Five Things to Know Ahead of Pau

Five things to know ahead of Pau, where the favourite has never won a five-star and the dressage is half done.

Dressage runs through Friday, cross-country is Saturday and the show jumping decides it on Sunday. Twenty-seven of the 49 starters have done their test. Here is where the field stands.

1	The favourite is sixth Cola, 756 Elo, 32.3 after dressage

Cola is the pre-competition Prediction Centre favourite and the highest-rated horse at Pau by a distance: 756 Elo against 673 for the next best. He is also 16, has started nine five-stars without winning one, and was eliminated on this track twelve months ago. On Thursday he scored 32.3, three marks above his recent average, and sits sixth with the big dressage horses still to come.

Nine five-star starts. Nine without a win.

The gap from Cola to second on Elo is 83 points. Below that, seven horses sit within 32 points of each other. MHS Seventeen is second on rating but has picked up 20 cross-country jumping penalties at three of his last six internationals, including Little Downham a fortnight ago.

Top eight of the Pau field by Elo, international results to 7 October 2026.

What’s Elo? Tap to read ▾

Elo is the EquiRatings rating that tracks a horse’s career performance. It climbs based on who they beat and falls based on who beats them. The higher the number, the better. It is the single best predictor of who wins.

2	A nine-year-old leads Quintus, 28.6

Quintus and Tom McEwen lead the dressage on 28.6 from Gypsie Du Loir and Cancaras Girl on 28.9. Still to go on Friday: Jarillo, Cartania, Its Cooley Time, Senor Crocodillo, MHS Seventeen and Erin, so the leaderboard will move. But Quintus is the horse this field keeps coming back to: clear in nine of his last ten cross-country rounds, the best speed of his career this season, inside the time at Scone in August.

Oslo, who won here on his debut in 2012, and La Biosthetique Sam. Nobody has done it since. Barrington Alice is the other nine-year-old near the top, eighth on 33.0 for Izzy Taylor.

Dressage standings after 27 of 49 tests on Thursday. Bar length shows closeness to the leader. 22 horses still to go.

3	The time decides it 11% of Pau starters make it

Only 11% of cross-country starters at Pau have ever made the time, and it swings: 11 did in 2021, none in 2023 or 2024, six last year. The 2024 running was a washout. Nobody made the time, and Caroline Harris and D. Day won from 22nd after dressage on 40.3, the highest winning score here since 2010. Rain is forecast all week again. It may not reach that level, but the ground will be soft.

Cola’s speed rating is fourth best in the field, built largely on four-star shorts. At five-star he has been inside the time once in nine starts, at Pau in 2021, and added 12 time penalties at Badminton in May on good ground when plenty made it. The horses with speed to show at this level are Erin, inside the time at Aachen, Cartania, who has done it at two five-stars including her Maryland win, and Quintus.

Top Speed Percentage: how close a horse runs to the optimum time across its recent cross-country rounds. 100% is inside the time every run. Short-format rounds carry weight. Jarillo is on 88%.

4	The winner came back Jarillo, and a field that knows the track

Jarillo and Tim Price are back to defend, and so are three more of last year’s top ten: Plot Twist B, Happy Boy and Senor Crocodillo. Pau used to be the five-star you won on the way to Badminton. Now horses come back to it. More than half this field has five-star form and three of them have won one, so there are fewer unknowns at the top than there used to be.

Why is last year’s winner not the Prediction Centre favourite? The ratings count every international run, and Tim Price does not run steadily in four-star shorts. A 60 at Royal Jump and 23.6 time penalties at Little Downham both count against him. His Pau record reads differently: 26.5, 4.4 on Saturday, clear on Sunday, won on 30.9.

The other side of that coin is the debutant. Four of the last eight Pau winners were making their five-star debut. The one to watch this year is Hartacker: 14, Elo level with Jarillo and Quintus, second at Scone in August after leading the dressage, clear in eight of his last nine cross-country rounds. He scored 33.4 on Thursday for Willa Newton, whose last five-star was in 2018.

Hartacker 13% of Eventing Manager teams

Jarillo 44% of Eventing Manager teams

5	Sunday is not a formality 19% of Pau show jumping rounds are clear

Pau’s show jumping clear rate, jumping and time, is 19% across 18 runnings. That is where the favourite is most exposed. Cola has jumped clear in 22 of 39 international rounds and has had 28 poles down in his career. The horses who have not been touching them: MHS Seventeen, 14 clears in a row and two poles in 24 international rounds. Happy Boy, nine in a row and two poles in 20. Senor Crocodillo, two poles in 22. Its Cooley Time, ten clears in a row and three poles in 17.

Its Cooley Time is Bubby Upton’s second ride and the horse two of the four podcast picks landed on: a two-time Bramham winner with the best jumping record in the field but three eliminations in his last six starts, including here last year. 

The picks vs the Prediction Centre

Four podcast picks, two winners, neither the favourite

Winner picks from the EquiRatings Eventing Podcast Pau preview.