The smart thinking that helped Harry Meade excel at Kentucky five-star, why he calls Michael Jung the GOAT – and other things the equestrian world is talking about

Clever approach gives Brit the edge at five-star

Harry Meade was the only rider to go clear cross country inside the time at the Defender Kentucky Three-Day Event – a feat he managed on not just one but two rides: Amanda Gould’s Grafennacht and Mandy Gray and his own Et Hop Du Matz, with whom he finished fourth and third respectively.

Revealing how he made the time, Harry said: “I thought there was a repeat pattern at some of the fences where there was a sharp turn afterwards. For example, at the table before the Cosequin Cove water, I swung out onto fresh ground and then jumped that fence at 45 degrees back towards the direction of travel. I thought if I could save quarter of a second here and half second there, it would just eat back up to be inside the time.”

Harry also managed to coax a lovely showjumping round from Grafennacht to finish third with just one fence down.

“I’ve got a hypothesis about jumping her off a curve the whole time, and I was able to do that the whole way through the course. The only fence I couldn’t come off a curve to was the middle part of the treble and she had that down,” explained Harry, who opted to showjump with Grafennacht in a bitless bridle. “If I think something isn’t brilliant, I try and just un-complicate it as much as possible, like everything off, and she quite likes it,” he explained.

More on Harry’s game-changing cross country approach

What Harry Meade thinks of five-time Kentucky winner Michael Jung

Michael Jung took his fifth Kentucky victory with a second win riding FischerChipmunk FRH, drawing praise from the podium including Harry Meade who said Michael is “hands down, without a doubt, the greatest event rider there has ever been”.

“I don’t think there will be anyone better ever – when you are living in the moment of an extraordinary thing happening, you don’t appreciate it, but I think he’ll be remembered in 50 years time as the best there ever was,” Harry added.

Second-placed Boyd Martin joked there were only two ways he could have beaten Micheal…

What Boyd Martin said it would take for him to beat Michael Jung

Eventer achieves five-star dream after being told she wouldn’t ride again

“Sometimes life has another plan,” said Shannon Lilley, who was on the right path to make it to five-star after winning Pan American team gold in 2011 on Ballingowan Pizazz.

Then Shannon suffered a serious spinal injury, waking up one day 13 years ago to find she couldn’t feel anything from the waist down, which led doctors to tell her she would never ride again. But last week she made her five-star debut at the Defender Kentucky Three-Day Event.

Speaking after her dressage test in Kentucky, Shanon explained: “I had a disc explode and crush all the nerves at the back of the spinal column. I was lucky because it was below the cord, but I lost everything from my waist down – I could walk, but I had no sensation, no feeling and no pelvic function.”

Following emergency surgery, Shannon credits her strength of mind with her progress during rehab, saying: “I wouldn’t take no for an answer. I wouldn’t settle for, ‘This is as good as it’s going to get and this is sort of what you have for the rest of your life’. Maybe you call that defiant, I don’t know. I just thought, you just keep plugging away. There’s got to be a better way. If you work hard enough, it’ll get better. And it did.”

Read more about Shannon’s extraordinary five-star debut

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