Three seconds under, and a lead at Burghley

The facts

Leader after cross-country

Gemma Stevens with Chilli Knight

Score

29.6

Optimum time

11 minutes 20 seconds; she came home three seconds under it

Dressage leader

Nadja Minder, dropped down the board after picking up 13.2 penalties for time

Winner's prize

£120,000

Saturday at Defender Burghley finished with Gemma Stevens on top on 29.6, riding Chilli Knight. She got home three seconds quicker than the optimum, which was set at eleven minutes and twenty seconds. Nobody added anything to her dressage mark. She goes into Sunday's showjumping in front, chasing a title worth £120,000 to the winner.

The more instructive story is behind her. Nadja Minder had led after the first phase with Toblerone, a horse now aged nineteen who has carried her through years of five-star. He jumped round. He simply took longer than the clock allowed, and 13.2 penalties came off the sheet. That is a lead lost without a single rail or a single refusal.

Stevens described the round as up and down the whole way, constantly losing seconds against her minute markers and then finding them again on the next stretch. At the Leaf Pit she had a genuinely awkward moment at the corner and the horse got her out of it. She was clear about what that was: a partnership doing its job when the plan came apart.

It also came four weeks after she and Flash Cooley were eliminated at the World Championships following three refusals across country. She said publicly that picking yourself up after that is hard, and that Piggy March had sent her voice notes before she set off telling her, in blunt terms, to get on with it.

What this means for you

Anyone eventing at any level

Time faults are not a footnote. They took the overnight leader out of contention at Burghley without a jumping error. If you never school with a watch, you are leaving a whole phase of the sport to luck.

Riders on older horses

Toblerone is nineteen and still completing a five-star course. Longevity is possible, but the clock is usually the first thing to go before the jump is. Plan the round you can actually get, not the one you want.

Riders coming back from a bad one

Stevens had an elimination at a championship weeks earlier and still went out and led Burghley. The gap between a crushing round and a good one can be short if the horse in front of you is the right one.

Spectators and viewers

Sunday's showjumping decides it. A lead built on a fast clear can go in a single rail, so the order and the margins are worth knowing before you switch on.

It's all to play for today — make sure you don't miss the final day of showjumping.

What to do

1. Look up the optimum time on your next entry and work out, in seconds, what one time fault costs you against your dressage score. Most riders have never done that sum.

   Before your next entry closes

2. Ride one schooling session to minute markers with a stopwatch, on ground you know, so you learn what your horse's cruising speed actually feels like rather than what you assume it is.

   This week

3. If your horse is in his late teens, book a fitness and soundness review with your vet before you commit to a long season rather than after a slow round tells you something.

   Before spring entries

4. Write down, now, what your plan is after a bad round: who you call, whether you box home or stay, whether the horse gets a week off. Decide it when you are calm, not in the lorry park.

   Today

5. Check Sunday's showjumping running order and start time if you want to watch the finish.

   Saturday evening