Sunday at Badminton always feels like three different days of three very different lengths, all rolled into one: there’s the morning’s long, slow final horse inspection, which is a full-scale, high-tension competitive endeavour in its own right; a couple of hours later (and approximately four coffees) the first session of competitors, which offers up an opportunity to see what’s been built and how it’s riding over the course of an hour; and then, a couple of hours after that, the final session, in which the top twenty come forward, everything moves at approximately 470 miles per hour, we’re all quite constantly trying to do eighteen different things, including watching, interviewing, and overreacting all at the same time, and then, 87 gasps and 38 or so little standing leg kicks to help horses jump better and 219 poles, give or take, and at least one instance of accidentally yelling a very bad word very loudly when someone tries to eat a jump rather than actually jump over it, it’s all done. We have a winner. A maelstrom of hugging, an orgy of emotion, and then something like calm while the prizegiving unfolds (for another sixteen hours, roughly), and we don’t know what to do with it at all.
And look: that’s just from a media perspective. If it all sounds a bit mad and manic, just consider for a moment that it’s probably not even 5% of the complexity of thought and emotion and versatility that the riders in the top places have to conjure up. It’s no surprise at all that some can’t keep every plate in the air all at once on the day. And it’s even more extraordinary when someone can.
When someone can keep doing it, over, and over, and over again, it becomes something greater. It becomes something like a generational talent; something you know will be spoken about long after the moment ends; long after we’re all old and decrepit and no longer writing these stories.
Rosalind Canter and Lordships Graffalo. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
That’s what it feels like to watch Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo, who just keep showing up, doing the work, and getting things done time, and time, and time again. Sometimes, of course, the conditions aren’t ideal, as when they won Badminton two years ago when it was basically a swimming gala. Sometimes the unexpected can happen, as when they were awarded a contentious flag penalty at Paris in 2025. Sometimes life gets in the way. But they keep on rolling on, and now, they’ve added a second Badminton title to their 2023 crown, their 2024 Burghley victory, their 2023 European Championships title, their World Championships fourth place, their Olympic team gold medal… look, trust us, we can keep going. All this, and only thirteen years old: it often feels like the broader media landscape of our sport tries to position fischerChipmunk FRH as the next La Biosthetique Sam, but is Walter actually his heir apparent?
Let’s rewind a touch, though, and unpack how it all happened. There was this morning’s final horse inspection, at which overnight leaders Oliver Townend and Cooley Rosalent were held, as was Oliver’s second ride, Ballaghmor Class, who was sitting in ninth place. Ballaghmor Class didn’t return; Rosie did, and so we headed into showjumping with Oliver holding a three-point lead – not a rail, but no shortage of time, in hand.
In the morning’s showjumping session, 33 horses and riders laid down their trips, with just two of them jumping clear – a 6% clear rate. Last year, the designers here had built a particularly square, up-to-height track, and that, combined with the tricky ground, earned them some pushback – but it’s great to see that they stuck to their guns and once again built a true five-star showjumping track, which is an area in which the European five-stars ordinarily cover themselves in more glory. Great, of course, from where we stood – but a daunting prospect, no doubt, for the riders who had to tackle it.
First up to bat in the afternoon session was seventh-placed Harry Meade and Cavalier Crystal, jumping out of order. The pair made easy work of the course, adding nothing to their scorecard and ensuring they would finish on their 33.8 dressage score and retain or better their seventh place. Three rails fell in the next round, for France’s Gaspard Maksud and Zaragoza; then one for Germany’s Jérôme Robiné and Black Ice. There would be a further five rounds beyond theirs before we saw another clear, which came for Tom McEwen and JL Dublin, giving them a smart finish to an up-and-down week. And then, again, rails, rails, rails – another eight rounds’ worth.
Coming in in overnight fourth place, Ireland’s Austin O’Connor set the stadium alight with an exceptional clear with Colorado Blue – never a sure thing for the gelding, whose star is at its brightest on cross-country day – and then he had the agonising job of waiting to see if it would be enough to move him into a podium place.
It would: the next round, from third-placed Gemma Stevens and Chilli Knight, was a surprise and a heartbreaker, and five rails tumbled for the pair despite Gemma’s wealth of experience in pure showjumping.
And then there were two. First came Ros, who didn’t, perhaps, have the round of her life – there were some gasps and maybes along the way – but the job was done, safely, efficiently, and properly, to finish on her 25.3 dressage score. An extraordinary hush fell as Oliver Townend entered the ring with his two-phase leader Cooley Rosalent, who had jumped a clear round to win Kentucky the prior spring, but has a mixed bag of results in this phase. Fence one, which faced the members tent and had fallen over and over again throughout the day, stayed up. Likewise fence two, and three, and four – and on and on the pair travelled and skipped around the track, while Ros waited quietly in the collecting ring. Eight, nine clear – and then at ten, an oxer, a little tippety-tap and the tell-tale thud of a title lost in a split second. Once again, Oliver would have to settle for being the bridesmaid. Once again, Ros would be the bride.
Rosalind Canter and Lordships Graffalo. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
“He’s just the most amazing horse,” says Ros, who becomes the first rider to regain, rather than retain, the Badminton title on the same horse. “He just relishes it. He absolutely loves it in there – he loves anywhere, though, where there’s people watching him. I think most horses, as they get older, they know the crowd, and they almost get trickier because the anticipation is always there. But with Walter, he relaxes in that environment in a nice, bubbly way, and he just thoroughly enjoys himself.”
Ros had closely studied the patterns of the morning’s rounds, and made a plan of action after noticing the issues many riders were having with the first fence.
“I felt that some in the morning session, because they got down there and then the bell went, they maybe didn’t quite get a chance to get it up the gears and get the canter positive before the start,” she says. “So I really made sure that I got down there quickly and then had enough time to get my canter going, because Walter would sit pretty in a fairly average canter if allowed to. So I just had to remind myself what canter I needed to get and let him do his job.”
Walter’s joy in this environment, and the depth of his partnership with Ros, meant that she could rely on him to help her out when she didn’t feel wholly herself.
“I was quite nervous today. It’s been a long old day without Caroline, because she was always keeping me busy. So I was stuck by myself quite a lot, overthinking and questioning my life choices of trying to be an event rider. I think I worked him up a bit, but he helped me out.”
This is her first Badminton without her longtime friend, trainer, co-owner, and confidante Caroline Moore, who was an enormous and influential presence in the eventing community as a coach, but much more than that for Ros. Now, she’s had to face one of the biggest challenges of her career while also grappling with mourning her friend, who passed away in March following a long battle with cancer.
“Even when she wasn’t with me, over at the Olympics and stuff like that, she was on the end of the phone, she was texting me, and all those things,” says Ros. “And this – it’s really what it would have meant to her as well, because she might not have achieved such great things when she was riding, but she put her life and soul into her career and was so selfless with everything she gave. Me winning was… she just loved it so much. So I think — I hope – she’s looking down with a smile on her face.”
All around her, though, people stepped up to try to help her fill that gap.
“[British team trainer] Chris Bartle was always there anyway. So he’s always been a fantastic support,” she says. “A couple of weeks ago, he said, ‘you know, if you want me to step in and just watch videos and things, just send them over.’ He’s always got my back anyway.”
And, she continues, “Nick Turner, who’s a great friend of Caroline, and who’s very involved now with the Performance Mentoring Programme [the subsidised training programme Caroline started] with me — I went for a jump with him on the way to Badminton. I actually used Nick just before I went to Burghley last year, because Caroline wasn’t well enough to help me. I just rang him literally the day before sort of having a panic – he’s an hour down the road – we stopped off, just had a few fences, and then he was there as well today. So between the two of them, they got me sorted.”
At the end of the day, though, “this was for Caroline, really. She was huge because she just was selfless in her, you know, attention to detail and everything that she gave to me. Not only was she the best trainer and mentor, but she was the most wonderful friend as well, and I have so many special memories of everything we did together. She was by my side my whole career, and it’s the first time I’d done anything like this without her, so I’m just so pleased that I managed to make her proud.”
Rosalind Canter and Lordships Graffalo. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
For owners Michele and Archie Saul, and breeder Pennie Wallace of the Lordships Stud, it’s also a huge moment and another wonderful reward for many years of work and support. And for Ros, it’s another chance for the horse she so reveres to get the flowers he richly deserves. But this whole funny old game never just comes down to big-day performances: at the end of it all, it’s always about the love of the horse, and Walter gives her and the team of people around him plenty of reason to adore him.
“It’s not just what he gives on this stage, it’s the character he is at home as well,” she says. “He’s just fantastic. He enjoys his life, he knows what he wants, and he tells us what he wants, and in between, he’s pretty chill and happy, but like, he licks you to death — he’s like a puppy in the stable. He knows he’s the best and he’s full of self-importance, but at the same time he’s just completely wonderful. I love him.”
Oliver Townend and Cooley Rosalent. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
For most riders, being second at Badminton might sound like a dream come true – but perhaps less so when it happens over and over again. That’s been much the case for Oliver Townend, who has won the title once before, back in 2009, and certainly hasn’t had any trouble capturing major victories at plenty of other five-stars in the years since.
But Cooley Rosalent, at just eleven years old and already a winner at the level in her own right, looks to be one of those horses who’s just biding her time, with another huge week to come in the seasons ahead.
“She’s unbelievable,” says Oliver. “She’s been first, second, and third at five-star level now, and hopefully, it’s only the start. She improves every time, she learns something every time, and I learn something every time. I couldn’t be happier with her. We’ve got two incredible horses at each end of their career, and I’m just the luckiest rider in the world to have both of them.”
Oliver led after the first phase with the mare on a score of 21.1, and led after the second phase, too, though he added 1.2 time penalties when opting for the long route at Huntsman’s Close. Then, of course, there’s today’s rail – but, he says, “I wouldn’t do anything different. I thought her performance was as good as any horse’s performance this week, really, in terms of the way she did things. She’ll come on for the run — and I really believe she will come on for the run. She’s had a good experience again, she’s just coming eleven, and she’s unreal, isn’t she?
“I thought she jumped a very good round — probably a better round than when she won Kentucky, really,” he continues. “She touched one fence, and that’s this place a little bit for me as well, you know – this is the fifth second place I’ve had here, and only won it once, so it takes a bit of winning, this one. But she can go around any course in the world. She can be competitive in any class in the world. She’s blood enough for Burghley, she moves good enough, and jumps well enough for a championship horse. So she’s — ability-wise — got everything.”
Austin O’Connor and Colorado Blue. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
For Austin O’Connor and Colorado Blue, it must feel a bit like deja-vu: they’ve previously wound up on the podium here at Badminton once before, back in 2023, when Ros took the win with Walter and second place went to Oliver and Ballaghmor Class. This year, though, he proved that ‘Salty’ doesn’t need difficult ground conditions and a sloggy cross-country day in order to shine – the 2023 Maryland winner can do that anywhere, and in any circumstances.
“I think he’s probably one of the best horses eventing in the world, to be quite honest,” says Austin, who added just 0.4 time penalties today to his first-phase score of 30.8. “I think you’re probably looking at three of them [on this podium] – they’re not flashes in the pan. They’re unbelievable, consistent horses. My lad is a bit older than these two, but he doesn’t know that. Just like me!”
Their round today wasn’t just one of the best of the day – it was arguably the best of the horse’s career.
“It’s a magic feeling, and it’s a great privilege to be riding at Badminton,” he says. “It’s a great privilege to be on the podium — to jump a clear round. But it’s not simple in there. There’s a lot of pressure. So I guess there’s just so much relief, as much as anything. But the most pleasing aspect for me was how the horse actually jumped. I mean, I think he’s never jumped a round like that in his life.”
Austin O’Connor and Colorado Blue. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
Austin and Salty’s first-phase score, too, represents a personal best in this phase, and though it still gives him a job to do in climbing up the leaderboard on cross-country day, the pair’s consistency in doing so is pure vintage eventing.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it, to be sat up with these guys on the Sunday evening,” “It’s a very, very special result. The horse is in great form, and we’ve had an unbelievable week. Sadly, if I was in a different era and these two weren’t around, I’d have won two Badmintons! But there we go. Probably history will tell you that I’m competing with probably two of the best event horses there’s ever been, so I can’t really grumble.”
Still, he laughs, “Somebody said, ‘Where are you going in the autumn?’ I said, ‘Wherever these two aren’t going!’”
Harry Meade and Cavalier Crystal. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
Harry Meade’s afternoon-starting clear with Cavalier Crystal scored him fourth place, up from seventh, while Superstition dropped two rails – and one in quite dramatic fashion – to drop one spot from fifth to a final sixth.
“Cavalier Crystal was just magic,” says Harry, who is now firmly on track to become World Number One at the end of the month, pending the next few weeks’ global events. “I think that was as nice a round as I’ve ever felt any horse perform at a three-day event. She’s just – she’s magic.”
Today’s course played into the mare’s strengths: Harry’s had to work hard to teach her to lengthen her stride for cross-country, and she’s always been more naturally inclined to increase the tempo of her footfall instead, which was exactly what the distances in the ring required today.
“It was a big track and I think it was clever, because the time is quite tight,” he says. “But actually, Cavalier Crystal was, I think, seven seconds inside the time. And I think the key thing is, you couldn’t take an inside line anywhere. All you could do was come in a quickened rhythm, but you couldn’t allow the stride length to go longer, because all of the related distances were on orthodox to slightly compressed distances. Therefore, you had to make up the time with the timing of the footfall, not opening up the stride.”
Harry Meade and Superstition. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
Of Superstition, who opted to go through, rather than over, one of the fences, he says: “he still jumped really well. We had one quite dramatic heart in the mouth moment. That would have been a long way to come to not finish a three-day event, but luckily, he stayed on his feet.”
Emily King and Valmy Biats. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
Sandwiched between Harry’s two horses on the final leaderboard is Emily King, who finishes in the top five for the second year in a row with Valmy Biats, despite tipping a rail. The pair began their week in this position but slipped out of the top ten when adding 7.2 time penalties yesterday, and Emily was delighted to complete the climb back up, even with that mistake.
“Sack me!” she laughs. “He jumped really big over the oxer before fence four, and my eye picked up five to the water tray, and then I knew in my head that that was too wild. So I basically didn’t land and set up straight away. I think that big jump threw me off, and I nearly got drawn in on the one less. He’s a really strong, bold horse, and wouldn’t be a horse that is easily adjustable at the last minute, which I asked him to do and then we just got close. But I mean, he jumped exceptionally. He felt like it was just a normal day at a normal show.”
Christoph Wahler and D’Accord FRH. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
Germany’s Christoph Wahler had two frustrating rails with D’Accord FRH, which just dropped him one place to seventh thanks to the strength of their performances over this week – they were one of just six pairs to finish inside the optimum time yesterday after beginning their week on a 32.2, which makes the outsized thirteen-year-old an exciting heir to the throne vacated by former top horse Carjatan S, a mainstay of the German team.
Bubby Upton and Cola. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
Bubby Upton secured eighth place with Cola III, but also had two rails down – though such was the influence of today’s showjumping course that they actually still climbed four places from overnight twelfth.
“It was completely my fault,” she says. “He jumped fantastically, and I just got a very forward shot to the MARS oxer at four, and it was a short six, so I just couldn’t get him back in time. So in hindsight, I should have just been brave and gone on the five and taken a stride out, and that was completely my fault. And then coming into the final line, again, I was just a couple of inches too far off the oxer, and with him, there isn’t room for a couple of inches’ error. I’m obviously disappointed to have let him down, but it doesn’t detract from how amazing he was once again, and hopefully one day we’ll get all three phases.”
Tom McEwen and JL Dublin. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
Tom McEwen’s classy clear with JL Dublin helped them climb from sixteenth up to ninth on the same finishing score as Bubby and Cola – though their 11 penalties for taking out the corner at Huntsman’s yesterday, and their 10.8 cross-country time penalties, meant that the tie-break didn’t go in their favour. Still, after a turbulent day in the office yesterday, and a week that began with a second-place position after dressage, it’s a reassuring finish – though, perhaps, a week that’s proven the very talented gelding’s strengths might be best suited to championship pathways and foreign five-stars.
Tim Price and Vitali. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
Tim Price rounds out the top ten on Vitali, who we’d hoped might have come good in this phase when not fighting for the win – but alas, it was a classic three-railer for the gelding, who still managed to climb three places today.
An excellent clear in the morning pushed US representatives Tiana Coudray and Cancaras Girl from 52nd place to 44th, while Grace Taylor and Game Changer moved from 37th to 30th even with two rails. Grace, for her part, has a different kind of progression on the brain after her father, British team selector Nigel Taylor, presented her horse for her – in a besuited, slightly lame (himself, not the horse) and cheerful sort of way: “I think I need to put him on a bit of a fitness programme if he’s going to do some trot-ups for me,” she says wryly. “I said to him, ‘Nigel, I think we’re going to have to take you swimming.’ So I’ve got him a gym membership, and he’s going to come with me. The pool isn’t very deep, so he’d do well to drown in it.”
What more sport can you want, really, from Badminton? For us – for now – it’s over and out. Thanks for joining us for the journey, and keep it locked on EN for lots more from the week that was over the next couple of days. Until then: Go Eventing.
The final top ten at the 2025 MARS Badminton Horse Trials.
MARS Badminton Horse Trials: [Website] [Timing & Scoring] [Live Stream] [EN’s Coverage]
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