Sparky Lad, a son of Smart Missile out of the More Than Ready mare Lady Hepburn, ran on the Flat in Australia for leading trainer Chris Waller.
A delighted Clarke said: “This is the biggest prize I’ve won during my career – the prize is amazing and the initiative is fantastic, so thank you very much to Jayne McGivern, David Howden and Arena Racing Company. Ex-racehorses are wonderful athletes and they try their best for you. I hope that this class encourages top riders to ask their local racehorse trainer whether they have a horse that might suit eventing.
“That’s what happened with Sparky Lad – his owner, Tim Boland, runs Limitless Lodge, which is a leading breaking and pre-training yard just north of Sydney. He pre-trained Sparky and identified him as a horse that could go on to succeed in eventing. Sparky went into training with Chris Waller and this horse is what Tim described as a ‘handy horse’ in that he ran more than 30 times and clocked up over $250,000 [Australian dollars], winning four times and was placed six times.
“Sparky has such a beautiful mind – he is the same every day and tries very hard.”
As well as the £45,000 cheque, Clarke was also awarded the Racehorse to Eventer Challenge Cup – a George III silver perpetual trophy. Every year, the winning owner in this class will receive the silver-plated horse shoe of a Derby winner – the first of which, for 2025, was that of Golden Horn, who took the world’s premier Classic race in 2015 and who is owned by Jayne McGivern of Dash Grange Stud, who conceived and created the ARC Racehorse to Eventer Challenge Cup alongside David Howden, president and founder of Cornbury House Horse Trials. Sparky Lad also won his weight in KeyFlow horse feed.
Ben Lee Liles and Finch Fancy, a diminutive mare by Arvico he owns alongside Charlie Ainsworth, were second, finishing on their 28.1 dressage mark and taking home £2,000 in the process.
Finch Fancy ran in a point-to-point and three National Hunt bumpers.
“She’s very competitive at CCI3* level, but she’s not the easiest to ride as she’s quite feisty,” said Ben. “She loves cross-country and is a great jumper. I’ve had some extra help with my dressage recently from Douglas Hibbett to polish things up. We got a personal best in the dressage, so that was amazing.”
He explained: “Some friends of mine had her in training and ran her in bumpers and wanted to get her jumping, but she was lacking in confidence, so they sent her to me for a couple of weeks to see if I could help. When I jumped her, I thought, ‘Wow, here’s a thoroughbred who wants to go airborne over fences’. I did an 80cm clear round with her at the end of the week and she was brilliant, so I said to the owners after that that if they ever wanted her to have another career, I would have her, and now here we are.”
Alexander Tordoff and the lovely grey Jack Randall, who is owned by Louise Heard, were third. They added 1.2 cross-country time-faults to a 27.7 dressage.
“He’s heading to the eight- and nine-year-old CCI4*-S class at Blenheim next week, so I brought him here for a confidence boost and to get him in a big atmosphere, and Cornbury has really delivered on that front,” said Alex. “His owner bought him for herself three or four years ago out of a field and having never been over a pole. He was very cheap and he’s turned out to be the most lovely, wonderful horse in every way, with a lot of ability and heart.”
Jack Randall, by Cityscape out of a Sakhee’s Secret mare, ran 14 times on the Flat when trained by Tim Easterby and then Iain Jardine.
The ARC Racehorse to Eventer Challenge attracted 44 starters in its first year, and many figures from the racing world gathered at Cornbury House Horse Trials on Saturday to watch its conclusion, including Nicky Henderson, Kim Bailey, Ben Pauling and Nico de Boinville. The class was one of the highlights of this immensely popular horse trials, which features FEI eventing classes at CCI3*-S and CCI2*-S level, the British Eventing Young Horse National Championships and classes for under-21 riders supported by The Howden Way.