Britain adds to its edge at the Kentucky 5-star

I was watching carefully Friday as Yasmin Ingham–that’s Eventing World Champion Yasmin Ingham–rode Banzai du Loir around the outside of the dressage arena at the 5-star Land Rover Kentucky Three-Day Event. It was an intimidating setting, with a crowd of 13,252 seated in a buzzy stadium bright with color.

A number of the horses competing in the second half of the division (it began on Thursday) were affected by the atmosphere, showing tension along with some head-tossing and occasionally breaking their gait.

Although Banzai seemed calm, Yasmin further soothed her horse by stroking his neck repeatedly as she let him get settled in the atmosphere before the bell rang to start her test.

So when she went into the arena, Banzai was totally ready, and delivered a marvelous, fluid and needless to say, obedient test to take the lead in the division with 22.1 penalties (scored as a straight dressage test, that translates to an impressive 77.95 percent).

Yasmin, who will be 26 next month, is a native of the Isle of Man, but she rides for Great Britain, as in the 2022 world championships in Pratoni del Vivaro, Italy. Her rise to the top of the standings at the Kentucky Horse Park made it 1-2 for the Brits going into Saturday’s cross-country. Tom McEwen was the leader after Thursday’s dressage with a superb performance on JL Dublin, and dropped back to second by a mere 0.5 penalties as Yasmin took over to top his score.

Last year, none of us knew who Yasmin was when she made her first  appearance in Kentucky–and then she finished second behind all-time great (and four-time Kentucky winner) Michael Jung of Germany. Now we know exactly who she is, and realize that victory could be within her grasp.

But she’s fetchingly modest, saying she plans to gain confidence before tackling Derek di Grazia’s  11 minute, 26-second (optimum time) cross-country route by watching videos of her performance at Pratoni and in Kentucky last year.

I wondered why she wasn’t competing next week at the Badminton 5-star in England–at the least, it would have been a shorter trip! But she gave me a good answer. These decisions aren’t taken lightly, so a good deal of thought and planning went into her return journey to the Bluegrass.

Yasmin’s main trainer is Chris Bartle, a former dressage rider who led Britain to Olympic and world championships gold. Naturally, the main focus is on more championships, starting with the Europeans this summer and going through to the Paris Olympics next year.

“After coming here last year, I felt like Banzai had a really great run around here and it set us up really well for our summer plans and going on to Pratoni was amazing,” she explained about her decision to come Stateside. Thus it seemed as if replicating the experience might do the same for Banzai’s 2023 and 2024 programs.

“The Olympics has been a huge dream of mine since I was a very little girl,” she explained.

“I am going to absolutely go for it over the next few years and then hopefully we can go on and enjoy Badminton and Burghley (England’s September 5-star) in the future because he’s only 12,” she said of the very fancy Selle Francais.

“He’s still got so much left to give and I absolutely would love to ride around Badminton on him someday.”

Despite the British edge at this point, we’re hoping for the first U.S. victory since 2008 in this event. Those from third through eighth place are riding for America, which means some good horses and riders are poised with the ambition of overtaking Yasmin and Tom. It’s close, close, close.

Tamie Smith led the first day of dressage with Mai Baum (24.2 penalties) and Will Coleman, last to go on Friday, was marked at 25 penalties with Chin Tonic to stand fourth. (He also is 13th with Off the Record on 31.2 penalties.) But Will, the top-placed U.S. rider on the silver medal team at Pratoni, doesn’t want to speculate about whether he can update the record book for the U.S. at Kentucky. He is quick to point out he doesn’t go on Facebook and is “pretty good about ignoring what is written in the press.” (Is that how Off the Record got his name?)

He explained he’s just trying to focus on his horses, pointing out the 5-star cross-country is always a big question for Off the Record, and he wants to see if “I can do a better job” than previously with that horse in a test at this level.

Meanwhile, this is Chin Tonic’s first 5-star. The 11-year-old Holsteiner was a stallion until Will convinced the owner of Hyperion Stud to geld him. Will believes “he would have been quite temperamental as a stallion” competing in eventing. He thinks that given his inexperience “there may be more chances down the road where he might be more seasoned.”

Busy Liz Halliday-Sharp is 1.9 penalties back of Chin Tonic with Miks Master C, and eighth as well with DeNiro Z. She’s successful, too, in the 4-star Short that is also running at Kentucky, standing first and second with Cooley Nutcracker and Cooley Be Cool.

Crowd favorite Boyd Martin is sixth (28.3 penalties) with the very veteran Tsetserleg, better known as Thomas. Boyd is upping his dressage game not only with his wife, Silva, a dressage specialist, but also with the help of another person who hails from Germany, Bettina Hoy.

“He couldn’t have gone much better,” Boyd said of Thomas the Trakehner.

“It’s very rare you do a dressage test where you come out and say every movement is as good as I could have hoped. And I didn’t make a course error at the end, which is even a bigger bonus.”

Click here to see the Kentucky 5-star standing, and on this link to see the 4-star rankings.