley, but after a blip in Discovery Valley Ros pulled him up, there’s always another day.
However, in second place after dressage was Lordships Graffalo on a score of 22.0. Across country the pair was foot perfect, coming home one second inside the optimum time – and winning the Avebury Trophy in the process for the best ridden round of the day, judged by Yogi Breisner, who said: “It was the round of the day, the perfect round. Ros ticked every box in my list of criteria. I can’t imagine that we will ever see better.”
Ahead of the showjumping Ros had less than a fence in hand, but one down by Vitali gave her a bit more breathing space and enabled her to take a wide line to a 180* turn resulting in 1.6 time penalties. It was good enough to post the best ever Burghley finishing score and give Ros the Defender Burghley title.
Photo © Trevor Holt