Kiwi eventers have dominated the top twenty placings at the prestigious Burghley Horse Trial this year, taking out three of the top five spots.
Within a whisker of winning, both Andrew Nicholson and Caroline Powell were in with a chance, with one show jumping rail between the top four after the cross country event.
But after a very sticky show jumping course it was Great Britains William Fox Pit on his kiwi-bred steed Parkland Hawk who took the title for the sixth time, a new record for the event.
World Champs bronze medalist Andrew Nicholson had two horses in the top five, going into the final show jumping phase, but three rails on Avebury saw them slip from second to eighth spot, and even a clear on Nereo just wasn't enough to edge out Fox-Pitt.
Defending champ and crowd pleasering duo, Caroline Powell and Lenamore, had two rails down in the showjumping, and finished fourth.
First time Burghley competitor, Jonathan Paget, finished fifth on Clifton Lush, and was twelth on his World Championship horse, Clifton Promise.
Mark Todd rode Major Milestone to a brilliant clear round to finish in fourteenth spot, with Clarke Johnstone and Incognito III also going clear to finish in seventeenth position.
Equestrian Sports New Zealand eventing high performance leader Erik Duvander told Country99TV the Kiwi team had high expectations.
“We arrived at Burghley with a whole bunch of horses that were looking really competitive. I would say in general we did very, very well. Having four riders in the top eight is brilliant, but I know the riders all really wanted to win.”
Mr Duvander said it was just devastating to see Caroline Powell and Andrew Nicholson just miss out on the win.
“When you see horses like Lenamore having rails, who is a legend, is just devastating, obviously. Caroline is such a great rider, she deserved another win at Burghley, and same thing with Andrew Nicholson on Averbury, who was very well positioned before the show jumping.
"We had a lot of rain on the day and the conditions worsened, and the final horses that went into the ring, they get the worst ground compared to the earlier horses. I feel sorry for them because they put everything into it, but it didn’t come off for them today, that’s for sure.”
Mr Duvander says the strength of the placings at Burghley show a team that looks promising heading towards the London Olympics for 2012.
“Four New Zealanders in the top eight is brilliant. The NZ team is really getting momentum here and they are looking very good. We’ve still got a bit more work to do and there is still a lot of improvements to be done, but we are in a good place.
"If you’d asked me two years ago, or even a year ago if we could do this.... the way I’m looking at it now, we’re in a very good position. Keep moving on and we should be looking reasonably good.”
