Farewell to the best eventing stallion ever
“WHEN I saw him at Peter Thomsen’s yard, Chilli was at the back end of his four-year-old year and as raw as raw could be, but I loved him. From the word go, he was easy – he just said, ‘Yes, I can do that, I can do that, I can do that.’ It was a case of taking your time and being patient, not doing too much too soon.
“He suffered a bit of an injury in his first four-star [now five-star] at Luhmühlen in 2010 and then it was a massive uphill struggle to get to Burghley the next year. It was 2011 and our chance to do what we’d set out to do all those years before. We jumped clear to qualify for London, but he wasn’t fast enough because of the injury and we didn’t do a good enough job to attract the attention of the selectors, though I was over the moon with
