Nexgen Young Event Horse Final, Hickstead
In such a strange year with COVID 19 taking away so many of our aims, it was great to see a new initiative in the Nexgen Young Event Horse final. With the loss of Burghley and the series that runs throughout the year it was great to have some classes for the 5yos that are good education for them in suitable environments without adding too much unnecessary stress or mileage to them.
Nexgen is the equivalent to the German Young Horse Championships the Bundeschampionate. With the addition of the 6yo class too, it seemed like a good opportunity to take three horses down to Hickstead especially with the generous prize money on offer for the 6yos of £2000.
We took De Pleasure and Kashmir for the 5yo class. Both horses jumped good clears over the SJ and XC, they coped well with the heat and I felt that they had a good experience. Kashmir has much less experience and he will have really come on from this class, he is such an exciting prospect who has beautiful movement and a great jump that is still very much developing.
De Pleasure finished 5th on 83, and Kashmir on 76.5 finishing just a bit lower down. Both horses have still got so much strengthening to do as they are such rangy horses and they both deserve a good holiday now.
6yo Codebreaker felt very excited to be at Hickstead and was full of his usual enthusiasm. He gave a great account of himself in the flatwork, but really went up a gear in the jumping and showed how much he has come on this year. He was so classy and bold. He did everything – couldn’t have asked for more. He scored 89.5 to take a considerable lead half way though the class and kept his hold to end up as the 6yo winner!
