BARBURY Estate owner Nigel Bunter says the legacy of London 2012 will have a huge impact on this year’s Barbury Horse Trials.

The trials, which take place on July 4-7, will see two new fences added to the cross country course, both of which have come directly from the eventing competition at last summer’s Olympic Games.

The ‘Tower of London’ and the ‘Cricket Jump’ have been added to Barbury’s repertoire and, after last year’s Trials served as the final pre-London 2012 warm-up for a host of teams, Bunter is delighted to see his event continue to forge strong links with the Olympics.

“Last year, our focus was very much on the Olympics because we were the warm-up event, not just for Great Britain but for many of the teams,” said Bunter.

“That was fantastic and a great honour for us. There’s obviously a legacy to the Olympics, which everybody is very keen to keep developing.

“What we’ve done this year is brought in Grand Prix showjumping for the first-time – this is pretty high-level and obviously, the British team won gold and we’re hoping to have some of them.

“The second bit of the legacy is that we were given two of the cross country jumps from Greenwich, that we’re building in to the course.

“I’m a big cricket fan and really wanted the Cricket Jump, so they should be some great additions. And of course, we’ll also have a lot of the eventers that were so great at the London Olympics.”

The Barbury estate is in the thick of preparations for this year’s trials.

Bunter added: “The thing that we always set out to do at Barbury is to make the estate look as good as we can.

“The guy who helped me set it up, David Green, said that we want to make it look like Augusta for the Masters – that was his challenge for us.

“It’s grown each year and we always get the best event riders here, which is a real tribute. One of the reasons they come is because of the preparation we put in to make it as good as possible.”

  •  WILTSHIRE rider Tom McEwen clinched the Bishop Burton College U25 CCI3* title at the Equi-Trek Bramham International Horse Trials on Sunday.

McEwen, who is based with Sir Mark Todd at the Badgerstown complex in Foxhill, had just four time penalties on Diesel as he edged in front of overnight leader Dani Evans.

Membury-based Laura Collett was fourth on Allora 3, with Georgie Spence, from Foxham, fifth on Wii Limbo.

British Olympic rider William Fox-Pitt claimed a seventh CCI3* title, riding Chilli Morning, Todd and Leonidas II also producing a clear round for second place.

Meanwhile, Tytherton Lucas rider Lucie McNichol boosted her hopes of a place at next year’s Badminton Horse Trials by riding Zeus of Rushall into ninth spot.

McNichol, who also won the Pro-Am pairs competition with Evans, collected just 0.8 of a time fault (on cross country) to move up from 13th after dressage to sixth.

Two show jump poles down nudged them down the standings, but McNichol hopes to have accumulated enough FEI points to reach Badminton in 2014.

FOR MORE SPORTS NEWS, REPORTS & PICTURES SEE THURSDAY'S GAZETTE & HERALD AND FOLLOW US ON TWITTER @gazsport