Lissa Green will not be making her debut at the Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials after making what she has described as the “one of the toughest decisions I’ll ever make”.
The daughter of twice Burghley winner Lucinda Green, who switch nationalities to ride for Australia earlier this year, posted on an explanation on her Instagram account.
“I can’t quite believe I’m saying this but I have made, in my small world, one of the toughest decisions I’ll ever make and that is to withdraw my darling Hollyfield from Burghley today.
“He has been ever improving since an unwarned, drastic firework display last Saturday night was set off barely 100m from his field. They woke me up where I live, but by the time I had got into the car and driven to all my horses they had stopped… leaving them in utter terror having had a serious gallop around.
“Having felt no cuts in the dead of the night I thought we may have got away with it… Sadly it became clear that our man had given himself a fair whack on the inside hind leg and wrenched his hips out. We iced him every two hours for three days straight and got the physio in – I cannot get over my amazing mother and world-class groom for helping take it in turns through the night to continue his ice therapy so he didn’t miss a two hour slot.
“We had our incredible vet with us every day and at the dramatic rate he improved we hoped he would make the cross-country today. Although there are no visual ailments to his injury and he is 100% sound, I felt yesterday that he wasn’t carrying weight 100% evenly behind and I can’t bare him having to tackle this mega cross-country like that.
“Our top physio Hannah Complin travelled up with us and she can’t feel much wrong behind in her hands now, if he was always tight behind you’d say he felt great – the problem is he is NEVER tight behind, so the fact she can still feel something minimal is enough in my mind to feel it’s too foreign to him to have make such an enormous effort today.
“We have no big issue here apart from the fact I WISH Burghley was next week. The likelihood is that he’d be fine to run today, but I could and would never forgive myself IF something happened to him. He feels SO well in himself, so fit and up for it, it makes it all the more difficult.
“After a few hugs and tears we will accept our fate and re-route to Pau. I actually cannot get over my syndicate, all the love and care they have put into this horse, they have been nothing but supportive. All of whom understand the need to put the horse first. *Heart icon*”
Lissa successfully completed her first four-star at Badminton with Hollyfield II in the spring. They scored 37.9 in their dressage test at Burghley this time.
Keep up to date with the latest news from Burghley on HorseandHound.co.uk, and don’t miss the full report in Horse & Hound, on sale Thursday 6 September
