A British-bred stallion, by the top event sire Rock King, took the four-year-old title at the 2005 PAVO British Eventing Breeding Championships at Tweseldown earlier this week.
Bred by Edith Rutherford, out of an Abergwiffy mare, Ideal Rock went down well with the dressage judges, who gave him an incredible score of 15 for this phase, and later drew admiration from spectators when he took part in the stallion parade.
Ridden and part-owned by Brook Staples, the four-year-old will stand at stud for the first time next year, as well as continuing with his eventing career.
“I think stallions have to do some work before they get the mares, so they learn the two different jobs,” said Staples, who believes the stallion has a great future ahead of him.
Tokay won the five-year-old class for Ruth Edge, after relegating Epic, ridden by Andrew Nicholson, to second place by virtue of being closer to the optimum time on the cross-country.
“He did everything asked of him today,” said Edge of the five-year-old, who made a great start to his event career when winning his first three pre-novices in a row in the spring.
In the six-year-old class, all eyes were on Fran Morgan’s Irish Jester, who was champion four- and five-year-old at the PAVO championships. Unfortunately he couldn’t complete the hat-trick and finished fifth with his joint owner Angela Tucker.
Salerno, a six-year-old Dutch Warmblood, took the class under Sarah Bullimore for Chris and Susan Gillespie. Salerno is by Lorenzo, out of Lepona.
The new in-hand classes were well received as the top yearling Pleasure Beacon (by It’s Without Doubt, out of Rising Time by Primitive Rising) was crowned champion ahead the best two-year-old, Thomas Gudanov (by Baryshnikov out of Bairn Free). Fine Feathers (by Hercrose out of Regal Venture by Motivate) won the three-year-old section and was the only filly to win her class.
The stallion parade was well attended with a number of young horses capturing the crowd’s imagination. These included last year’s four-year-old champion Up With The Lark, who finished fourth in the five-year-old class this time, and Hartpury College’s Take It 2 The Limit, who finished third in the five-year-old class with Leslie Law, as well as the aforementioned Ideal Rock.
