Jonelle PRICE riding FAERIE DIANIMO 

Tim PRICE riding WESKO 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kiwi eventers are well represented in the top echelons of the sport in the 2020 British Eventing top horse and rider leagues for the year as well as the FEI world rankings.

Tim and Jonelle Price are the only non-British riders in the top 10 of the riders, with Jonelle at number six and Tim at number nine. Izzy Taylor sits at no.1 with Piggy March second and Tom McEwen third.

There are six New Zealand horses in the top 22 horses. Tim Price’s Wesko is the best placed Kiwi horse, sitting at number four on 202 points. Brookfield Inocent leads the field on 286 with London 52 second on 253 and Zagreb third on 205.

It has been an outstanding year for Wesko who set a new personal best in his dressage with a 23 penalty point test in the CCI5* at Pau, where he finished third – for the second time.
Tim said he was certainly very happy with 2020. “What we did get done in terms of 5* was good with not too many mistakes, which had its own different array of challenges when you haven’t had a lot of pre-run and it’s not the perfect event for some of those horses.” He was really pleased with how everything came together and Wesko finishing third at Pau was a lovely finish.

While it wasn’t a complete season, it was still nice to feature in rankings, and he finished just four points behind Oliver Townend in the FEI World Athlete Eventing Rankings as no.2.
“To hold on to world no.2 ranking – I got fairly close to Oli which is getting pretty tight so it would have been nice to just get there but I am really pleased with no.2 and I look forward to climbing higher this year.”

Tim is excited for the coming season. “We have a lot of nice horses and it will just be a matter of who puts their hand up the highest when it comes to Olympic selection. It should be a really jampacked exciting first little bit of the year with back-to-back Kentucky, Saumur, Badminton and most of those horses are Olympic hopefuls.”

Jonelle is also busy and while won’t be heading to Saumur but is eyeing Kentucky and Badminton. The team will head to Spain in three weeks’ time and have a busy January training month ahead. “Hopefully it all comes together and everything unfolds into a season and we can get to where we want to get to and the horses all get into good form.”

Sir Mark Todd’s former ride Leonidas II is in 13th equal spot on 118, just ahead of Jonelle Price’s Grappa Nera in 15th on 112 points. Jonelle’s Grovine de Reve is in 17th on 106 points with McClaren at 21st on 96 points and Jesse Campbell’s Diachello

As well as Tim as world no.2 ranked eventer, Jonelle finished 2020 at number 19, Andrew Nicholson at 29 and New Zealand-based Clarke Johnstone 31st and Amanda Pottinger 36th.

The horse details:
Wesko – owned by The Windrush Equestrian Foundation and Tim Price
Leonidas II – owned by Di Brunsden and Peter Cattell
Grappa Nera – owned by The Grape Syndicate
Grovine de Reve – owned by Therese Miller, Jo Preston-Hunt, Philip Hunt and Jonelle Price
McClaren – owned by David and Katherine Thomson
Diachello – owned by Kent Gardner and Jesse Campbell

To view the full top horse league, head to:  https://www.britisheventing.com/compete/leagues/top-horse-league
To view the full top rider league, head to:  https://www.britisheventing.com/compete/leagues/top-rider-league
For full FEI world eventing rankings, head to: https://data.fei.org/Ranking/Search.aspx?rankingCode=C_WR

January 5, 2021
By Diana Dobson