JL Dublin tops a massive field

Nicola Wilson’s promising 10-year-old pulls offa pillar-to-post victory in the senior three-day class, as rising stars and five-star campaigners mix at the top of the leaderboard

- PIPPA ROOME

THERE was a certain wild irony in the fact that Nicola Wilson has striven for so many years to take the showcase CCI4*-L at her local event at Bramham – and she finally won it when the Bramham classes were relocated to Bicton due to Covid putting paid to the Yorkshire event.

“An owner messaged me to say, ‘You can take the event out of Yorkshire, but you can’t take Yorkshire out of the event,” grinned Nicola after her victory in the Chedington CCI4*-L on 10-year-old JL Dublin.

“The Bicton team have done a wonderful job; the cross-country rode beautifully”

CCI4*-L WINNER NICOLA WILSON

But it was a mark of the success of this fixture, arranged at seven weeks’ notice, that stalwart Bramham fan Nicola was full of praise for the Devon event, which produced the sternest cross-country test seen in Britain since Burghley 2019.

She said: “Much as it would have been amazing to have been in this position at Bramham on our doorstep, the whole team at Bicton have done the most wonderful job – the setting, the arenas, the cross-country course. There was so much to jump but it rode beautifully.”

Traditionally, promising nine- and 10-year-olds show their colours at Bramham and this time was no different, although the 89-strong field competing for the £10,000 top prize was bolstered by several five-star horses, who had nowhere else to go once the German travel ban made a Luhmühlen campaign very difficult.

Nicola chose the Holsteiner JL Dublin, by Diarado, at the sales in Germany for his owners, Jo and James Lambert and Deirdre Johnston.