Tim Price and Vitali seize Burghley dressage lead: ‘I had rideability and relaxation – bar one moment where he tried to halt!’

Tim Price and Vitali have seized the Defender Burghley Horse Trials dressage lead halfway through the second day of action (5 September).

The popular 15-year-old bay, owned by his rider and Alexander and Joe Giannamore, looked soft, supple and relaxed in the arena to score 23.2 – enough to give them a clear 2.5-penalty lead over yesterday’s top-scorers Piggy March and MCS Maverick, although not in the record-breaking territory this pair have previously achieved.

New Zealand rider Tim and Vitali pulled in lots of 7.5s and 8s, topped by nines from Andrew Bennie at C and Christina Klingspor at E for harmony.

“We know he’s a class dressage horse and he has got all the ingredients for a really hot test today,” said Tim. “It’s funny, because sometimes he’s been quite unrideable but scores really well, sometimes he’s really rideable and scores not so well, so it’s all over the place. It’s a little bit down to what the judges are looking for on the day.

“But from my point of view, we had rideability and super relaxation, it was lovely. Just a great partnership on display.

“It’s just being able to deliver in the ring what I know he’s capable of – for example, at Badminton he was lovely all week, went in and flipped out, and I just had to sit there like a passenger. But here he was rideable – he looked around in the atmosphere but then came back.”

Tim Price’s Burghley Horse Trials dressage: one tiny blip

Tim Price said his Burghley Horse Trials dressage test was “spot on what I was looking for”, except for one odd moment where Vitali tried to halt.

He explained: “In that first shoulder-in, he was thinking of halt. He’s been doing it at the one-day events, but he doesn’t typically bring that to the bigger shows when you spend quite a bit of time on the centre line. At the one-days, I’ll come up the centre line and he’s like, ‘Are we stopping?’ I’m like, ‘No, I will tell you when we stop.’

“So I came to shoulder-in and he was going to stop. I’m like, ‘Mate, we’ve only just started.’ Other than that, it was really nice and really fun.”

Vitali has finished in the top 10 at all seven of his five-stars, but has so often been heartbreakingly close to winning, only to lower expensive rails in the showjumping. Last year at Burghley, he had just one down, his best performance at this level, and finished second.

Asked if he is more philosophical coming here to the British autumn five-star now, Tim said: “No, I’m here to win and I’ve worked hard to try and get in a position to win every time. So you can flip that on its head and say we have the heartbreak because we’ve been in a position to win the competition numerous times now.

“There’s a lot of good things happening, and I just need to perfect the final phase. We’ve been coming on strength on strength.

“I don’t get philosophical. I just need a bit of time to recover from the disappointment of the one before, and then when I come back, I’m ready for it. I’m up for it and confident that we’re going to do the job.”

To stay up-to-date with all the breaking news throughout Burghley and other major shows this year, subscribe to the Horse & Hound website, from £1 a week. Horse & Hound’s 20-page magazine report on Burghley is published in 11 September issue, including full analysis and exclusive comment from six-time Burghley winner William Fox-Pitt.

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