{"id":58543,"date":"2021-04-25T12:02:15","date_gmt":"2021-04-25T02:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/?p=58543"},"modified":"2021-04-25T12:02:15","modified_gmt":"2021-04-25T02:02:15","slug":"ollie-on-top-in-kentucky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/2021\/04\/ollie-on-top-in-kentucky\/","title":{"rendered":"Ollie on top in Kentucky"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
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Lexington, Kentucky<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 April 24, 2021<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Oliver Townend (GBR) turned in two clear rounds Saturday and sits first overnight with Ballaghmor Class and eighth with Cooley Master Class. Both horses lost a shoe on course, and persistent rain made the footing slick.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me this was the toughest cross-country course for a long, long time at the Five Star level. It\u2019s right up there with the very toughest in the world,\u201d Townend said. \u201cBoth horses had a tough enough time out there. I\u2019m still very emotional about how amazing they both are. They\u2019ve both literally given me their heart and soul today.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the time Townend left the startbox with Ballaghmor Class, it had been raining heavily for some time. The horse lost a shoe at fence seven, so Townend said he tried to protect his mount around the slippery turns. Still, they crossed the finish only two seconds over the optimum time to take the lead on 27.3.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s an unbelievable cross-country machine. With a shoe he could have been ten or 12 seconds inside the time without any sweat,\u201d Townend said of the Irish gelding owned by Karyn Shutter, Angela Hislop, and Val Ryan. \u201cI\u2019d love to be stylish and ride the round I\u2019d like to ride, but it wasn\u2019t meant to be this time. It was rough and tumble and start and stop and just trying to keep him on his feet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Oliver Townend and Ballaghmor Class. Photo by RedBayStock.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Townend praised Ballaghmor Class\u2019s \u201ctenacity, ability, strength, and complete robustness to do the performance he did\u201d in difficult conditions.<\/p>\n

Likewise, Townend had to work to bring Angela Hislop\u2019s Cooley Master Class home clear with 6.4 time penalties.<\/p>\n

\u201cCooley Master Class didn\u2019t have a smooth trip at all, but every time I gave him a squeeze he stuck his head down and did what he could,\u201d Townend said. \u201cHe lost a back shoe early on and slipped and slid. He wasn\u2019t full of confidence and he wasn\u2019t jumping particularly high, but at the same time he did what good horses do and dug deep and I was very happy with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Townend is now in a position to take a third consecutive win in the CCI5*-L, but with the top eight all within a rail of first place, there is no margin for error in the final phase.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll celebrate what they\u2019ve given me today and tomorrow\u2019s another day,\u201d Townend said.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Ollie Townend is a great interview find out HERE<\/a><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lexington, Kentucky \u2013 April 24, 2021 \u00a0Oliver Townend (GBR) turned in two clear rounds Saturday and sits first overnight with Ballaghmor Class and eighth with Cooley Master Class. Both horses lost a shoe on course, and persistent rain made the footing slick. \u201cFor me this was the toughest cross-country course for a long, long time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58543"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58547,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58543\/revisions\/58547"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}