“As Happy as His Name Would Suggest”: Reigning Bramham Champ Izzy Taylor Takes Early Lead With Happy Days

In eventing, we’re so often beholden to a cliché, and “it’s not going to be a dressage competition”, particularly, is one that we hear time and time again at these big, bold cross-country focused events such as Bramham. But more than ever before, that’s true this week — and not just because Ian Stark has built one of the beefiest Bramham tracks of his tenure this week. Instead, it’s because the judges are being kind of, well, mean.

Okay, maybe that’s overegging the pudding a bit: after all, it’s the judges’ job to set the standard, and as long as they remain consistent in their stringency, there’s no harm done. But across the three classes that took to the dressage ring today — the CCI4-L, which saw its first 23 competitors; the under-25 CCI4-L, which saw five, and the CCI4*-S, which put forth its initial 35 competitors — we saw just two competitors go sub-30.

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Article written by: Tilly Berendt