‘It’s a little spooky!’ – William Fox-Pitt rides two clones of his former equine superstars

The crowd at the 2024 Defender Burghley Horse Trials who stayed on after dressage on day one were treated to a a slice of history, as William Fox-Pitt rode two event horse clones in the main arena, in a masterclass hosted by his wife Alice. These horses are genetic replicas of two of his five-star winners, Tamarillo and Chilli Morning.

Tamarillo, by Tarnik out of Mellita, won both Burghley and Badminton, plus European individual silver and Olympic team silver. In his latter years, his owner-breeders Finn and Mary Guinness decided to make a clone of this Polish Anglo-Arab, so that they could have a stallion to preserve his brilliant genes for breeding. His clone – named Tomatillo, another type of tomato – is an 11-year-old bay stallion, born 21 years after the original. He was backed by William, and is now being competed at four-star by Aaron Millar.

“I was producing him but decided he was a little bit small for me,” said William. “He would have carried me anywhere but the look isn’t quite it. So we gave him to Aaron Millar who is doing an amazing job with him and we are really dreaming of big things to come.

“Both horses are real eventing athletes; with strong bodies and find galloping very easy. Of all the horses I rode at Burghley, Tamarillo probably made it feel the smallest and this chap’s a bit the same.

“Tomatillo is different because he’s a stallion whereas ‘Tam’ was a gelding, so he has a little bit of stallion arrogance about him, which Tam never had. This one thinks he’s the business. He gives me a real feeling of finding things easy as well. He feels like he’d gallop round here all day; he has a lovely big loose stride.”

For William, Tomatillo is “slightly better made”.

“He has better balance and even though he’s smaller, he’s more uphill,” he said. “He has better carriage and finds the flying changes a little bit easier than old Tam. But he hasn’t always got Tam’s obedience – he has his own agenda sometimes, and Aaron works very closely with that to keep him on side without getting too bossy.”

Alice pointed out that Tomatillo, like Tam, has that “Arab trait of holding his tail high”.

“Tam also liked to throw in a little buck when the flying changes first came in – and at the trot-up; he had a big personality.”

Their personality traits are fascinating, opening the discussion of nature versus nurture.

“Of course, they had different mothers,” said William. “For the first few months of life, Tamarillo was brought up by a little Anglo Araby feisty mare who was scared of her own shadow. This chap was brought up in Texas by a relaxed old Percheron, so they’ve had a very different take on life. This chap thinks, ‘what on earth is there to worry about?’, while Tamarillo was brought up to think that everything was terrifying, so I think that is a factor. Their personality might be the same, but their development is very different.

“Tam didn’t really like men and I always thought, ‘poor Tam, someone somewhere has given him a hard time, got frustrated with him and that’s why he doesn’t like men’. Some days he would not let me catch him in the stable, so my groom Jackie Potts would get him ready and as soon as I got on he was fine. But in the stable it could be like he’d never seen me before.

“Then, when I was starting this guy, some days I’d go into the stable and he’d rush to the back as if saying, ‘who are you? I’m terrified!’ I knew no one has ever given him a hard time – so there are certain things that are in the chromosomes and aren’t anything to do with what we do and how we might have ‘ruined’ them. It’s just in him not to like men. Funny things like that must be something to do with biology.”

Chilli Morning’s event horse clones: number IV

William then swapped on to Chris and Lisa Stone’s Chilli Morning IV, a chestnut stallion with a white blaze very like the original. He’s a seven-year-old competing at three-star level with Gemma Stevens, and aiming for Le Lion d’Angers young horse world championships at the end of the season. The original Chilli Morning, who died in 2020, is the only stallion to have been victorious at Badminton, and he won Bramham three times, world individual bronze and team silver, as well as 12th at the Rio Olympics.

“It’s very strange getting on him because I don’t know him at all,” William said. “But straight away I get a feeling of how well he has been trained compared to mine! He’s got a far better mouth – Chilli was always quite gobby and opinionated. He is in a lovely balance and is easy to ride – you can imagine him scoring very well in a dressage test because he won’t throw away any marks.

“He opens up so naturally, giving the feeling that he’ll gallop well. Chilli was a bit German so he didn’t have that thoroughbred blood that Tam had, but he always had real ability to cover the ground and he ate up Badminton. This one gives the same feeling, a real good gallop and go.”

William only started riding Chilli Morning when the horse was 12, so comparisons are tricky with a horse that’s five years his junior.

“He’s still a bit weak in his body and carriage but I think when you get on a horse, if you get a good feeling in the first five minutes then your instinct is nearly always right,” he said. “I never rode Chilli this young, but he has the same feeling of confidence. When I was coming back from my injury in 2015/16, I had some double vision and couldn’t always see where the jump was. Chilli knew and couldn’t care less, whereas other horses would have been unsettled. Chilli just took me with him and this horse feels like that even though he’s not yet that experienced.

“I’m telling Gemma she has to wait until he’s 12! That’s when you’ll see the best of him. You can feel he’s going to get better with age – when you look at how much Chilli improved in his teens.”

For Alice, the experience of watching William riding these two horses who had played such a huge part in her husband’s five-star career was both special – and “a little spooky!”

How exciting to watch these two stallions to see whether either of them follow in the footsteps of their originals – but they are already well on that path.

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