Equestrianism: Smith's show of faith pays dividends with faultless victory

Robert Smith had been nursing the youthful talent of the eight-year-old stallion, Marius Claudius, for the last couple of years before winning yesterday's Mappin and Webb Grand Prix on the closing day of the Royal Windsor Horse Show with a fine blend of speed and accuracy.

It would have been tempting to do too much too soon with the Dutch-bred horse, who won four classes here in 2000 in his first show with Smith.

Since then Smith has been admirably cautious, using Marius Claudius as his third horse for most of last year. Yesterday, competing in his first grand prix with the stallion, the care he had taken paid dividends.

Third to go in the eight-horse jump-off, the horse achieved a clear round in a time that was swift enough to push his remaining opponents into errors. He was the only one to finish without faults. Lisa Murphy, on Cosmic Lady, finished runner-up with just three time faults, one place ahead of Jackson Reed-Stephenson, who had the fastest time on Bailey's Pion but had the last fence down.

Smith has not yet decided whether Marius Claudius will be on his lorry later this month when he leaves for the three show Iberian tour that takes in Madrid, Lisbon and Barcelona. Though he declines to tempt providence by agreeing that this could be the future star of his stable, he acknowledged that the stallion is careful, fast and scopey.

Felix Brasseur, a former world champion from Belgium, won the horse teams section of the Land Rover International Driving Grand Prix, defeating Australia's Boyd Exell and Germany's Peter Tischer, with Barry Capstick best of the home competitors in fourth.

The pony teams was also dominated by visiting drivers, with Art van de Kamp of the Netherlands gaining a narrow victory.