At the Defender Kentucky Three-Day Event a couple of weeks ago, something terrible happened: I ran out of time to be recreationally mean on the internet.
First it was Wednesday, which is prime Being Mean To People On The Internet Day, and perhaps I Wednesday-ed a bit too close to the sun, because then it was all over and I had not done a Golden Chinch round-up.
Then it was Thursday, and the weather was very hot, and I preferred the idea of riding the air-conditioned elevator in the officials’ building up and down instead of sitting in the blazing sunshine and doing actual work.
Then it was Friday, and the weather was very wet, and I preferred the idea of riding the very dry elevator in the officials’ building up and down and maybe doing a little cry instead of sitting out in the rain and doing actual work.
“You know,” said EN editor Sally, “it would be great if we could have those Golden Chinch Awards sometime.”
“Sally,” I said, both soothingly and patronisingly. “Sally, Sally, Sally. You will get them. But I cannot rush the process. I have to sit with the fashion; I have to let the clothes speak to me. Style is an art form, and I am its maestro. I am the prophet; the messenger. What I have to say will define a seasons’ worth of sartorial choices for horse lovers around the world. You mustn’t put pressure on scripture. You must let it run its own race.”
Lost in my own genius, I absentmindedly scratched an itch at the back of my neck. Ah. My shirt was on inside out.
And then, dear reader, it was Saturday, and everyone I’d started writing about had a Not Very Good Day Actually, and I thought, ‘is Matt Brown really going to find a photoshopped picture of his head on Bruce Lee’s body funny right now? No, I guess he’s probably not going to find that even a little bit funny right now.’ And I gave up.
Anyway, look, I failed you. I failed Sally. I failed myself. I failed all those riders who probably wanted to have an excuse to get me deported. And now, this week, at Badminton? I mean, it’s not Wednesday. It’s not even really Thursday anymore. But after spending the whole morning wondering if perhaps I was the person failing the hardest at doing Badminton, we then had a two-minute silence in honour of the 80th anniversary of VE Day. The mixed zone ground to a halt; the collecting ring fell to a hush, but for the occasional faint snort of a horse; the colossally buzzy grandstand was suddenly so achingly quiet that it was like the plug had been pulled on the whole world. We all crept into the recesses of our thoughts, bristling and marvelling at the extraordinary cruelty of war and the relentless courage of the ordinary people who fight against it. We thought about the scale of the loss of life; about the doomed cycle that humanity seems to repeat over and over and over again — bloodshed in exchange for imaginary borders; destruction in exchange for power. And then, in the rider’s tent, some woman’s phone rang incredibly loudly: once, twice, three times, before it finally stopped. ‘Great,’ thought I, ‘she’s declined the call.’
And then:
“SHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! WE’RE ON A MINUTE’S SILENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’LL CALL YOU BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” she bellowed, so loudly that folks at the site of Germany’s surrender to the Allies in 1945 (Luhmühlen, actually, for what it’s worth) no doubt heard her loud and clear.
So honestly, all things considered, I think I’m probably alright getting this out at kind of a weird time on Thursday night.
Without further ado, then: your Badminton Golden Chinch Awards, in which I lambast some of eventing’s best-looking and finest-dressed people. A task I am highly qualified to do.
The Golden Chinch for Saving Britain’s School Children
Gemma Stevens and Chilli Knight. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Gemma Stevens comes to this year’s Badminton trot up as the plucky heroine in a heartwarming new blockbuster that nevertheless showcases the brutality of the British state school system’s chronic underfunding. Just a few years out of her teacher training degree, she’s gained plaudits and accolades for her inspiring approach to turning under-fives at a Gloucestershire boarding school into maestros at the recorder, but following a scandal involving her mispronunciation of the word ‘gravadlax’ at a parent-teacher bruncheon, she finds herself back on the job market. And then: the chance to try for the role of headmistress at a school somewhere that’s only ever referred to as ‘endz’ throughout the movie. She’s too young! She’s not experienced enough! She cares far too much about the nutritional value of school lunches! One of the students snuck out while she was in the job interview and keyed a willy into her car door and now she’s crying! They don’t even have a lacrosse team here! But somehow — somehow — she triumphs, and by the end of the film, literacy rates have skyrocketed, the Tory government has been deposed and the school can afford chairs for its classrooms again, and everyone is really, really good at playing ‘My Heart Will Go On’ on the recorder. Oooh, Matron.
The Golden Chinch for Soft-Boi Toxic Masculinity
Sam Watson and Ballyneety Rocketman. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Ladies, we’ve all been on a date with this man, haven’t we? (Not Sam Watson, I want to be very clear. Not Sam. But the general essence and flavour of man that Sam, who is happily married and whom none of us have dated, is giving off here.) He has a butchered Audre Lorde quote on his Bumble profile (“I actually believe that none of us are free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different than our own, listen up men!!!” he oozes, saccharine and absolutely aware that no men are seeing his profile.) You do a cursory stalk of his social media and discover that he writes kind of shit poetry about his “suffering”, but he’s hot, so you put your rose-tinted glasses on and let those red flags just look like, well, flags.
On your first date, he brings you a bouquet of wildflowers (“I’ve brought you some seeds, too,” he says. “They’re a bee-friendly mix.”) and a bell hooks book (“I’ve taken the liberty of underlining some favourite passages for you. Perhaps we can discuss them on date two.”). On date two, you do not discuss them, because he takes you to a jazz cave in a cellar, buys you one (1) glass of gone-off Malbec, and then tries to sandpaper your back molars clean with his tastebuds. You go back to his place, regrettably, and discover that he doesn’t even have a bedframe, his bookshelf just has one sad copy of Fight Club on it, and his laptop is open to a Google search for ‘how to impress women millennial feminist’. He ghosts you two days later and then when you accidentally rematch with him six months down the line, it’s clear he has no recollection of ever having met you. Unfortunately, you still have the rash to remember him by.
The Golden Chinch for Disruption at Casa Amor
Will Rawlin and Ballycoog Breaker Boy. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Tonight, a hot new bombshell enters the villa, bringing drama and excitement to a group of horny, dehydrated, and probably kind of psychologically beaten-down Islanders. Will he find love in Casa Amor, or will he go be on the next flight back to (sorry, let me check my notes here) …Hungerford?
I actually heard a rumour once that Will Rawlin was scouted for Love Island, and I guess I could probably text him and ask him if that’s true, but instead I’m going to publish it on the internet and hope that that Google AI nightmare folds it into his neat little summary paragraph whenever anyone looks him up. He can then join the exalted pantheon of event riders who’ve gone on television dating shows — a pantheon that currently only includes 5* rider Sam Ecroyd who, long before coupling up with Emily King, once appeared on an episode of Take Me Out and talked at length about showering in his socks, and yoghurt.
If I’m honest, I’m mostly just patiently waiting for someone in our extended eventing family to have a go on Naked Attraction.
The Golden Chinch for Providing Friendly and Reliable Funeral Services at a Great (?) Price
Felix Vogg and Cartania. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
“We can gild it for you, you know,” says Felix Vogg — quiet, faintly sinister; his lips lifting into a slight smile on one side of his mouth; his pheromones mixed with the smell of formaldehyde — as he shows you his expansive coffin emporium. “It’s only an extra £5000. But if they were really a ‘loved one’, what’s money, anyway? Did you even love them, really?“
As you leave, much poorer than you arrived, he slips a business card into your pocket. It has no text on it — just a QR code with a little skull in the middle. It’s kind of sticky.
“I can also DJ the wake, if you want,” he says. “I’ve got some real deep-cut Avicii. Snapchat me.”
The Golden Chinch for Channelling an Apex Predator
Gaspard Maksud and Zaragoza. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Reliably, someone at every five-star trot-up brings a little bit of top-of-the-food-chain energy to proceedings. Usually, it’s a big cat thing: a leopard-print trouser; a fur collar that looks a bit like a lion’s mane; whatever.
Never, though, have I seen someone do Polar Bear That’s Three-Quarters of the Way Through Devouring an Aging Golfer, and now that I have seen it, I think it’s actually a crying shame that it’s not more prevalent. Gaspard Maksud’s last golf-inspired trot-up outfit, which featured a landscaped beret made to look like a golf course, didn’t start a new trend (regrettably, if you ask me) but I think this could.
The Golden Chinch for Being a Man in Lederhosen Who Also Comes With Two Bonus Men in Lederhosen, Which is a Great Bargain, Actually
Harald Ambros and Vitorio du Montet. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
I would really like to imagine that they’re all lined up to sing ‘So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu’ to the ground jury. Luckily for Harald Ambros, it didn’t need to be ‘How Do You Solve a Problem Like the Hold Box?’
The Golden Chinch for Reliably and Constantly Making Me Lowkey Crash Out
Alice Casburn and Topspin. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Alice Casburn was born in… god, I can’t even say it. She was born in two thousand and two. She has never had to worry about the Millennium Bug. She’s never coexisted with Enron. Shrek came out before she was born. I’m not even sure she was conceived yet when Shrek came out. (Okay, I’ve just checked: she’s a January baby, so she had definitely been conceived at that point. Alice, I’m sorry that I made you think about your conception.) In 2001 I was trying to figure out how to hold a seance because I thought I was Kurt Cobain reincarnated and I wanted to talk to him (who was also me), and this tiny human Alice Casburn was like, an actual embryo. Alice Casburn is too young to have worn out a VHS tape of Practical Magic from watching it too many times, which is wild to me because she’s dressed exactly like Nicole Kidman in Practical Magic right around that bit where she starts banging on about the moon and her special rock. Speaking of Nicole Kidman, Alice Casburn was born after her divorce from Tom Cruise. Alice Casburn is so young that she never got to fancy prime Leonardo diCaprio in real time. Alice Casburn is so young that Leonardo DiCaprio would still date her.
DuJour means seatbelts! DuJour means crash positions! DuJour means Alice Casburn is too young to understand these references! I’m going to go moisturise. And cry.
(As always: I’m joking. About all of it. Please don’t cancel me; I haven’t got anywhere else to go.)
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