Burghley Horse Trials: Stevens and Chilli Knight Go Clear
The Margin Not Seen Since Blyth Tait
Gemma Stevens won the 2026 Defender Burghley Horse Trials aboard Chilli Knight, completing five days of dressage, cross-country and show jumping without adding a penalty to her opening dressage score. The victory, delivered in front of HRH the Princess Royal, who presented the trophy, marked the biggest winning margin at the fixture since Blyth Tait's win in 1998.
The CCI5\*-L ran from 2 to 6 September 2026 at Burghley, where Stevens and the 16YO gelding Chilli Knight finished on their dressage score of 29.6 to win by 13.4 penalty points. Katie Magee took second on Treworra, her best-ever five-star result, while Caroline Pamukcu was third, and Stevens collected US$159,600 (£120,000) as the winner's share of the prize fund.
Chilli Knight, known at home as Alfie and owned and bred by Christopher and Lisa Stone, is a horse Stevens has known since birth. He is by the stallion Chilli Morning, who won Badminton in 2015 with William Fox-Pitt, out of Kings Gem, a mare Stevens also partnered at five-star level.
The pair had already shown their capability together, winning the one-off five-star at Bicton Arena International in 2021, when Stevens competed under her maiden name, Gemma Tattersall, beating Pippa Funnell by less than a point and finishing six points clear of Piggy March in third.
Clear Rounds Have Been Rare
Show jumping had not always come easily for the gelding at this level. Before Burghley, Chilli Knight had jumped at five-star only four previous times, managing one clear round — the 2021 Bicton win — against two rounds with a single fence down and, at Badminton in 2025, five fences down.
That history made Sunday's clear round carry particular weight. According to EquiRatings, only around 1% of Burghley competitors over the past 20 years have finished on their dressage score, the mark Stevens and Chilli Knight achieved by adding nothing across the cross-country and show-jumping phases. Given the gelding's uneven record over the poles at this level, the achievement was as much a statement about consistency as it was about outright speed or dressage precision, and it placed the pair in a small group of combinations to have managed the feat at Burghley in the past two decades.
The foundation for the win was laid across the country the day before, when Stevens and Chilli Knight were one of only two combinations, alongside Holly Richardson and Ballyneety Silver Service, to finish inside the optimum time of 11 minutes 20 seconds. That effort moved them into the overnight lead heading into the final horse inspection and show-jumping day.
Only Two Beat the Clock
The concluding veterinary inspection underlined the welfare scrutiny built into five-star eventing. Twenty-eight horses were presented after cross-country, and FE Lifestyle, ridden by Jennie Brannigan, was not accepted, leaving 27 to progress to the show-jumping stage that decided the final placings.
Burghley is one of only six CCI5\* events held worldwide and is often ranked alongside Wimbledon and The Masters among global sporting fixtures. Winning it added one of eventing's most respected titles to a career that already includes a team world championship gold medal won at Tryon in 2018.
Stevens added a second team gold at the FEI Eventing World Championships in Aachen earlier in the 2026 season, though her own week there ended in disappointment when she and Flash Cooley failed to complete the cross-country as pathfinders for the gold medal-winning British team. "It was probably the second lowest point in my career," she said. "The guilt that I felt was horrendous."
Reflecting on that setback, Stevens spoke of the mindset required to move past it. "I know everyone says, 'Well, you shouldn't feel guilty', but I did," she said. "But you've got to just pick yourself up in sport. You've got to show resilience, and you've got to get out there and get on with it."
Stevens, born in Hailsham, England, competed for much of her career under her maiden name, Gemma Tattersall, and won the Event Rider Masters series title in 2017, becoming the first woman to win a leg of the series, at Chatsworth, and the first to finish an ERM leg on a score under 40. It is a result built on patience with a horse whose jumping had not always cooperated, and on a rider who has spoken openly about both the highs and the setbacks of her career.