Five-star event rider Sarah Bullimore has enjoyed a number of impressive results at the highest echelons of her sport. Most of these results have come with Reve Du Rouet (pictured), who Sarah has produced since he was a four-year-old, and include second place at Pau CCI5* in 2017 and fourth place at Burghley in both 2018 and 2019.
“He’s a lovely horse and talent-wise he is amazing, but he has been tricky in his brain,” says Sarah of the now 16-year-old gelding when H&H eventing editor Pippa Roome chatted to her on episode 25 of The Horse & Hound podcast. “You have to work him and keep him happy and you can’t take him on head on, you have to just work around it and find another way — it’s all about keeping his brain right. But I think we’ve got the right mixture now and he is one of the most consistent, reliable horses on the circuit.”
Reve Du Rouet has completed a whopping 11 CCI5*s and Sarah cites her second place at Pau as her biggest highlight to date with the son of Balou Du Rouet.
“We came so close to winning at Pau and in my eyes he did win, as with the modern day scoring system we use now, he would have done,” explains Sarah. “It was something ridiculous like 0.17 of a second that pushed us over into one more time-fault on the cross-country that meant we lost the title by 0.1 of a penalty. And both of his fourth places at Burghley were brilliant too — both were foot-perfect cross-country rounds, which was special.”
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Sarah still has hopes that, despite his age, Reve Du Rouet can still compete on the big stage when the 2021 season comes around.
“He’s tough and sound and hopefully he’s still got a little bit of competing left in the tank. He still prances around like a spring chicken and we say that he’s basically four, four times over now,” she laughs.
If you’d like to hear more from Sarah, listen to episode 25 of The Horse & Hound podcast or search “The Horse & Hound Podcast” in your favourite podcast app.
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