Mary King chases Tiana Coudray into the Cross-Country

Tiana Coudray and Ringwood Magister earned 40.8 penalties to emerge as the top-scoring pair in dressage, the first phase of the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event, presented by Bridgestone.

Mary King of Great Britain scored 41.7 on Fernhill Urco (breeder Coudelaria Calça e Pina – Portugal)to grab second place. On Thursday King scored 47.7 on Queen’s Temptress, a score that’s placed them fourth. Allison Springer and Arthur, the Thursday leaders, dropped to third place (42.3) among the 44 starters.

This is the second start at Rolex Kentucky for Coudray, 22, of Ojai, Calif., having last ridden here in 2007. She’s developed Ringwood Magister, 10, since finding him in Ireland as a young horse.

“It’s kind of overwhelming,” she said about holding first place. “He’d been really good in warm-up, but then he heard the applause [for the previous horse], and at that point all bets were off, and he bucked all the way down the ramp to the ring. So I wasn’t sure which way it would go, but he put it all together when he went in the ring.”

She said, though, that such a change of attitude is typical of Ringwood Magister. “He can be doing his darnedest to buck me off around the ring and then get down to work going down the centerline,” she said.

Coudray added, “I think I started smiling when I got to the [second-last movement]. That’s when it hit me that we’d had a very, very good test.”

King was pleasantly surprised by Fernhill Urco’s performance, and she largely attributed the improvement to using a new bit. “I wasn’t expecting such a good test,” she admitted. “He’s a really friendly, positive-thinking horse, but he’s always on a mission to go somewhere. So I’d been really quite struggling with the dressage. I found the test hard because he was so strong all the time.”

King, a member of the British gold-medal team at the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games at the Kentucky Horse Park, said that she’s trying not to let having two top-placed horses put extra pressure on her.

“I’m always trying not to do pressure. I try to quickly think about something else,” said King, 49. “I feel fortunate to still be at this level at my age, to be lucky to just be taking part in such wonderful competitions as this.”

Coudray and King each said they’re looking forward to riding Derek di Grazia’s cross-country course on Saturday.

“Typically at this point I’m not usually feeling so good,” said Coudray. “But I am worried a bit, because Derek’s courses almost always put you at ease and then catch you out somewhere because you’re not paying attention. I need to really treat it like it’s not looking as nice as it is.”

Coudray has ridden many of di Grazia’s courses in California, where she trains with di Grazia and his wife, Bea. But King didn’t think she’d ever ridden over a di Grazia course before.

“I think it’s an absolutely fantastic course,” said King. “I just hope the ground conditions don’t take away from how brilliant a course it is. It’s all very jumpable, but it’s a really four-star course. I think the ground conditions are going to be the main test.”

Kentucky has set a record for rainfall in April, and di Grazia and his crew are working hard to battle the run-off that’s flowing through places on the course where it doesn’t normally flow. Saturday’s weather forecast—sunny and 74 degrees—will help dry out the ground, though.

This year, the Ariat Kentucky Reining Cup is making its debut alongside the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event and will feature the world’s best reiners, including the four members of the gold-medal team from last year’s Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.

The Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event is part of the HSBC FEI ClassicsTM and features the world’s best horses and riders vying for their share of $250,000 in prize money as well as a shot at the $350,000 Rolex Grand Slam of Eventing, which is awarded to any rider who wins the Rolex Kentucky, Mitsubishi Motors Badminton and Land Rover Burghley four-star events in succession. Mark Todd of New Zealand won Badminton on April 22-25 and is placed 17th at Rolex Kentucky on Grass Valley, 11 points behind the leader.