'It felt easy for Easy Boy

A pair of puissance specialists set a new personal height record with their sixth win on the bounce over big red walls

- By PIPPA ROOME

RACHEL PROUDLEY repeated her 2024 win in the LeMieux puissance – and went higher than she and class specialist Easy Boy De Laubry Z have jumped before when they cleared 2.21m (7ft 3in).

“He’s so brave. I can trust him so much and I think that’s all that matters, really,” said Britain’s 20-year-old young rider European champion. “I didn’t have to put too much pressure on him and he was actually a little bit brave in the first few rounds. In the last round, he really listened to me and that was definitely his best round.”

This was the pair’s sixth outright or shared puissance win, including starting the trend here last year.

“When you go in, you can’t even see over the wall, but when you’re sat on a horse like him, you feel like you could jump anything. That was our biggest jump yet and to be honest, it felt easy,” Rachel said.

It may have been easy for Rachel and Graham Ward’s 11-year-old, but the class had plenty of drama.

Thirteen started, which was whittled down to four for the 2.18m fourth round.

First in, Ireland’s Derek McCoppin and Explosief’s Legacy just clipped off the top row of bricks.

Next to go, Nathan Bull and Casaltonia left the wall intact, but rocked it dramatically and the nine-year-old mare came down on her knees on landing, sending Nathan over her head. However, because the pair had passed through the finish before parting company, they were unpenalised, though Nathan sensibly decided to settle for second and not jump again.