David Doel finished last year on a high with second at Burghley Horse Trials on his top horse, Galileo Nieuwmoed, who starts at Mars Maryland 5 Star this week. After such a result, which followed a consistent record of placings at five-star, a rider could reasonably expect more success the next season.
But horses rarely follow a script, and David has had a “really frustrating season” with the 13-year-old horse, who belongs to his rider, Mary Fox and Gillian Jonas.
“He started the year well at Kronenberg,” said David, who was fourth at the Dutch CCI4*-S. “Then he went to Badminton Horse Trials and really wasn’t feeling himself – he was very lethargic and not interested in life, which isn’t like him – so he did the dressage and we took the tough decision not to run him across country.”
David re-routed to Luhmühlen Horse Trials, where he finished ninth, having had an uncharacteristic two showjumps down and two time-faults on Sunday.
“He ran super there and I think he was almost over fresh on the last day – he was really perky and a little tight in his jumping,” said David.
“He came back and went out in the field for a couple of quiet days and managed to cut his hock, which got really badly infected. He ended up having about six weeks off, which is why he didn’t make it to Burghley this year, because he lost so much work.
“We managed to squeeze in one run in the advanced at Wellington, where he felt fab and back on form.”
As Galileo has contested Pau three times, David Doel and his connections then decided to target Maryland 5 Star.
“Everyone said Maryland was a little bit Burghley-esque with the terrain and what Ian Stark designs for the cross-country, so obviously I was very lucky his owner Gillian Jonas funded the trip over here. It’s definitely very like Burghley in terms of having a lot of terrain and a lot of big fences to jump. Hopefully that will suit us and we’ll see what happens.”
David started his Maryland campaign with 34.5 in the dressage yesterday (17 October).
“I was happy enough with our test,” he said. “It was a little bit frustrating as it was one of the most rideable tests he’s done, but he just got a few too many sixes and six and a halves. But we are not far off the top and it’s definitely going to be a cross-country competition. It’s a big old track out there, similar to last year or probably even tougher.”
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