Interrupted warm-up foils last year’s London grand prix winners ‘but he was a good boy’

A lost shoe minutes before they were due to compete meant a tricky start to the London International Horse Show dressage today for last year’s grand prix winners Becky Moody and Jagerbomb, who eventually finished the class third.

“We didn’t have the easiest warm-up, because 15 minutes before I went he stood on himself and pulled a shoe off,” said Becky, who had to have the shoe refitted by the show farrier Mark Watson. “I literally only ended up with three or four minutes before I was going in so it wasn’t the best prep in the world, which impacted the test a little bit. But he was really cool, he was a good boy.”

Despite her interrupted preparation, Becky was edging eventual runner-up Charlotte Dujardin (Alive And Kicking) in the early part of her test for this World Cup dressage grand prix, supported by Horse & Hound.

But Jagerbomb, owned by his rider-breeder and Jo Cooper, had a costly error behind in the one-time changes and became a little stilted in the piaffes so the pair’s final score of 75.04% dropped them behind Charlotte and “Audrey”.

“He just wasn’t quite hot enough in front of me in the piaffes, so the first two in particular I just didn’t have enough easy rhythm. And then we had a little glitch in the one-time flying changes, which is really expensive, because all of those are double marked,” said Becky.

British Olympic team bronze and European team silver medallist Becky Moody will use her familiar floorplan for her London Horse Show dressage freestyle tomorrow, but with new music which is just for this event. She has managed to keep her music under wraps and wouldn’t reveal any more about it today.

Lottie Fry and Glamourdale, Becky’s team-mates at this summer’s Europeans and at Paris 2024, won the London Horse Show grand prix today with a clear margin of more than 4%.

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