Oliver Townend must have had a lucky horse saddle on after taking the Land Rover Burghley title at the weekend. After winning at Badminton in May, the top class eventer has completed the British four-star double and is now looking to continue his winning streak at Kentucky next year.

If he succeeds in taking the Kentucky title, he will become only the second rider to win the $350,000 Rolex grand slam for winning Badminton, Burghley and Kentucky consecutively.

Partnered with Andrew Cawthray's Carousel Quest, Townend went into the arena with two jumps in hand, but jumped a perfect round to finish 8.7 penalties clear of the rest of the field.

Speaking of his win, Townend said, "I'm celebrating Badminton. It's amazing and there's no point in saying anything else because it hasn't sunk in yet and it probably won't for another year."

Townend was not the only one to be excelling in the jumping saddle as Polly Stockton also pulled off a marvellous clear round in the show jumping to pull herself from sixth to second on Arthur Comyn's Westwood Poser.

As the last four star British Eventing horse trials of the season, it may have been the last chance for some riders to have really proved themselves in the horse saddle this year with the next big opportunity not until April at the Rolex Kentucky Three Day Event.

[Image © Rayand via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence]