Well, folks, what is usually considered the most exciting day of the week considerably more exciting this week, as its Badminton Friday! I will forewarn you, however, that any coverage I try and dedicate to Badminton from my laptop post back across the pond is nothing compared to what the EN’s Samantha will provide later on today, with the help of our fearless leader of course. If you have been following Samantha’s posts at all in the past few weeks, you’ll know that she has made the trek to Badminton to spectate and report in her wonderful style as always.
With that said, here are a few Badminton links and reports from yesterday to make your day of skipping work and watching the live coverage all the more enjoyable:
While you are waiting for dressage pictures to be uploaded or Samantha’s next twitter feed to post, check out these 10 Badminton Facts. Personally, I have to say I am rooting for Andrew Nicholson this year. I mean, he holds the record for 29 Badminton completions and he is yet to hold the trophy… They say third time’s the charm, or is it thirty?
Samantha wrote a post yesterday about her musings on the helmet rules in Europe after noticing that a great deal of the riders were schooling their horses in hunt caps (which is allowed by the rules at this time.) Samantha even stopped by to interview the hat maker of the famous Patey hats, who strongly felt that a rule change of the sort was not coming anywhere near Europe. I think most US Eventers have come to accept the helmet rule even in these few short months, and really I don’t believe the adjusment has been all that drastic. That being said, the culture of Europe varies greatly from the US, it’ll be interesting to see if Europe will follow suit in the next few years by instating the rule, and if they do, what reactions meet it.
[Dressage Timetable] (For those who may find this funny: the Timetable, quite fittingly, refers to the test ride as ‘Guinea Pig’)
Here are a few tests to keep your eyes on today:
5:46 AM EST 10:56 MAJOR MILESTONE Mark Todd (NZL)
6:48 AM EST 11:48 NAVIGATOR William Fox-Pitt
7:20 AM EST 12:20 FRH BUTTS ABRAXXAS Ingrid Klimke (GER)
11:02 AM EST 4:20 GIN AND JUICE Hawley Bennett-Awad (CAN)
With the exception of Hawley, all five of the other Canadian and US pairs will ride their tests tomorrow. The good news is that if you are watching the live scoring at the office this morning, the time zone difference means you’ll be able to get back to work before lunchtime. The bad news is that you’ll probably spend most of the hours after lunch pouring over the by-the-minute coverage that all of the fabulous media will have put together. Oh well, you can do work on Monday Tuesday. I think this is going to be a really great– and really competitive- Badminton. The Europeans are obviously strong in number and mounted on very good horses, I’d bet they will fall where they usually do; at the top. If you watched the short video interview of David yesterday talking about the Canadians, you can tell how much he wants his riders to get a piece of the action, and I think they will. The Canadian team operates these days like a well-oiled machine– they’ve been properly built, prepared, and managed since the beginning, thereby having every chance for the big successes now. And let’s not forget about our US contingent– Mandiba’s been going great this season, Ballynoecastle RM ‘Reggie’ started the season with a few glitches but has steadily been gaining back form, and The Good Witch is another good, experienced competitor.
Besides Badminton, there are just a couple noteworthy links this morning:
That’s all for now, Eventing Nation. Be sure to keep checking back throughout the day for more commentary, video, and pictures of first day of dressage at the Badminton Horse Trials.
Go Eventing.
