MARLBOROUGH-based eventer Tim Price is taking a different approach to Kentucky this year as he prepares for his first four-star event of the season.

With Badminton just a week away, the New-Zealand rider is in Lexington with his steed Ringwood Sky Boy to take on the challenge.

Having taken Bango last year, Price has opted to change tack this season, and hopes the timing will play into the hands of the horse he took to the Olympics in Rio last year.

“He was my Olympic horse and we unfortunately slipped over on the flat but then he came back,” he told the Gazette & Herald.

“It was disappointing but then after that he went to Burghley and went very well and this year, I think he will be really good fun out there.

“He is quite a hot-head of a horse. He is often quite affected by spring in the first part of the season and I think the trip out there and the new environment will stand him in good stead out there.

“Sometimes at Badminton, he is very fresh and bouncing off the walls. He has been to Badminton the last three seasons in the spring so it will be fun to go somewhere else and do something a bit different.”

Price will be looking to put last year’s disappointment behind him, having fallen at the penultimate fence in the cross country stage last season, lying in second position at the time.

With falls also at Rio and Badminton, Price is hoping for a change in fortune this term.

“I was second to last and it was another feather in a cap of a pretty miserable year,” he added.

“The year before that was Wesko, who came second out there and nearly took the title and I would like to go close again this time.

“Given Michael Jung, the world leader of our sport at the moment, will be out there again so he will be the one to beat on paper.

“It would be good to give him a run for his money.”

REYBRIDGE’S David Doel claimed a CIC2* victory at the Bicton International Horse Trials, riding one of his six weekend horses, Shannondale Quest.

The duo completed on a score of 47.4, with Bromham’s Libby Seed in third.