Caloro is on fire

James Whitaker delivers a brilliant performance in the two-star grand prix, while a former eventer comes up trumps in the one-star final

- SARAH RADFORD

CSI2*/1*/*YH, Wellington Riding, Hants

THIS inaugural international date offered a rare opportunity to secure rankings points on these shores, and with 17 riders through to the jump-off of the CSI2* big tour grand prix, it was going to take some extremely bold riding to claim the £6,000 win.

James Whitaker delivered just that with the 13-year-old Caloro Ex Z. While Louise Simpson had looked impressive enough when she reset the bar with a three-second lead on Starouge, James made the huge arena seem half the size as he took every risk to find an unexpected two seconds of ground.

Late in the draw, both Anthony Condon (Zira Van Het Kapelhof Z) and Harry Charles (Aralyn Blue) took a shot, but still could not come within a couple of seconds of James’s target, both just edging ahead of Louise by a few hundredths of a second.

“When I was looking at the course, I thought it wouldn’t suit my horse very well as when you really open him up, he doesn’t always come back very easily,” James said. “But I was able to take a few risks in there as I knew the horse was really jumping – he hadn’t had a fence down all week.”

Course-designer Paul Connor had a huge space to fill with this track, as Wellington’s usually divided main arena was fully opened for the final day. But a long gallop on an unusually angled reverse “S” over the last three fences inserted the feature challenge, and was clearly where the class would be won or lost.

“It was difficult in that until you rode it, it was hard to judge the [final] turn; you had to go up the arena then back on yourself,” James said. “I think I was lucky at the last as I cut it very tight, but he was really jumping today and really thinking about it.