Chilli Morning

The only stallion to win Badminton, who not only brought home championship medals, but helped William Fox-Pitt return from injury. Kate Green uncovers his story

- Kate Green

STALLIONS hitting the heights in top-level dressage and showjumping – think Totilas and Painted Black, Cumano and Peppermill – are nothing new, but in five-star and championship eventing, where the physical demands and risks are greater, they come along less frequently.

Until Chilli Morning reached his full potential with William Fox-Pitt, the premier competing eventing sires in recent memory would have been headed by the flamboyant British-bred Yarlands Summersong, multi-medallist with France’s Marie-Christine Duroy, plus his son Leprince Des Bois (eighth at Burghley in 2012 with Germany’s Kai Rüder).

There were also the Barrs’ Welton Apollo (eighth at Badminton in 1989 with Leslie Law), Windfall II, winner of the 2003 Pan-Am Games and the only other stallion to win a five-star (the experimental short-format Kentucky in 2004), with US rider Darren Chiacchia, and the Bunns’ Viceroy, first at Blenheim in 2004 with Pippa Funnell. And the gold-medal French team at the Rio Olympics included an entire – Entebbe De Hus with Karim Loughouag.

“Chilli’s temperament was exceptional,” says William Fox-Pitt, who rode him at championship level. “Of course he had stallion-ish tendencies, and might be brusque if feeling sexy, but he was remarkably well behaved. When he was being ridden, his mind wasn’t on sex, which made him easy to manage.

“I never felt being a stallion inhibited his performance. He was totally brave. Stallions have an arrogance that a gelding doesn’t have. Chilli had total self-belief; he never questioned himself, either on the flat or over a fence.”