Piggy March guided Coolparks Sarco – the former ride of Nicola Wilson – to his first five-star completion for fourth in the Pau five-star.
Piggy and the Lamberts’ 11-year-old gelding produced a superb double jumping clear, and had 8.4 time-penalties across country, to finish on a 36.5 score.
“What a lovely horse, I’m very lucky,” said Piggy.
The pair got their five-star journey off to a fantastic start when they were the best of the Brits on the first day of dressage at Pau on Thursday (26 October), despite torrential downpours.
Ahead of yesterday’s (28 October) cross-country, moments before Piggy and Coolparks Sarco were due in the start box, the gelding lost a shoe warming up, and so this had to be refitted and the pair had to warm-up again. But this interruption had no impact on their round, and they were one of only a handful who had less than 10 time-penalties.
The pair went into the showjumping in overnight fifth, but climbed a place when Kirsty Chabert and Classic VI (who were in third) and Pippa Funnell and MCS Maverick (who were in sixth) both had faults to drop down the order.
Piggy and Coolparks Sarco produced a beautiful textbook clear round, but on reflection Piggy thought she could have gone a little bit quicker in the showjumping.
“I’m thrilled, but I was maybe a bit lucky as I was only a little bit in the time,” she said.
“I didn’t feel like I hung around, but he jumped really well and I was probably a quarter of a second in the air more than I thought it felt. He was really getting up and flicking his tail, so it was nearly a rider error, but he felt fantastic,” she said.
Piggy took over the ride of Coolparks Sarco from her close friend Nicola Wilson, following Nicola’s riding accident at Badminton Horse Trials in 2022. Tom McEwen took over the ride on JL Dublin, and they finished Pau five-star in third.
“It’s been a big weekend here, with JL Dublin here too, and hopefully we did Nic-Noc proud,” said Piggy.
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‘Pau on the extreme’: Brits come out on top during dramatic five-star cross-country day
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