A fine ride on the cross-country leg of the final four star event of the season has left the Waikato rider in reach of a third straight victory at Burghley.
If the pair complete the showjumping phase early tomorrow without dropping a rail it will be the first time a rider has won the Burghley title with the same horse.
Avebury sits top of the field with 46.1 penalty points, 3.8 clear of Australian Sam Griffiths aboard Happy Times, with Britain's Oliver Townend on Armada third with 55.1 points. A dropped rail is worth four penalty points.
Another New Zealander, Jock Paget, is fourth on Clifton Promise, on 55.2 points. Paget and Promise won the event last year, only for the horse to fail a doping test, handing the title to runnerup Nicholson.
''It would be unbelievable for us to win three consecutive Burghley titles, not just for myself but also for the horse and the sport," Nicholson, 52, said today.
Nicholson said he deliberately did the first three minutes of the course a little quieter than usual to get Avebury into a good rhythm.
No combination completed the journey inside the optimum time. Nicholson had dropped 5.6 points, fewer than any of the 40 combinations who remain in the competition.
Paget said Promise had been ''like a rocket" on the way home after a careful start, and admitted he may have lost valuable seconds at the water jump.
''I was watching some of the others who set out too fast and I didn't want to be chasing a tired horse home," Paget said.
Jonelle Price, another member of the bronze-medal Olympic team from London, is 11th on The Deputy but all four other New Zealanders were eliminated on the cross country -- Tim Price and Ringwood Sky Boy, Craig Nicolai on Just Ironic, Neal Spratt on Upleadon and Megan Heath on St Daniel.
- By David Leggat of the New Zealand Herald
