Rain fails to dampen Fox-Pitt’s spirits

Fox-Pitt is aiming for a record sixth victory at Bramham and yesterday his partner was the relative youngster, Avoca Alibi. “We ended up doing the test in a deluge and he couldn’t have been better. I was very pleased with him,” said Fox-Pitt.

The pair were in the lead after dressage at Houghton recently and then Fox-Pitt made an uncharacteristic error on the cross country course. “I owe it to him and his owners to get it right this time. We’re looking forward to riding the course with its new layout, it looks like a big and bold galloping track with a hill up to the finish so you’ll need to keep some petrol in the tank.”

Fox-Pitt finished on a score of 42.8, followed by New Zealand rider Lucy Jackson on Willy Do (45.6) and Britain’s Lucy Wiegersma and Granntevka Prince (46.6).

The rain obviously didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of Lucy Jackson who went on to take the lead in the CIC three-star dressage section. Jackson, riding Animator 11, finished on a score of 41.1 with Belgium’s Karin Donckers (41.4) and Marc Rigouts, riding Dunkas A (42.9) in third place.

“We’ve had a super day and we were lucky with the weather when I was competing,” said Jackson.

Another day of dressage follows today when competitors include Zara Phillips, Yorkshire’s Nicola Wilson, Tina Cook and Pippa Funnell.

Olympic selectors are keeping a close eye on performances at Bramham with the GB squad likely to be announced next week.