Phillip Miller heads the International Stairway at Suffolk County Show
Friday 31 May 2019
The third leg of the International Stairway Series 2019 was held at Suffolk County Show on Thursday and the top spot was claimed by Phillip Miller from Harpenden, Hertfordshire on Jacqueline Light’s Noble Warrior, a 10 year-old stallion bred at Brendon Stud and sired by Warrior.
The first round proved to be testing with only two combinations jumping clear. The top five after round one came forward to take on the jump-off designed by Kelvin Bywater. Mark Edwards with Montreuxs Tale and Helen Tredwell with Larksong were the two first round clears but picked up faults in the jump-off to eventually leave them in third and fifth respectively. Helen’s second ride Sebastian VII, owned by Colin Garrett produced the fastest round of the class crossing the finish line with a clear in 49.18 seconds but carried forward 4 faults from the first round to finish second.
The remaining two combinations in the jump-off belonged to Phillip Miller. He rode Diana Cornish’s Darona into fourth place picking up 4 faults in each round but the best of all was to come from Noble Warrior. They carried just a single time fault forward from the first round and went on to produce an immaculate clear in the jump-off posting a time of 57.46 seconds; a result which left them sat at the top of the leader board.
The International Stairway takes place across a number of county shows where winning combinations accrue League Points that count towards the Final which takes place at the British Showjumping National Championships in August at Stoneleigh Park. The series culminates with a high profile championships where three Horse of the Year Show International Wild Cards are allocated as well as it being where the sports National Champion is crowned.
