Tom McEwen, who performed his dressage test yesterday afternoon, still heads the leaderboard at MARS Badminton Horse Trials with a score of 22.4, although his Olympic team mate, Ros Canter on Lordships Graffalo, has inched closer, on 25.3.

The next five places – Emily King, Tom Woodward, Yasmin Ingham, Oliver Townend and Gemma Stevens – remain unchanged, with Ireland’s Georgie Goss (Feloupe) and Switzerland’s Felix Vogg (Cartania) both scoring under 30 penalties to lie in eighth and ninth places.

Lordships Graffalo looked as magnificent as ever, but Ros’s chances of taking over the lead were dashed by mistakes in both flying changes.

“He’s always struggled a bit with the [flying] changes, but the mistakes were my fault. He loves the atmosphere here and is getting stronger all the time,” Ros said after her test.

Atmosphere is building ahead of the potential for some high-scoring tests to come this afternoon from the likes of two-horse riders Oliver Townend on his Kentucky winner Cooley Rosalent, Gemma Stevens on Jalapeno and Tim Price with Vitali.