Andrew Nicholson does the hat-trick at Barbury

Andrew Nicholson has made history, winning the St James’s Place Wealth Management Barbury International Horse Trials for the third consecutive year.

Bring on Burghley!

The 52-year-old clearly meant business and he led from the off on the grey Avebury, with an impressive dressage score of 34.8pen. Rosemary and Mark Barlow’s gelding then performed a faultless showjumping round.

This meant the pair went into the final phase with 4.8 penalties in hand, andAndrew could afford to take the long route at the main water complex and still finish the event at the top of the leaderboard.

“It was quite a tricky fence, that narrow fence on an uphill slope, and I thought I would just give him a breather there,” said the world number two. “But he felt pretty good. He’s a horse that seems to like going back to certain places. He was squealing and shying and jumping extravagantly in the warm-up.

“To win here three times in a row on a horse that was born round here and is named after a local landmark feels pretty good. Bring on Burghley!”

Amazing ride

In second place was Francis Whittington on Easy Target. Francis was in eighth place after the showjumping, but moved to the runner-up spot after posting one of the fastest cross-country rounds of the afternoon with just 1.6 time penalties.

“I had an amazing ride,” said Francis. “The ground was good and the course was fun to ride. I now know I made the right decision at Badminton [to pull up] because he feels so well and happy.”

There were only two riders who achieved the optimum time – Australian rider Paul Tapner, who came third on Yogi Bear Vlll, and Beanie Sturgess who was 17th with Lebowski.

Pippa Funnell, who won Barbury in 2011, was fourth on Second Supreme ahead ofWorld Equestrian Games team mate Tina Cook on De Novo News.

Promising horse

In other classes, William Fox-Pitt won the CIC** Section C on yet another promising horse Top Biats. Section B was won by 21-year-old David Doel on Miss Caruso, and Christopher Barton took the D section with Nobilis 18.

The jump jockeys won the inaugural JCB Champions Challenge, while Paul Tapner took the title in the Retraining of Racehorses class with Inishmor.