Is it time for an American to win the Kentucky Three-Day Event?

Oliver Townend, the world’s number one-ranked event rider, remained on top of the Land Rover Kentucky Three-Day event standings today after cross-country, but how long will he be there? The 2018 Kentucky winner and Cooley Master Class don’t have a room for a mistake in Sunday’s stadium jumping phase.

Despite 1.2 time penalties on cross-country, 2018 Land Rover Kentucky Three-Day Event winner Oliver Townend and Coolio are two-thirds of the way to winning the 2019 renewal. (Photo©2019 by Nancy Jaffer)

While the crowd at the Kentucky Horse Park seems to love all the riders and cheers for them, Oli got the most applause when he appeared in the dressage arena on Friday. But I’m guessing that the audience will be a little more partisan in the final segment, because Boyd Martin is just 2.6 penalties behind Oli, and has a real chance to become the first American winner of the 5-star event since his buddy, Phillip Dutton, did it in 2008.

The fans here are living their dream, and they can’t get enough of this event. They swarm riders at autograph sessions and love watching them warm-up, when they aren’t buying souvenirs in the trade fair. Boyd is one of their special faves, so it was good news for them when he and Tsetserleg moved up from third after dressage with rip-roaring trip over designer Derek di Grazia’s course. Boyd and Phillip, who stands fourth with Z, accounted for two of the three double-clears (jumping and time) among the 31 starters who finished a route that required them to prepare and think every stride of the way.

The other fault-free rider was New Zealand’s Tim Price on Xavier Faer, and as last fall’s Burghley winner in England, he is going for the Rolex Grand Slam. All he has to do to win the $350,000 bonus is finish first here and at Badminton in England next week. Nothing much. Oli went for it in 2018, but faltered at Badminton and didn’t take the prize, which has only been claimed twice, by Pippa Funnell and Michael Jung.

Since a toppled rail counts for four penalties, you can see that Oli doesn’t have anything to play with in the Rolex Stadium. And Boyd also has to stay alert, because Tim is just three penalties behind him and only 0.8 penalties ahead of Phillip.

You probably could have figured those four would be the ones to catch, but the route’s technicality made everything uncertain.

“I thought the course walked a bit easy this year,” Boyd recounted, “and I was very, very surprised when there was so much trouble and I quickly realized how wrong I was, that this quite a tough course.

Recognition of the situation actually came early for the crowd of 34,889 who watched along the 28-fence route. The first three on course, Islandwood Captain Jack with Caroline Martin, Park Trader with Buck Davidson and DeNiro Z with Liz Halliday Sharp all were eliminated by falls.

Caroline and Buck both fell at 20B, the 3-foot, 9-inch high Normandy Bank; she was too sore to ride her next horse, and Buck broke his collarbone, then scratched his other two mounts. Liz, who had been tied for fifth after dressage, had her tumble at the third fence, the 3-11 high Turning Oxer.

Oli coped when Coolio lost a shoe, but the rider was very conscious of that, and the fact that it presented a challenge of not slipping on the grass.

“It made me a touch more conservative than I normally am,” he said, and it was reflected in the 1.2 time penalties he collected. But he described his horse as keen, enjoying himself with his “ears pricked all the way.” Noted Oli, “A little bit I felt he was more in control than I was. He was definitely up for it.”

Boyd was true to form with his black Trakehner, saying he felt “we’re a bit more a partnership” than they were last year.

“Throughout the course, he kept trying and trying and trying and never looked for a way out.”

Then he offered a typical amusing anecdote: “I was stabled next to Phillip Dutton and we were sort of egging each other on to see who is going to do the Normandy Bank (the straight way). I wasn’t sure he was going to do it and then when I heard the commentator say he did it while I was warming up, I thought, “Aww, I have to do it now, because I’ll look like a big wimp if I go around. That could have seriously backfired.”

Tim knew the course would be tough, but was proud of his mount, who also lost a shoe.

“I was really pleased with my horse. He threw himself over everything and stayed upright in all the important places,” said Tim, who noted he will have to “repackage” Xavier Faer after the horse inspection to get him ready for the stadium jumping.

The course designer has done all he can do once the event starts. As the problems arise, he can only hope the next competitor will go clear.

“As it turned out, all the jumps got jumped because a lot of people opted to take some of the longer routes, which is good,” said Derek.

“There were some more technical things than there were last year. For the most part, the jumps worked in the way I thought they would. And I think that with a lot of the combinations there was a variation on different strides between the obstacles and the riders used all of them.”

He noted at the iconic Head of the Lake water complex, the riders had to work harder than he thought they would have to after jumping into the water over a brush and heading toward a step out of the lake. After that, they bounced over a thick brush with a tiny slot for the horse to pass through, and that led to three refusals there, two riders who re-routed to go the long way and several near-misses.

So the stage is set for an exciting confrontation in a change of venue, from the grass to the all-weather footing in the Rolex Stadium, where Richard Jeffery’s clever courses will determine the order of finish and offer a thrill in the bargain.

Come back to my website tomorrow night to find out who won, and why.