As the announcer kept saying, we were at the Burghley Horse Trials when history was made. But to understand that, you have to know a little background.

Most people are only familiar with the simplest of horse competitions, the quick race around an oval favored by bookies and luxury tax advocates. Much less known are the show competitions, which most people mistakenly confuse in type with those for other animals (as in a dog show), but a dressage judge is looking much more at how the rider handles the horse than the points of breeding in the horse itself. Some people are familiar with the jumping competitions, if only from the highlights reel from the Olympics, where that sport is constantly fighting a holding action against newcomers like skateboarding or other gonzo sports that are perceived as more telegenic and commercial-worthy.

But the ingenuity and imagination of the human competitive spirit, even when coupled with large animals, is hardly scratched by this, and there's plenty more out there--organized, sponsored, with prize money. The triathalon of the horse world, which the Olympic event is a version of, is the "three-day event," where the first day is dressage, the second a cross-country obstacle course, and the third show jumps in an arena.

Of course, I'm being somewhat disingeneous here in that I was as unaware as the rest of the great unwashed of "eventing" until this year when an invitation came from my brother and sister-in-law to join them at the Rolex in Kentucky, one of the three four-star competitions of this sort. Jill and I passed on that one, for various reasons, but they issued a second to join them at the Burghley in England, which sounded much more interesting to me in that, if I didn't care for the horse part, I at least could find something amusing about the location. (For the record, the last of the big three competitions is the Badminton, which I had previously only known for as a game of an entirely different sort.)

Now, back to that bit about history being made. For the last few years, Rolex (the company) has been sponsoring what they call the Grand Slam of Eventing, a $250,000 prize for the rider who can win all three 4-star events in a row, similar to how VISA's been sponsoring a million-dollar prize for the next horse to win the Triple Crown of racing. At the Rolex (the event) this past March, Pippa Funnell won her second in a row (her third title, but she had barely lost last year's Burghley to William Fox-Pitt, thus breaking her string). The pressure was on--only Pippa had a chance at the big prize, but that didn't mean the race was hers for the asking. Along with Fox-Pitt, other previous 4-star winners were riding in the Burghley. After the first day of competition, the dressage, Pippa was in the lead, but at the end of the second day, the first place was held by another crowd favorite. In her first Burghley, Zara Phillips was the daughter of two previous 4-star event winners, not to mention being the daughter of Princess Anne, had she had ridden the entire three-mile cross-country run across the English manor grounds that the race takes its name from perfectly. Although she was in first place, she and Pippa were tied--Pippa's second place standing came from the fact that she had time faults from her cross-country run.

The final day is another obstacle course, but instead of scattered across the landscape, all the jumps are within an arena (approximately 30x50 yards). For both the second and third day races, there's an optimal time, which the rider needs to beat or suffer penalty points for exceeding the limit. The two leaders were set to ride last, given their scores. Both riders had to be careful, for a previous winner was close behind them in third place, and he had a nearly flawless ride--no time penalties, but his horse clipped the eleventh and final jump, so he earned four penalty points for that. Either woman could hit one pole and still be assured second at the very least, as long as they did the course under the time limit. But in the competition between each other, neither woman could afford even that.

As Pippa started her ride, you could tell that she was holding the horse back, making it examine the jumps and not be distracted by what's coming up, to focus on the gate at hand, the now. By doing so, she risked less per jump, although there's always danger in making sure the timing and strides between each jump are perfect. But the real danger she was facing was going so slow as to extend beyond the time limit--her slight mistake in the cross-country round that had her in second place. By the end of her run, she had cut it very close--no jump penalties, and she cross the finish line at 79.56, 0.46 of a second to spare off the optimal time of 80 seconds.

Zara took the course and was perfect...until the ninth series, a combination of three jumps in a row that had been causing problems for the field all day, when her horse just slightly hit the final pole. She finished the rest of the course clean, well within the time limit, but the pole down counted for four points added to her score and thus gifted Pippa with a wonderful Rolex ladies solid gold watch and a nice check for a quarter of a million, and gifted the rest of us with the ability to say we were there at the Burghley when someone won the first Grand Slam of Eventing.