Blenheim Horse Trials opens this Thursday 17 September in the grounds of Woodstock Palace, England, with 74 horses starting in the CCI4*-L and 108 eight and nine-year-olds in the CCI4*-S. Among them, a horse unlike any other: Chilli Morning IV, a genetic copy of a stallion who died on 25 August 2020, world champion seven-year-old at Le Lion d’Angers in 2024. His rider, Gemma Stevens, won Burghley eleven days ago on Chilli Knight, a son of the original. Here is what is at stake at Blenheim through Sunday, and why this clone is permitted to compete.
Blenheim Horse Trials 2026: dates, classes and runners
Blenheim Palace International Horse Trials runs from Thursday 17 to Sunday 20 September 2026 across the lawns of Blenheim Palace at Woodstock in Oxfordshire. The estate hosted the European Eventing Championships in 2025; this year it returns to its two flagship competitions.
The first is the CCI4*-L, the championship four-day event with 74 horses entered and a waiting list of eight combinations. The second is the CCI4*-S for eight and nine-year-olds, which has accepted an unusually large field of 108 starters this year. Fourteen nations are represented, and a new team competition, the Blenheim Challenge, has been added to the programme.
The format follows the classic eventing schedule: dressage Thursday and Friday, cross-country on Saturday 19, showjumping on Sunday 20. Dressage for the CCI4*-L begins around 10 am this Thursday in the arena in front of the palace facade; the eight and nine-year-olds go an hour earlier.
The opening veterinary inspection was held on Wednesday 16 September: all 77 horses presented were accepted. Only one passed through the holding area before being cleared, John The Bull, a 15-year-old gelding ridden by Irish rider Susie Berry, third in this event in 2021, who arrived from Burghley without finishing his round.
Chilli Morning IV: the clone of a stallion who died in 2020, running in the eight and nine-year-old class
The horse attracting all eyes is not running the main competition. He is entered in the eight and nine-year-old class under Gemma Stevens. Chilli Morning IV, known to his connections as Quattro, is a clone: a genetic copy of Chilli Morning, the Brandenburg stallion ridden by William Fox-Pitt between 2012 and 2016, winner of Badminton in 2015, the only stallion ever to have won that five-star, individual bronze at the World Equestrian Games in Caen in 2014, twelfth at Rio in 2016 after leading after dressage.
Chilli Morning died on 25 August 2020, at twenty, collapsing in his paddock at Tattleton stud in Sussex. His owners, Chris and Lisa Stone, had three clones of the horse created. All three have been raised in Sussex and now compete for three riders from three nations: Chilli Morning II, called Deuce, for German rider Julia Krajewski, Olympic champion in Tokyo; Chilli Morning III, called Tres, for Chinese rider Alex Hua Tian; and Chilli Morning IV, called Quattro, for British rider Gemma Stevens.
On 20 October 2024, at the World Championships at Le Lion d’Angers in Maine-et-Loire, Chilli Morning IV was crowned world champion of seven-year-old horses, finishing on his dressage score of 26.2, ahead of Kitty King and Kantango. His laboratory brother Chilli Morning II ran in the same final and finished sixth. A detail that set the sport talking: the two clones achieved exactly the same dressage score. In 2025, Chilli Morning IV finished eighth in this same eight and nine-year-old class at Blenheim. He returns therefore at nine years old, with a year’s added maturity.
Why a cloned horse is allowed to run international eventing
The International Equestrian Federation banned clones in 2007. It lifted the ban in 2012, following its meeting in Lausanne in June, stating that it would not prohibit clones or their offspring from competing in its events. The argument: a clone shares the genome of a champion, not his training or career; he must, like all others, learn to jump. The three Chilli Mornings are therefore within the rules.
What strikes riders is the resemblance. Gemma Stevens, who knew the original in retirement, recounts that the clones’ walk is Chilli’s walk, that their lead change is the same, but that hers has a finer head. All three riders agree on one point: the love of cross-country, that departure from the box with ears pricked forward, as if the horse had already done it all.
Gemma Stevens, Chilli Knight and Chilli’s Jester: the Chilli Morning dynasty from Burghley to Blenheim
The timing of events makes the story even more remarkable. On Sunday 6 September, Gemma Stevens won the Defender Burghley Horse Trials, one of the world’s toughest five-stars, on Chilli Knight, a 16-year-old gelding by Chilli Morning, bred by the same Chris and Lisa Stone. She finished on her dressage score of 29.6, with 13.4 points in hand over the runner-up: the largest winning margin at Burghley since 1998. It was her first victory in a British five-star after twenty-five years of trying, one month after a challenging world championship at Aachen. Our article on the eve of Burghley tipped fellow British rider Sarah Bullimore as favourite; it was Gemma Stevens who lifted the trophy.
Eleven days later, Gemma Stevens runs two horses of the same bloodline at Blenheim. In the CCI4*-L she rides Chilli’s Jester, ten years old, full brother to Chilli Knight, thus also a son of the late stallion. In the eight and nine-year-old class, she rides the clone. The blood of Chilli Morning appears across both flagship competitions of the weekend, through conventional genetics on one side, through laboratory copy on the other.
Chilli Morning remains available as frozen semen, and his three clones are destined to become stallions standing at stud in their turn. To understand what a sire of this calibre weighs in the price of the world’s most expensive horses, this weekend tells a better story than any sales catalogue.
Tom McEwen, Laura Collett, Zara Tindall: other horses to watch in the Blenheim CCI4*-L
The CCI4*-L is led by Brookfield Quality, Tom McEwen’s five-star horse, who also runs Isa and The Fieldmaster. Laura Collett presents Balancero, Gemma Stevens Chilli’s Jester: all four members of the British team that won gold at the World Championships in Aachen in August are at the start. Zara Tindall, former Blenheim winner and granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II, rides Classicals Euro Star.
Other horses to watch: Cymoon F Z, ridden by Isabelle Cook, second in the CCI4*-L at Millstreet in July; Diese du Figuier, a well French name, second at Blenheim 2024 with Daisy Berkeley; and Speedwell, New Zealand reserve for the World Championships, with Jesse Campbell.
In the eight and nine-year-old class, besides the clone, two young horse world champions crowned at Le Lion d’Angers are expected: Brookfield Danny De Muze, winner of the seven-year-olds in 2025 for Tom McEwen, and Barrington Alice, six-year-old champion in 2023 under Izzy Taylor, who returned to competition late after a leg fracture in March. Katie Magee, second at Burghley, runs Cushlas Indigo. This eight and nine-year-old class is, for eventing, the equivalent of the Pompadour final for young French horses: the stepping stone between the national six-year-old finals and the highest level.
The Blenheim 2026 cross-country: 26 obstacles, four water crossings and a new course designer
Saturday’s cross-country has a new course designer, Canadian Jay Hambly, who succeeds the team that created the 2025 European Championships course. The track follows the same route as previous years through the park, with 26 numbered obstacles, and the horses get their feet wet four times. Three words to sum it up: angles, hills, water.
The first real question is the Dew Pond, obstacle 6: a jump set on the summit of a mound, a drop into a pond, then a brush to jump at an angle on solid ground. In front of the palace facade, obstacle 9 strings together a massive angle, a deep coffin two strides further on, then a second angle where the rider must choose between cutting inside a sculpture for a shorter route or going around it.
Then comes a gallop across the lake between 14 and 15, then, with no drying time, the combination at 16: a large log into water that no one can avoid, a brush at an angle in the water, a narrow point on exit. At the furthest point, obstacle 18 lines up an open oxer on releasable pins at the summit of a mound, an angle downhill and a large brush in box form. To read this cross-country like a judge, our reference points from the fixed obstacles at Aachen’s cross-country still apply: here too, nothing falls except the frangible devices.
On a course of this type, a body protector is mandatory: our guide to body protectors in riding details the standards these riders wear under their silks.
What to watch at Blenheim and the clone
Chilli Morning IV’s dressage score. World champion seven-year-old on 26.2 in 2024, eighth at Blenheim in 2025: if he goes under 27 this Thursday, he is in contention.
Sunday’s showjumping. His rider says it herself: it is his weakest phase. A clone has no written destiny; he has a weak point like every horse.
The number of clear rounds at fences 6, 9 and 16. A new course designer is judged by his clear round rate: between 60 and 70 per cent clear at the obstacles, the course has done its job; below 50 per cent, it was too tough.
The fate of Chilli’s Jester in the 4*-L. Entire brother to a Burghley winner: if he finishes in the top ten, the Chilli Morning line will have produced a September without equal.
Blenheim Horse Trials 2026: what to take away
Blenheim is Britain’s premier late-season eventing rendezvous, and the 2026 edition concentrates three stories in one: a field of 74 horses in the CCI4*-L led by the team world champions, 108 young horses of eight and nine years, and a clone of Chilli Morning running eleven days after his genetic brother’s victory at Burghley. The FEI rules have permitted it since 2012; the ground makes no concessions to copies.
For French riders, the same weekend features an international horse trials at the Haras national du Pin from 17 to 20 September in Normandy: two ways of seeing the same discipline, one in an English palace park, the other in a royal Norman stud. And if the weekend’s results tempt riders to resume competing, the equestrian competition calendar and your horse’s health record are the two tools to open before entering.
