CLAYTON HAS THE EDGE

Clayton Fredericks and Nullabor (no. 28) remained at the top of the leaderboard at the end of the first day of dressage at the Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials. The British based Australian, the only rider unfortunate to get rained on today, admitted to have taken a liking to the silver Mitsubishi Motors trophy that his wife Lucinda won last year. “We did get used to it decorating our sitting room but there is an awful long way to go yet before it comes back and a lot of stuff to do out there,” said Clayton.

British rider Emily Baldwin and Drivetime came close to matching Nullabor’s test and finished the day just 1.4 penalties behind the Australian – the two combinations were the only ones to break the 40 penalty barrier today. Twenty-seven-year old Emily a former Junior European team gold medallist, has ridden the Dutch-bred 12 year-old, who is by the Concorde son Rolls Royce, for three seasons. “The combinations after the Colt Pond (fence 14) are going to be difficult. They come up one after the other and it is going to take some strong riding to get through them,” said Emily.

Rodney Powell, a winner here 17-years ago in 1991, moved into third place with Zin Zan II, a New Zealand Thoroughbred owned by Rodney’s long-time owners Rex and Marguerite Boucher, in partnership with Nel Bucker and David Hamilton. 

Dressage continues tomorrow at 9.30am – Australian Matt Ryan and Bonza Puzzle are first in the arena. There are still many strongly fancied combinations yet to perform their dressage test including Mary King and Imperial Cavalier and 2004 Badminton winners William Fox-Pitt and Mary Guiness’s homebred, Tamarillo.