Carl Hester and Leibling won the 2009 British Dressage Championships Grand Prix freestyle title on 74.65% to his Tom Jones medley. Four other riders also posted plus 70% scores - last year’s champions Maria Eilberg and Two Sox came in second with a personal best of 73.90%. It was a well deserved third for Nicola Jourdain and St. Swithens who scored 72.05%.

Carl admitted at the end of Saturday's Grand Prix that music was not his strong point and went on to demonstrate that by leaving his music for the freestyle behind. A last minute dash back home did nothing to dampen his flare, and Carl and Donald MacTaggart lead from the front, after scoring 71.36% the day before - the only competitor to break the 70% barrier.

“This has been the best year I’ve had for twenty years,” said Carl. “Windsor took me back to the thrill of riding on my first team and now, to win more than 50 national titles is amazing. It also makes me realise how many horses I’ve ridden over the years!” joked Carl.

“We did have a mistake in the two time changes so I was then careful not to over ride in trying to put the score up. From then on though, the rest of the test was technically really good.”

As past years, in the Shearwater Potential International Young Dressage Horse Championships the horses were judged in age groups in the morning and the top ten were called back in for the judges to look at and pick the top two. The two from each age group were then test ridden by Becky Moody and further assesed by the judges to decide the final placings.

The two top four year olds in the were both ridden by Tim Sillevis - the Rohdiamant sired stallion Romanno Ruinart and the Dimmagio stallion GF Deville. Of the five year olds, the Bellisimo stallion Beltoni was placed first in the preliminary judging and Gemma Green on Zolanszy in second. On re-inspection, Charlotte DuJardin and Dimmagio another Dimmagio son Don Archie were pulled up from fourth place to take the second spot.

After the ridden inspection, Vicky Thompson-Winfield aboard footballer John Terry and wife Toni's stallion Beltoni were victorious, with Tim Sillevis and the four year old Romanno Ruinart runners up.

“Beltoni is proving to have an easy going temperament and is very easy to work with,” said Vicky. “He takes everything in his stride and is very rideable - he’s a very special horse”

“Toni & John Terry bought him just after Christmas,” explained Vicky. “He will eventually be partnered by Toni, who currently has a grand prix schoolmaster, once he’s more trained up. We just have to take care to develop him, to make him muscularly strong enough, as his talent is endless.”

Tim said of his win in the four year old section: “I was thrilled to win the class. Ruinart has won every young horse championship he’s contested this year so there was a lot of expectation for us to do well today - it was a bit nerve-wracking.”

The German-bred stallion, owned by Julie Down, has been with Tim since he was three. “He will stand at stud next year but his ridden career will still come first,” said Tim, who’s aiming the horse for the 2010 World Breeding Championships.”