Becky Moody and Magic Dream absolutely blew away the competition with the highest of the young horse scores at the NAF Five Star Hartpury Festival of Dressage, posting a huge 92.6% to win the five-year-old semi-final.
The Govenor x Swarovski mare’s score included 10s for the trot and way of going, as well as 9.5 for overall impression, and the win crowned a super week for Becky, who achieved a very impressive hat-trick of wins in the CDI3*.
Magic Dream is owned by Jo Cooper, and was bought from a video during lockdown in 2020.
“We found her through Rebecca Dudley, an agent in the Netherlands who we have worked with quite a lot. She rang me and said she’d seen a lovely three-year-old over there. When I saw her video, what I really loved about Magic Dream was her reactions. She wasn’t massively spectacular but she was very elastic,” reveals Becky.
“When she arrived, she was lovely, but the first time I rode her she did spectacularly ditch me on the floor. Something just upset her and I wasn’t staying on. But since then she has been fantastic.”
The mare already has a national title to her name with Becky’s stable jockey Anna Burns winning the national prelim silver title on her at last year’s National Dressage Championships.
Of their mark at Hartpury, Becky said, “You never really know what you’re going to get in a young horse class, but I did think the judging was quite good in the young horse scores she got. You never quite expect 92.6% though!
“Hopefully she is going to be a grand prix horse of the future. She shows real capacity for piaffe already, and she’s got a very good brain and engine.”
Second to Becky Moody and Magic Dream was Holly Bates and Hillgrounds Feinline.
‘He reduced me to tears because he tried so hard’
Blue Hors Zackorado and Beth Bainbridge posted the highest of the young horse scores across the World Breeding Championship selection trials with 89.6% in the six-year-old section.
Zackorado is by Blue Hors Zack out of the Florencio mare Roxanna, and was bred by Paul Rode. The breeding stallion is standing with Elite Stallions in Britain this year, in a lease agreement between Lorna Wilson and owners Blue Hors Stud in Denmark.
“The horse is just absolutely delightful. He is just wonderful,” said Beth. “He reduced me to tears in my test today, because he tried so hard.”
The young stallion scored nines for all three of his paces and perspective, and 8.8 for submission.
Beth Bainbridge and Blue Hors Zackorado at the Hartpury Festival of Dressage 2022
Second to Blue Hors Zackorado and Beth in the selection trial were Sarah Rogers and Full Moon II, but the results were reversed in the six-year-old semi-final, with Sarah creeping ahead of Beth to win on 88.6% with the Bechtolsheimers’s home-bred Fürstenball gelding, who took the five-year-old title at the National Dressage Championships in 2021.
Another 2021 young horse champion dominated in her new age group this year: Sadie Smith topped both the seven-year-old semi-final and the selection trial with her own stunning British-bred Dante Weltino x Charatin mare Swanmore Dantina. The pair posted plus-81% in both classes, scoring nines in every section across the two tests.
Sarah Millis squeaked ahead of Charlotte Dicker (Catherston Tuxedo) to win the five-year-old selection trial on her own Franklin son Macklin.
‘It felt like he’d been here before’
Dannie Morgan gave everyone a name to remember in Fever Tree, the Foundation x Dayano son he rode to an 89.4% win in the four-year-old semi-final.
The gelding was bred by Bowlake Equestrian, Dannie’s long-term base, and after backing “Gordon” in November 2021, Dannie said he “had to have him”, and bought him.
“Right from a foal he has always been a beautiful model. He is super talented, with a lovely temperament and brain and it all feels very easy for him – he’s a natural,” said Dannie. “Hartpury was his third show but it felt like he’d been here before. He is very good in the rhythm, very loose and elastic with a scopey canter and so much natural energy.”
The best scoring combination across the young pony age classes was Eilidh Grant and Charming Duke, a Caesar 171 son who took the six-year-old class with 81.8%, including a nine for overall impression from the judges.
Elli Darling and Dawn Pack’s Rembrandt son Renzo Renaissance DP scored a round 80% to head the five-year-olds, while top four-year-old was Elaine Coleridge-Smith’s WfD Champagne Supernova, a son of Champion De Luxe, and ridden by Alice Perry.
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