King Lepantino franked his name as one to watch with a win in the young horse grand prix at the 2023 Longines Royal International Horse Show.
This promising eight-year-old, ridden by Britain’s Matt Sampson, has not touched a pole all week and capped his first visit to Hickstead with victory in Sunday’s Clipmyhorse.tv CSIYH1* grand prix.
Watch Matt talk about why he thinks King Lepantino is so exciting in the video below
Runners up Nicole Lockhead Andereson and the seven-year-old Conthargos PS – who won in the Longines main arena on Friday – held the lead before the fences were raised for the eight-year-old horses. Matt and the scopey Arezzo VDL son shaved almost a second off the pair’s time, to collect their sash.
“He shows all the signs of a five-star grand prix horse,” said Matt.
“He has a lot of qualities. He’s ultra careful – he’s jumped double clear every day this week, he always jumps clear. One thing for me that really makes him special is when I ask him any questions he does everything in his body to answer those.
“Every time he jumps he gets better and his attitude is amazing. I’m very lucky to have him.”
This bay, owned by Cumberland Acres, joined Matt at the start of last year, having been successfully campaigned by Poland’s Marek Lewicki, and his FEI record is awash with clear rounds.
“He’s an incredible horse, I’m very lucky to have him. He’s so careful, that’s the biggest he’s ever done and he just takes it all in his stride,” said Matt.
“It’s so good to have this class for the up-and-coming horses, it means they are not going directly into the five-star classes, which is overwhelming for them sometimes. To have this, where they naturally progress over the week, it’s a credit to Lizzie Bunn and everyone at Hickstead – not many five-stars put on a class like that – for us as riders, it’s amazing.”
On beating two of Lizzie’s own horses in the class, Matt joked: “That was dangerous – but I’m going to buy her a bottle of champagne and hopefully she will forget about it!”
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