Rising Lions v Stars & Stripes: The Numbers Behind the First-Ever Blenheim Challenge

Eight riders go down the centre line at Agria Blenheim Palace International Horse Trials this week with two scoreboards to worry about. One is the CCI4*-L leaderboard. The other belongs to The Blenheim Challenge.

Four Rising Lions from GB face four Stars & Stripes riders from the United States and Australia, all competing inside the main CCI4*-L class. Before each phase a fresh random draw pairs each Lion against a member of the Stars & Stripes, and each of those four matches is worth a point. Win by ten marks or by a tenth, the point is the same.

That single rule reshapes everything the ratings say. Stars & Stripes hold the better numbers in two phases out of three. Whether they convert it will depend on the luck of the draw.

One point has already been awarded. Stars & Stripes took the trot-up point on Wednesday, the dressage draw landed the same evening, and both teams have played a joker in the first phase.

How it works Two teams, four riders each. A new random 1v1 draw before every phase gives four head-to-head matches. Win your match and you win a point. A tied phase score splits it in half. An eliminated rider scores nothing, and if both are eliminated, no point is awarded. Each team has two jokers, declared before the draw is made, which double whatever that rider wins in the phase. One further point goes to the best turned out horse at the first trot-up.

Nicole Brown was joined by Diarmuid Byrne and Annie Bishop to preview the Blenheim Challenge on the Eventing Podcast.

The eight riders competing

Rising Lions	Horse	Elo
Isabelle Cook 21	Cymoon “F” Z	525
Joshua Levett 21	Huberthus AC	424
Jess Rimmer 24	The Spice Merchant	413
Barnie Brotherton 23	DHI King Nelson	398
Team average		440

Stars & Stripes	Horse	Elo
Olivia Dutton 24	Jewelent	602
Oliver Barrett 22	Sandhills Briar	570
Tommy Greengard 27	That’s Me Z	492
Grace Taylor 30	Bandito van Polderzicht	266
Team average		483

Elo An overall performance rating across all three phases, built on consistent competitiveness and the quality of opponents a horse has beaten. Higher is better.

Those averages hide the shape of it. Stars & Stripes are top-heavy: three horses at 492 or above, then a 266. The Lions are bunched inside 127 points. In a conventional team competition that spread would hurt Britain. Under match play it helps, because a team can only win four points a phase however good its best horse is. Jewelent cannot beat two Lions at once.

Bandito van Polderzicht’s 266 may look alarming but underneath the number is a consistent completion rate. The Elo is dragged down by dressage scores north of 40 and a horse who has never made the cross-country time. But in sixteen international starts he has never been eliminated across country, and he has had two rails since the start of the 2024 season. He is a completion machine at a competition where completing scores.

Every combination is profiled in the Fan Guide, with form, ratings and last three runs for all eight.

Read the Fan Guide →

£50,000, and where it goes

Three fifths of the fund never reaches the winning riders. It was designed that way, so that the grooms, the next generation, and a charity all take something home.

Share	Amount
Riders in the winning team	£20,000
Grooms in the winning team	£10,000
Riders in the second placed team	£5,000
Grooms in the second placed team	£5,000
Youth programme of the winning team’s governing body	£5,000
Equestrian charity chosen by the winners	£5,000

The grooms will take £15,000 home, win or lose, and there is a point attached to their hard work too. It has already gone. Paige Watson, travelling groom to Max Warburton and Burghley’s Best Turned Out winner, judged the first trot-up and gave the point to Adriana De Peppe for her presentation of That’s Me Z.

Stars & Stripes lead 1-0 before dressage has even started.

Phase one

Dressage

The draw was made on Wednesday evening, and both jokers had to be declared before it. Oliver Barrett carries the American one, Barnie Brotherton the British one, exactly as the form pointed.

Rising Lions		Stars & Stripes
Jess Rimmer The Spice Merchant 38.6	v	Tommy Greengard That’s Me Z 32.6
6RA edge: Stars & Stripes by 6.0
Barnie Brotherton ★ DHI King Nelson 32.1	v	Grace Taylor Bandito van Polderzicht 42.7
6RA edge: Rising Lions by 10.6
Isabelle Cook Cymoon “F” Z 36.7	v	Olivia Dutton Jewelent 33.3
6RA edge: Stars & Stripes by 3.4
Joshua Levett Huberthus AC 34.0	v	Oliver Barrett ★ Sandhills Briar 30.5
6RA edge: Stars & Stripes by 3.5

Figures are 6RA. ★ denotes a joker.

The Lions could not have drawn it better. DHI King Nelson against Bandito van Polderzicht is the widest mismatch available at 10.6 marks on 6RA, and Brotherton is the one carrying the joker. He has posted 30.3 and 30.2 in his last two internationals.

Barrett’s joker landed on Josh Levett rather than Brotherton, the outcome Stars & Stripes will like least. Their strongest first-phase card would have done most damage cancelling out the strongest British one. Instead it beats a Lion they were favoured against anyway. 

The closest matches on paper is between Izzy Cook and Olivia Dutton. With 3.4 marks in the difference, Cook against Dutton is another pairing beyond Brotherton that Britain could potentially take. On paper it goes to Dutton. On the day it is the one to watch.

6RA The average dressage score from a horse’s last six international tests, and the best guide to what a combination will produce on the day.

Add it up and the first phase projects 4–2 to Stars & Stripes with both jokers doubled, 5–2 overall with the trot-up point. The Lions can erase that in a single Saturday.

Phase two

Cross-country

Blenheim is not a soft track. Across every running since 2009, 59% of cross-country starters have jumped clear and only 10% have gone clear inside the time. In 2024 a single horse from 75 starters made the time. In 2025, when the venue hosted the FEI Eventing European Championship for Seniors, not one did.

That matters here. An elimination scores zero, and two riders both clear inside the time split the point. Most of these matches will be settled on time penalties.

Experience at the level is thinner than the horse records suggest, because several of these horses did their CCI4*-L mileage with a previous rider. Huberthus AC was 21st at Blenheim in 2021, but that run belongs to Bill Levett. Jewelent has the deepest four-star long record of the eight, but most of it was built by Clare Abbott and by Olivia’s father Phillip Dutton.

As current partnerships, most of the eight have one or two runs at 4*L, and That’s Me Z has none - at nine he is the youngest horse here and this is his level debut. 

XCJ10 and average time penalties XCJ10 is the clear rate, with no jumping penalties, over a horse’s last ten international cross-country rounds. The second column is the average cross-country time penalties across the 6 fastest runs from their last 10.

This is where the Rising Lions get it back. Stars & Stripes hold the better jumping records, 80% clear to 68%, but the Lions are twice as quick against the clock: 4.9 average time penalties to 10.1. The two fastest horses belong to Britain.

Their best card is Cymoon “F” Z based on both metrics and recent form. An average of 2.7 time penalties is the second lowest in the eight, and it comes with a 70% clear rate rather than reckless speed. Izzy Cook was one of the fastest of the day at Kentucky in April, on a track where more experienced combinations came unstuck, and 2nd at Millstreet in July.

The American answer is Jewelent, the most balanced horse in the field at 80% clear and only 6.5 time penalties. Twenty penalties at Tryon CCI4*-L is the only jumping penalty in the last twelve months on his record, and Olivia Dutton proved it was a one-off when they took individual bronze in the CCI4*-S at Millstreet, the U25 World Championship.

Phase three

Show jumping

If the Challenge is still alive on Sunday, this is the phase that ends it, and it is the one where the gap is not close.

Horse	SJ6
Sandhills Briar	0.00
Jewelent	1.33
That’s Me Z	1.33
Bandito van Polderzicht	1.33
DHI King Nelson	2.00
Cymoon “F” Z	2.00
The Spice Merchant	4.67
Huberthus AC	5.33
Team average	S&S 1.00 · RL 3.50

SJ6 The average show jumping faults across a horse’s last six international rounds. Lower is better. One rail is four faults, so the gap between 1.33 and 5.33 is roughly a pole a round.

Every Stars & Stripes horse averages 1.33 faults or fewer. Two Lions average more than a rail a round. At CCI4*-L and CCI5*, in these partnerships, Stars & Stripes have jumped four rounds without a rail from four. The Rising Lions have none from five.

Above it all sits Sandhills Briar on 0.00. Sixteen international show jumping rounds, sixteen without a rail: he has never had one down in his career. He would be the obvious joker for the Stars & Stripes to use on the final day. Behind him, Jewelent has jumped clear in his last four internationals.

The British answers are DHI King Nelson and Cymoon “F” Z - the only Lions with lower than a pole on the metrics.

The preview show verdict Nicole Brown backs the Rising Lions, on the basis that they have to smash it on Saturday and she thinks they will. Annie Bishop and Diarmuid Byrne both back Stars & Stripes.

Read the ratings and Stars & Stripes should win this. They have the best dressage horse, the best show jumper, and both phases on team average. The Rising Lions have cross-country speed and a format that flattens every advantage into a single point.

Twelve matches, three draws, two jokers each and a turnout point already gone. Let's see how the first-ever Blenheim Challenge plays out.

Follow the Challenge
Watch	Horse & Country
Live scores	eventingscores.co.uk
Listen	The Eventing Podcast preview show
Fan guide	Form and ratings for all eight
Follow	@gbrisinglions on Instagram