Oliver Barrett and Aster Nicolas are leading the CCI4*-L and CCI4*-S, respectively, for the young riders in Blenheim after the dressage

Ben Leuwer and his nine-year-old Holsteiner gelding, Zuccini MN, had already delivered a strong dressage performance yesterday in the CCI4*-S for eight- and nine-year-olds, scoring 30.1 penalty points. Now that all the horses have competed, they are in 15th place—out of 105 participants on the starting list. So it’s truly a strong start for the Road2LA duo from Rodderberg. Today it was Ben’s wife, Pia Leuwer’s, turn to ride Hanami, and she was also very pleased with her score of 33.1 penalty points, which places her 35th—still in the top third of the field.

“New German” Phoebe Locke is competing at the four-star level for the first time in Blenheim with the eight-year-old Irish horse Kilmanahan Ulysses. The pair finished their first CCI4* dressage test with 39.4 penalty points, currently placing 77th.

Currently at the top of the rankings is France’s Nicolas Astier riding his nine-year-old Hitchqote du Coudraie, a grandson of Carthago through his sire Panama Tame, who placed fourth at the 2024 World Championships for Young Eventing Horses. For him, too, Blenheim is his first four-star event, and he kicked it off right away with the best dressage score he’s ever had: 23.5 penalty points.

Trailing behind is Britain’s Bubby Upton with two horses, both of which scored exactly 26.9 penalty points: one is the Westphalian Auckland by À la Carte, bred by Alexandra Harting, and the other is the eight-year-old French gelding Sancerre de Fiji by Urano de Cartigny.

The youngsters won’t head out to the cross-country course until Sunday. Jumping is on the schedule for tomorrow.

CCI5*-L: Australia in the Lead, a Good Start for Bart

In the CCI4*-L, 77 pairs competed in the dressage. The only German competitor was Nicolai Aldinger riding the ten-year-old Holstein gelding Bart by Barcley, who has been competing with Aldinger since the start of this season and is making his debut in the long-format dressage test at Blenheim. He has already placed third and sixth in short dressage tests—though those were in Poland, not England. The competition here is fierce. But with 33.6 penalty points, the pair not only posted their best four-star dressage result to date by a wide margin, but also secured 28th place—a promising position. Especially since the gelding has never had a jumping fault under Aldinger, neither in the cross-country nor in the dressage arena.

Leading the field with 25.6 penalty points is the Australian World Championship pair Oliver Barrett and Sandhills Briar, who were eliminated on the cross-country course from Aachen after the rider fell. They hope to do better tomorrow. Hot on their heels is a duo competing under the New Zealand flag: Jesse Campbell riding Speedwell, who posted 26.2 penalty points and thus narrowly held off team world champion Tom McEwen, who managed to place two horses in the top five with Brookfield Quality (26.5) and The Fieldmaster (29.2).

You can find all the results here.