October 20, 2024 
Coming in last to the show jumping is familiar territory for British eventer Oliver Townend.
His name always hovers at every five star as a favorite and often at some point as the leader. But he is no more immune to mistakes and luck than the rest of us.
“It’s very difficult to judge horse’s show jumping performance when they bust a gut at Badminton and Burghley, and they go in and jump on the worst possible grounds you could put in front of them. He’s gone in the lead [in the final phase] an awful lot of times, and had one down [so] everybody says he’s not a great show jumper,” Townend commented on Thomas, as Ballaghmor Class is known in the barn.
“I was very conscious that I’d come into the last [show jumping phase] two times in the lead [at Maryland] and not come out being the winner.”
David Doel (GBR) and Galileo Nieuwmoed dropped the second element in the triple combination, dropping them from third and moving Tim Price and Falco’s double clear round into second. A pole would have dropped Townend behind Price, but he had plenty of time in hand.
He needed none of it. The powerhouse combination went double clear effortlessly, earning their second American 5* win of the year.
This win tied Townend with greats such as Great Britain’s Lucinda Green and New Zealand’s Andrew Nicholson for nine five-star wins. Only legends of the sport such as Sir Mark Todd, Michael Jung, Ginny Elliot, and William Fox-Pitt have more five star wins in recorded eventing history.
Thomas joins an elite club of horses with Jung’s La Biosthetique Sam FBW and Elliot’s Priceless who have won more than four five star events.
“To be even mentioned in the realms of those names is very surreal to me,” Townend mused in the press conference. “I was the biggest fan of the sport as a kid, and so to even be put in the same sentence for me, it’s very strange.”
He was also quick to credit one of Thomas’ owners, Karyn Shuter, as one of the people who have kept him in the sport, as well as Angela Hilsop and Val Ryan whose support of Thomas has allowed him to achieve incredible results together.
“It’s very easy to say, yeah, we were brilliant, because we won but horses are horses,” he added.
“I think it’s as much about rider’s learning about the horses and the little things to do with warm ups and management for each different horse. The more five stars you do, as [Tim Price] alluded to, the more you learn what you need to be doing on each specific course.”
Townend laughed that Price laid the heat down before him with Falco jumping his 40th clear round in a row.
Price laughed back, “This is the part that is always really, really good fun on him, because he is just an out and out jumper in his own way. It brings an element of pressure, because he jumps a lot of clear rounds, so it means that he’s expected to jump clear. That’s a little bit something that I have to overcome. But when I’m on him and he comes to a fence, he gives you the most confidence that you could imagine.”
For Doel, it was a bittersweet podium finish.
“I felt that, actually, I let him down today. I didn’t quite do him the justice going down to the treble. I was a little bit quiet, and just made him work a little bit too hard. But it’s just lovely to also know that the routine and the system that we have at home works well to produce a horse to go up to a gallop as well as he did around here.”
The top American finisher was Buck Davidson and Sorocaima.
“It’s been amazing,” Davidson commented. “He raced 60 times. A friend of mine called me and said they had a horse that they wanted me to have. To be honest with you, I tried everything I could do to not buy him, but I didn’t really have an excuse not to.”
When asked about their horses’ success, he had this to say: “The horses that finished and did well here, the emphasis was on this [event]: it wasn’t on the short four stars leading up to this. We all had a plan on how we wanted to do well. Keeping the horses sound, fresh, happy, and ready for the big job at the end of the year is actually the learning thing, not anything at the competition.”
Five star eventing continues next week in France at Pau.
