‘Brave' gelding takes the lead

Stephen Heal and Quidam De Lux claim the closely fought seven-year-old championship, while an Australian rider has Olympic hopes for his three-star winner

- GEMMA REDRUP

THE British Eventing CCI3*-S seven-year-old championship was nail-biting until the end, with 28-year-old Stephen Heal and Quidam De Lux winding up as the victors. They were second after the cross-country phase, but overnight leaders Kitty King and MHS Monbeg Junior lowered three rails, dropping them to 14th.

“I never came here thinking I would win,” said an emotional Stephen. “This horse is very talented and he’s been amazing all year. It’s fantastic for Gemma Borkowski, who I jointly own him with, too.”

The pair led after the dressage on a 26.3, but Stephen said it wasn’t a completely mistake-free test.

“There are things in the dressage that aren’t perfect yet – his half passes are still green and it was quite windy so he was distracted by the tents,” he explained. “He’s a very natural mover but he hasn’t always been the easiest in the mouth so it’s taken a while to get the scores he deserves.”

Stephen credits Ian Woodhead for the progress in the son of Boswell Mr Heartbreaker’s performance on the flat.

“Ian has transformed his way of going, but he’s always been a very brave, careful and scopey jumper,” said the rider who, following stints working for Oliver Townend, Alex Bragg and Alexander Whewall, has now set up on his own in Broadway.

“‘Mario’ is a very genuine horse. I lost a stirrup and one rein at the final water and nearly fell off, which cost us our 0.4 of a time-fault and then dropped us to second going into the showjumping – but he looked for the flags and just kept going.”