Charlotte, who has come to the Show directly from The BBC Sports Personality of the Year in Glasgow, complete with a bad cold, was as equally delighted with the new record score especially as it was their first competition since The Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games in August.
“We don’t set out to break a record it just happens – we just want to do our best and any record is a bonus,” said Charlotte, who looks forward to competing at Olympia.
She said; “It is a great end to the season and fantastic to be competing in front of the home crowd and Blueberry never fails to rise to the occasion.”
The pair head the draw for tomorrow night’s Grand Prix Freestyle with Charlotte promising to ‘let rip’ to the routine that is set to ‘How to train a dragon’.
Dutch team rider Edward Gal, a regular and popular visitor to Olympia, was second with Glocks Undercover NOP with the high mark of 80.12%, albeit still 7% adrift of the winning score. The Dutchman admitted that having to follow Charlotte was not ideal preparation for a test.
He said; “Glocks got very excited by the clapping and I had to hold him back at the beginning of the test but I was very pleased that he found his one-time changes again as he had totally lost them yesterday.” Fellow Dutch rider Danielle Heijkoop and Siro NOP were third with British rider Carl Hester and Nip Tuck in fourth.
The top fifteen from tonight’s Grand Prix class will go forward to tomorrow’s Grand Prix Freestyle starting at 20.10.