Tim Price is riding the late Georgie Campbell’s favourite horse, Global Quest, at Defender Burghley Horse Trials this week, fulfilling a goal that Georgie had hoped to achieve herself.
“I helped her a little bit with him a few years ago, and she absolutely loved him,” said Tim after his dressage test this morning (3 September). “He meant a lot to her. I have the privilege of riding him after her, and it’s been very much in her honour.”
Georgie produced Global Quest to four-star level, including a win at Lignières CCI4*L in 2022. She tragically died following a cross-country fall with this horse at Bicton International Horse Trials in May 2024.
“She always wanted to get to five star with him, so I’m doing that on her behalf,” added Tim. “He’s a lovely horse, great cross-country horse, and he’s getting better and better finishes at this level as we get more experience.”
‘For a big fella, he has anxiety’
Tim and Global Quest, a 16.3hh gelding owned by Lance and Diana Morrish, made their five-star debut at Pau last year before contesting Kentucky this spring. The New Zealand rider and world number one explained that it has taken time to get to know the horse.
“For a big fella, he actually has quite a level of anxiety,” he explained. “Georgie used to have inconsistency, and she used to get frustrated, and it’s something I always refer back to.
“Me being bigger and stronger, and perhaps more ‘it’s like this, mate’, has not always been to the benefit of him. He gets a little upset and goes into his shell. Then everything’s a bit forced, and you lose the balance and the impulsion and things like that.
“I’ve got him a lot fitter, a lot lighter, and his body stronger with all the work behind the scenes,” continued Tim. “I want him to show himself off, not me say this is what you should do, to try and achieve a little bit more softness and cadence, and things that aren’t natural to him.”
Tim and Global Quest scored 32.1 in the main arena this morning.
“Today I tried to run smoothly. It comes at the cost of a few crisp transitions and the changes are small, but they’re clean,” added Tim. “In the past, I’d say, ‘And change’, and then he’d throw his head down and go, ‘Why did you do that?’
“So I just want to show him the way, and then over the next couple of seasons, try to show him that he could actually be much better and really good.”
‘It never gets normal’
Tim is a Burghley regular and won here in 2018 aboard Ringwood Sky Boy, but he confessed that it “never gets normal”.
“The thing I love about Burghley is I get nervous [when walking the cross-country course] and wonder how to do my job. It’s not many places that it’s like that. Walking the course I’m like, is that actually? Hang on. Is that so? Will my horse actually understand? You know, questioning everything.
“In a funny way there’s a closer relationship with the designer because you trust him and you try to see it through his eyes and the question he’s asking. I refer to that a lot. But no, it never it never gets normal.”
