Pippa Funnell sealed victory in the inaugural Horse & Hound Eventing Grand Prix with the only clear at Hickstead yesterday to snatch the £5,000 winner's purse from under dressage leader Chris Bartle's nose. And although Bartle's slip down to fourth place with eight errors also robbed the Badminton winner of a potential £20,000 bonus, Funnell is now being urged to undergo some intensive show jumping training before next month's Hickstead Derby in a bid for the double that could also net the big jackpot.
Yesterday's 28-fence combined cross-country and show jumping track had caused some seriously raised eyebrows at the initial coursewalk and, in spite of some overnight modifications, was viewed with a high degree of awe - not least by the eventual winner, who admitted to a severe dose of nerves yesterday morning.
But Anne Burnett's mare The Tourmaline Rose, which is sponsored by local computer sales company Pavilion, proved the perfect partner for such an unusual test. Displaying the careful, scopey jump that would not have looked out of place in the Hickstead Speed Derby, the grey galloped her way to the only perfect round, in spite of a miss at the double of bullfinches.
Stopping the clock on 257.01 seconds and with just the four-second penalty from Tuesday's dressage to add, the Surrey partnership displaced Bramham winners Polly Phillipps and the Irish export Coral Cove, who were more than 10 seconds adrift on the clock.
Only dressage leader Chris Bartle and sole Irish hope Lucy Thompson had any chance of beating Funnell's target as the 25starter field was run off in reverse order of merit decided in the dressage arena. Lucy Thompson and the bold-jumping Welton Molecule were clear on their tour of the first eight show jumps, but the knockable rails at the hanging logs and the first part of the double bounce hit the deck and, when the flimsy rail on top of the Cornishman one from home also succumbed to gravity, the Irish challenge quailed.
Last man in Bartle weakened his grip on the £20,000 bonus when Word Perfect II clipped the front rail at the first fence in the main arena and, when poles from seven other obstacles joined the pile, Bartle slid down to fourth, one slot ahead of Thompson, to leave Funnell out in front.
Olympic three-day event champion Blyth Tait, who held onto third with an increasingly headstrong Ready Teddy - in spite of three knocks - was swift to join in the praise for this new competition that attracted a record midweek crowd to the Sussex showgrounds.
