Toledo gives a masterclass
Olympic riders Carl Hester, Tom McEwen and Richard Davison thrilled fans when they took to the main arena at Defender Burghley on Friday lunchtime to present a dressage Masterclass, demonstrating the differences between top-level eventing dressage and pure grand prix dressage.
Tom was riding his now retired Tokyo Olympic team gold medal winning partner, Toledo De Kerser, whose last competitive outing was here at Defender Burghley in 2023.
The 18-year-old gelding, who is owned by Penny and Fred Baker, Jane Coppell and Alison McEwen, is now enjoying semi-retirement and looked delighted to be back in the spotlight as he piaffed and passaged his way around the arena, much to the crowd’s delight.
“Are you going to do some dressage with him or is he just going to be a happy hacker?” asked Carl.
“We’ll see how it goes,” laughed Tom.
Tom and Toledo were put through their paces as they ran through some of the trickier movements in the five-star test with Carl explaining what is expected of an event horse at this level.
Richard Davison then took over with one of his up-and-coming top level horses. There was banter aplenty between the former team-mates as Richard demonstrated the progression in training of a young grand prix horse.