Oliver Townend and Swallow Springs lead the way at Badminton. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

The first half of the first day of competition is behind us at the 2023 Badminton Horse Trials, presented by MARS Equestrian, and leading the charge into the lunch break is Oliver Townend with the first of his two rides, the former Andrew Nicholson mount Swallow Springs. They set an early standard as the third pair into the ring this morning, and the ground jury of Angela Tucker, Andrew Bennie, and Xavier Le Sauce roundly rewarded their test with a 23.2 that wouldn’t be usurped.

The score is a career best at CCI5* for the 15-year-old gelding (Chillout x Kilila, by Cult Hero), eclipsing his previous personal best — a 23.6 — achieved at Burghley last year. The very good score came despite one mistake: as the Irish gelding entered the extended trot, he broke to canter for one early stride. The rest of the test, though, was a testament to the marking power of accuracy: though Swallow Springs hasn’t got big or extravagant paces, he’s been meticulously produced, and delivered a very technically correct performance.

Oliver’s two rides this year are at the peak of their careers in their mid-teens — second ride Ballaghmor Class, who will perform his test tomorrow, is sixteen — and to this end, Oliver credits his team on the ground for keeping them feeling their very best.

“It’s great for the team; we’ve come here with two older horses, and I don’t think they’ve ever felt as good as they do now, whatever the result. To turn up with a fifteen- and a sixteen-year-old and for them to still be improving is very positive for everybody at home, who all put in the early starts. It’s a very good result.”

Oliver Townend and Swallow Springs. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Oliver originally had five horses entered — a testament to the remarkable strength in depth of his string — and was able to use those extra entries to swing the drawn order the way around he’d hoped for his two horses.

“We tried to get Swallow Springs on early enough,” he explains. “You can only do so much Badminton to help yourself with the draw and so forth, but at the same time, we’re very happy with where we drawn. I think that will suit him down to the ground; I’ll be able to pick fresh ground. He’s the quickest event horse I’ve ever ridden, so fingers crossed.”

Our friends at EquiRatings discovered that Swallow Springs will be Oliver’s eightieth starter at this level since 2008 – a remarkable (and, we have to assume, exhausting) effort – and one that has seen him hone his craft to something of a science over the years. But experience isn’t the only thing that’s helping him to consistently make a bid for the lead at this level – he has another weapon in his arsenal, too.

“Better dressage horses!” he laughs. “I always felt that I had a certain amount of feel, perhaps, but I wasn’t able to do it stylishly. I’ve obviously always rode a lot of young horses and breakers and problem horses, and now I’m on the raw material — so there’s no excuse not to go in there and do a nice job. Hopefully I’m continuing to improve, and hopefully I’m getting more relaxed in that. But at the same time, the horsepower is a different world to what it used to be.”

Even with those many, many starts behind him, Oliver, like all the rest of us, finds it easy to get caught up in the thrall of Badminton, and all that it means to the sport: “It’s just special to be here,” he says. “I wore out VHS videotapes watching this place [when I was a kid], and as you get older you think, are you going feel the same when you get here? But the minute you arrive at the stable yard, you know you’re somewhere very special. It’s just a huge privilege to be here and as I get older, I’m enjoying it more and more. I’m trying to take the pressure off myself and kind of smile occasionally and just enjoy the whole thing. I’ve got two beautiful horses, with beautiful chances, and I’m just enjoying being here.”

Gemma Stevens and Jalapeño are all smiles after their nearly-leading test. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

The very last rider of the morning batch might have had to wait a while for her score to come through, but when it did, Gemma Stevens‘s whoop of joy could be heard throughout the stadium. She earned a 23.3 (“damn it, I was so close to beating Oliver,” she laughs) with Chris Stone’s Jalapeno, who returns to five-star for the first time since 2019 after over a year off and no small amount of care and patience from Gemma and her team.

That score marks Gemma’s own personal best at the level – an accolade that usurps another Jala test.

“It was actually really enjoyable — the horse is lovely to ride,” says Gemma. “She’s very soft and fluent and she felt completely relaxed. I could really ask for the movements, and I felt like I tried to ride every single inch of grass of that test — and she let me.”

Though Gemma is best known, perhaps, for her longtime partnership with the late, great Arctic Soul, this was always his trickiest phase – and now, finding herself aboard a horse who can really relish the atmosphere of the first phase is a particular joy.

“I felt myself really enjoying it — and that was just so nice after years of sitting on the old boy,” she laughs. “It’s just really nice to go in there and sit up and enjoy it — and try to smile!”

Gemma Stevens and Jalapeno. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

We last saw Jala, who was previously partnered by Belgium’s Karin Donckers, take on this level at Pau in 2019, where she sustained an injury that saw her sit out all of 2020 and a large chunk of 2021. But in bringing her back, Gemma has left no stone unturned where management and fitness are concerned, which means that her routine coming into a big event — such as Blenheim, where she finished in the top ten in both 2021 and 2022 — are wholly different from the regime that Gemma’s other horses undergo.

“She’s been swimming once a week and galloping once a week since the middle of January, because I wanted a long, slow process,” says Gemma. “I didn’t want to pummel her with too much at once, because she gets a bit sore in her back and her body. So we’ve gone for the long, slow approach, and I’ve been so careful with her prep. It’s all been about working on her strength — like, really just keeping her happy and strong and actually not doing too much schooling. In a two week period, I’d probably only school her three times. She goes to the water treadmill twice a week, and she canters, and she’s been doing some fitness hacks — very slow trotting up hills. I feel like I’ve learned how to manage her, she’s a lovely, lovely mare, but she’s fragile. I think it’s all about horsemanship, every time you get a horse fit, you learn something new.”

Just as Jala’s customised fitness routine has helped her blossom, so, too, has Gemma’s own workout regime.

“I actually did twenty minutes of Pilates before I got on today!” she says. “I think I’ve just grown up a bit. I’ve got stronger. I’ve been working really hard on my own fitness. hat’s probably what it has changed a little bit — getting myself really, really fit and strong and feeling better.”

That Pilates session may have had another knock-on benefit: “I felt really relaxed today,” she says. “Just chilled, and I went in there, and yes, you get heart flutters, but I didn’t feel tight or tense, I just felt relaxed. So maybe I’m just getting old!”

Tim Price and Vitali. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Tim Price‘s Tokyo mount Vitali put the naughtiness of yesterday’s first horse inspection behind him to deliver a sweet test that, while not quite in the realms of his 21.3 at Burghley last year, earned them a competitive enough 27.1 for third at the lunch break. While it’s not quite what he was aiming for, he’s tempering his expectations — after all, he explains, there are still two very big jobs to do.

“You’ve got to be philosophical in this game, and while he’s an outstanding dressage horse, I want him to be an authentic five-star horse — and so it’s about three phases,” he says. “So I’m just trying to spread my feelings across the three phases, even here straight after the dressage. [The score] could have been a lot lower had I not had a couple of fluffy bits in the canter. The trot work was some of his best, and he’s a fantastic dressage horse, so unless you absolutely maximise on all those elements of what he can deliver on the flat, you will be a little bit disappointed. But a 27 with a few mistakes is still not too bad.”

Like many five-star horses, Vitali is a funny sort of soul – which is why Tim would always rather find himself on board than trying to trot him up in front of the ground jury.

“I don’t know the best way to describe him, but he needs support,” he says. “And when you give him the right support at the right time in the right way, then he can look soft and lovely. He’s a fun horse — I really like him and I respect him immensely for what he does.”

Tom Jackson and Capels Hollow Drift. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Last year’s Burghley runners-up Tom Jackson and Capels Hollow Drift sit fourth at this early phase after putting a 28 on the board — the 12-year-old Irish gelding’s best score yet at this level, despite left-to-right changes that still aren’t quite established.

“I’m over the moon with the horse,” says Tom. “I know there’s a couple of little mistakes in there, but on the whole, I felt that he was going better than he’s ever gone, so I couldn’t ask much more. He’s improving all the time, and particularly the change on one particular rein has been difficult, but they were clean this time — just a little bit exuberant. So we’re definitely going in the right direction, and he’s still a relatively young horse so hopefully we can keep edging closer. He’s a lovely mover and a very rideable horse, but he’s not necessarily the biggest flashiest mover, but I thought he felt really smart.”

Harry Meade and Away Cruising. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Harry Meade rounds out the top five at this stage after a smart test with longtime campaigner Away Cruising, who posted a 29 — another level personal best for the horse, who has only slipped sub-30 on one previous occasion from his six prior starts at the level.

“He’s a lovely, Irish, old-fashioned type; he’s not a big-moving warmblood, but I was really pleased with him — he put in a very solid test and didn’t really miss a bit,” says Harry. “Last year, I kicked myself because I wanted him fresh and I shortened the warm-up to do that, and then he was too fresh, so this year it was once bitten, twice shy – I worked him a little bit longer, perhaps ten minutes too long, and he just lost a bit of his sparkle. But it was a lovely clear round of a test, so job done!”

Dressage will commence again from 14.15 BST (9.15 a.m. EST), with Tom Rowland and Possible Mission launching us into the second half of the day. You can follow along live via Badminton TV, follow along with our up-to-the-minute live updates, and tune back in for the full report shortly after the close of play. Until then: Go Eventing!

The top ten at the lunch break on day one of Badminton.

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Badminton 2023 is upon us, and with it, another chance for the EN team to put our metaphorical money where are mouths are and pick our favorites for a big result this year. Here are our choices — let us know yours in the comments!

Kitty King and Vendredi Biats. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Tilly Berendt

Winner: I think Kitty King has come here with a point to prove, especially after a Burghley last year that she so nearly scooped. She and Vendredi Biats put their best five-star score on the board there — a truly ludicrous 21.2 that saw them lead going into cross-country – and had it not been for a truly unfortunate triggered MIM at those achingly wide oxers, they’d have finished second. She’s been so close to a big one for so long, and I think the fire is truly lit — now that ‘Froggy’ is past his naughty years, he’s a serious competitor and wouldn’t be at all out of place on the illustrious roster of Badminton winners.

Best Foreign Entry: I’m choosing not to consider any of our British-based Kiwis ‘foreign’, because otherwise it’s very difficult to look past Tim Price and Caroline Powell, and frankly, I’d like to give someone else a moment in the sun here. I’m a big fan of Aisprit de la Loge, the ride of France’s Gireg le Coz, who made his Badminton debut last year, finishing in the top twenty after a very good dressage and cross-country and an uncharacteristically lacklustre showjumping. Pau, in October, didn’t go quite to plan for them, but I think they’ll be back with a bang here — and if they can stick to their usual showjumping form, they should pin down a great result. Special mention, too, must go to one of my favourite horses, Lithuanian competitor Aistis Vitkauskas‘s Commander VG. I’ve been following this horse since he was a nine year old, and while his first and final phases will stop him from being truly competitive here, he’s an absolute joy to watch on cross-country, where he’s kind, genuine, and just plain fun. I think he’ll gain a lot of fans this week.

Best Debutant (horse or rider): It’s hard to call Felix Vogg‘s Cartania inexperienced when she’s performed so well at both a World Championships and a Europeans (14th and 8th respectively, for what it’s worth) — but in the grand scheme of things, she is still pretty green, and will be making her debut at the top level this week. She’s flying rather under the radar, as she tends to even on the continent, where she lives in the shadow of stable star and 5* winner Colero, but sometimes those are exactly the right conditions that a horse like this can use to throw out a result that surprises everyone except their rider. I think a very good week could be in store for this pair.

Best Mare: It’s a tough call between Ros Canter‘s gritty, gutsy Bramham runner up Pencos Crown Jewel and the young phenom Greenacres Special Cavalier, who finished fifth in her five-star debut at Pau last season. The first one is my ‘head’ choice and the latter is my ‘heart’ choice, and I’m going to chalk my indecision up to jet lag and keep them both in here, because I think they could both very easily finish in the top ten.

Spoiler Alert: Watch out for Gemma Stevens and Jalapeno — this super blood mare has been out of action for a fair while, but Gemma and her team have put tonnes of manpower and thought into strengthening her for her comeback, and she’s been looking brilliant in the lead-up. I think they could sneak well into the mix, especially if time becomes a big factor on Sunday.

Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Amanda Chance:

Tom McEwen and Toledo de Kerser. Photo by Shannon Brinkman Photography.

Cheg Darlington

Winner: Tom McEwen and Toledo de Kerser – I just can’t help thinking that this will be their year. After the high of winning Olympic team gold and individual silver in Tokyo, and the disappointment of last year’s Badminton (my jaw was literally on the ground with them when they fell), coupled with Tom’s great form at Kentucky last week (where he was second with JL Dublin), he’s got to be fired up for this one. Although… my heart’s set on Kitty King and Vendredi Biats. I believe this is a horse and rider that’s overdue a big win and that they were unlucky not to be even closer to the top of the leaderboard than they were at both Badminton and Burghley last year (they were 7th and 6th). I would love to see it happen for them here.

Best Foreign Entry: This is a total heart pick but I’m going with Lillian Heard Wood and LCC Barnaby because I think he’s such a game kinda guy – also, I had a pony as a teenager called Barnaby – he even looked like his 5* namesake. With eight 5* completions together, Lillian and her Barnaby have rather better form than I managed with my Barnaby, and I really hope that they can add Badminton to that list this year on their second time of trying. LCC Barnaby’s 17 now and he’s been such a game campaigner for Lillian over the years that I think he deserves it.

Best Debutant (horse or rider): Kristina Hall-Jackson and CMS Google. When you hear Kristina speak about Google, it’s impossible not to get caught up in the excitement she has for their partnership. They’ve completed at all but one of their 24 FEI starts together and Kristina says the mare is ‘as brave as a lion’, something that will definitely come in handy on Badminton cross country day. They’re an exciting prospect and I’d love to see all that potential realized this weekend.

Best Mare: Quindiva – Alex Bragg’s ride. With her penchant for double clears, and her trend for sub-30 dressage scores, this could be a very successful week for the little mare, despite it being her first time at the level. She’s known to be a diva and we all know that with great talent comes big personality. It’d be cool to see Alex up there too.

Spoiler Alert: It wouldn’t exactly be a spoiler if he did win it – EquiRatings have him down as favorite – but this could be Oliver Townend and Swallow Springs’ year. He was 5th with Andrew Nicholson in 2019 and 3rd with Oliver last year, and I just have a feeling that it may be third time lucky for this lovely horse. Having said that, Tom Jackson and Capels Hollow Drift are definitely worth a shout out – they were 16th at Badminton last year – the horse’s first 5* – and then went on to finish 2nd at Burghley – that’s got to have Tom feeling great about his chances this weekend. Also… World No.1 Tim Price and Vitali (they were 3rd at Burghley last year) are on my radar – particularly after all the show jumping practice they’ve had recently on the Sunshine Tour – and of course Coup de Coeur Dudevin who Tim won Maryland 5* with last year when the horse was just a ten-year-old… Oh boy! It’s all to play for at Badminton!

Wills Oakden and Oughterard Cooley. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Diana Gilbertson

Winner: My inability to make a decision plagues me on a day to day basis, so to pick just one winner was agonising, I kid you not. I mean, I could just go for an easy, sentimental cop out and say they’re all winners just for getting to Badminton. Let’s face it, it’s pretty much the pinnacle of eventing, and to even get a horse here is no mean feat.

That being said, I have spent far too much time thinking about this over the last few weeks to take the easy road so, I’m going to settle on Tim Price. Or Tom McEwen. Or Tim Price. OHMYGOODNESS THIS IS HARD!

No. I’m going to settle on the Individual Silver medallists from Tokyo 2021, Tom and Toledo de Kerser. Having won Pau 5* in 2019, they are long overdue another 5* win. They took a nasty fall here last year, and who knows who would have lifted the trophy if they hadn’t –he could well have given Ms. Collett a very good run for her money. Reliable (despite that blip) in the jumping phases – his show jumping record is one of the best in the field – and usually at least top 5 after dressage, Toledo and Tom will certainly be looking to lay their ghosts to rest and nab themselves the top spot.

Best Foreign Entry: Can you count Tim Price as a ‘foreign entry?’ I mean, I know he’s a Kiwi, but the World No.1 and his wife (and World No.2 ),  Jonelle have lived in the UK so long they’re almost natives. Still, I’m going to focus firmly on the NZ after his  name, and ignore such minor details.

Tim brings forward two incredible horses, the Maryland 5* winner from last year, Coup de Coeur Dudevin, and Vitali, second at Burghley last year. It’s impossible to choose between them (or at least it is for me). The former has less 5* experience, but his natural ability  is obvious and I doubt Tim is bringing him here for an easy jaunt around. Similarly, Vitali has all the right ingredients, as long as he remembers to pick his knees up on the final day, his only weakness.

I refuse to pick one or the other – they’re both incredible horses, and certainly ones to keep an eye on for the future, so I’d expect them both to be in the top 10, if not higher.

Best Debutant (horse or rider): Tough one, given there are several horses lining up here for the first time – the current Badminton champion, Laura Collett is riding one herself. So I’m going to narrow it right the way down to a first time rider and first time horse, Georgia Bartlett and Spano de Nazca. Georgia has had Nono for 7 years now, and they have done everything together, all the way from BE100. She calls him her ‘best friend,’ and he might not be right up front after dressage, but his fantastic form across country could well see this pair climb the ranks. Trust me, this is a pair worth watching.

Best Mare: Again, there are SO many incredible mares in the field this year (girl power!), but for me, there are two standouts…Ros Canter’s Pencos Crown Jewel, and Caroline Powell’s Greenacres Special Cavalier.

My ultimate pick is probably the latter. She may well be less experienced than Ros’ ‘Jasmine,’ but her form thus far is impossible to ignore. She didn’t have a single jumping fault last year, and came fifth in her first 5* last year at Pau, even though Caroline openly admitted she was really only taking her there for the experience. She clearly has great faith in the mare then, to enter her here, and given Caroline’s own prowess and experience, it seems silly to look past Cav as the best mare in the field. I would even go so far as to say she could be a Badminton winner in years to come…

Spoiler Alert: Well, I’ll freely admit, I’m not really sure what this means. But since it’s my own choice, and so my own interpretation, I’m going to say it’s a result no one saw coming. So I’m going to completely disregard all of the sensible and informed chat I’ve given thus far in my picks and say that ladies and gents, girls and boys, Kings and Queens, your Badminton 2023 winner is…

Wills Oakden and Oughterard Cooley (GBR). Admittedly I’m biased – Wills lives quite close to me and I’ve admired his quiet determination for years – but this man is a serious talent, as is this horse. 13^th on their Burghley debut last year, they are capable of a competitive first phase score, and could well climb again after cross country. Ok, I will admit it would be a massive curveball (sorry Wills) if they took actual first place, but I am telling you, they will be RIGHT up there in the final placings. About time too: Wills has been knocking on the door for years now, and its about time  he had his moment

Alex Bragg and Quindiva. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Ema Klugman

Winner: Tom McEwen and Toledo De Kerser (GBR)

Toledo is one of the most experienced horses in the field, and perhaps the most talented in all three phases. He and Tom have eight CCI5* starts to their partnership, not to mention two World Championships and an Olympic Games. Their winning 2019 cross country round at Pau was as close to magic as I have ever seen in eventing: the horse just looked like it was cantering around for a school at home. They are a true “triple threat,” and if they can finish on their (likely very good) dressage score, I cannot see anyone beating them. And there is something about just having being beaten on American soil in Kentucky—an event that Tom would have won if not for the force of nature that is Tamie Smith—that has probably lit a fire under this rider. We may just see him run away with it.

Best Foreign Entry: Austin O’Connor and Colorado Blue (IRL)

This scopey grey will be mid-pack after the dressage, but he is so reliable in the jumping phases that he will make up a lot of ground that the dressage-bred horses tend to lose on cross country day. I first watched this horse at Tokyo, where he was originally named as a reserve. He jumped off the bench for Team Ireland in style, finishing as the best of their bunch, and absolutely jumping the lights out in the two show jumping rounds. Austin is a cross country rider we should all emulate: he’s smooth, fast, and brave, and he and this horse are an incredible team to watch. With seriously good experience under their belts already (including Olympic, World Championship, and previous Badminton experience), I would expect these two to finish on their dressage score. 

Best Debutant (horse or rider): Alexander Bragg and Quindiva (GBR)

When I watched Quindiva on the live stream of Thoresby Park last month, the words that came to mind were “true athlete.” The horse can seriously jump, and hasn’t had a rail in the last three years. Because the show jumping at Badminton can be so influential, she may really shine on the final day. Her jockey, Alex, has quite a bit of five-star experience, so it will be exciting for him to have another horse at this top level. If all goes to plan, she should be in the top 15 or 20 by the end of the competition.

Best Mare: Greenacres Special Cavalier

This ten-year-old Irish Sporthorse mare is exceptional. She is the youngest entry in the field, but with a jockey like Caroline Powell, I would not count her out. I remember watching her show jump at Pau last year and you could have convinced me she was a pure show jumper. She looked as fresh as anything and like the cross-country had taken nothing out of her. On top of that, she has already shown that she can score in the 20s at the five-star level. Badminton takes some jumping, and this horse has jumping talent coming out of her ears. I would expect to see a very good result for this mare this weekend, and even more excitingly, for her to be a great horse for Team New Zealand for several years to come. 

Spoiler Alert: Kitty King and Vendredi Biats (GBR)

Partnered together for nearly a decade, this horse and rider have been knocking on the door for a long time, and for some reason, I think it will all come together for them this weekend. If they were on any other country’s list of pairs in contention for selection, they likely would have been at both the recent Olympics and World Championships, but British selection has been so competitive recently that they have just been left off the squad a few times. That disappointment likely has Kitty hungry and gives her a real point to prove. They came close to a big result at Burghley last year after winning the dressage on a 21 but having a pin on the cross country, but maybe that sort of “almost” result has driven them to be completely ready for the challenge this year. I just love “Froggy’s” expression as he goes around the cross country: he hunts for his fences and looks as honest as they come. If everything goes their way this weekend, I think they could just end up near, or at, the top. 

Tim Price and Coup de Coeur Dudevin. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Cassidy Oeltjen

Winner: Rosalind Canter with Lordships Graffalo. I feel like the 2018 World Championships really taught Rosalind how to win – an important skill when you’re riding a horse with as much promise as ‘Walter’. He was second here last year to London 52 at his first 5* and fourth at the Eventing World Championships in Pratoni at the ripe young age of 10. I think 11 just might be his year to come out on top.

Best Foreign Entry: Tim Price with Coup de Coeur Dudevin. I’m not going to be the one to bet against the top ranked FEI rider in the world, even if it’s on a horse that he’s only had the ride on a short time. Tim brings two very talented horses to this year’s Badminton, but I think it’s this young, striking bay that will be up the leaderboard on Sunday. They won the 5* at Maryland last fall, and although it was a small field, the pair proved their worth, finishing on a 28.2, and I thinkthey could finish lower here (as long as he keeps the rails up on Sunday!).

Best Debutant (horse or rider): Caroline Powell with Greenacres Special Cavalier. Besides Coup de Coeur, I think another experienced New Zealander will find themselves going late in the day on Monday with their debutant Badminton horse. This mare might be young, but I always think the best horses have some quirks, and this one was one of the quirkiest as a young horse. But a wise man once told me that 10 is when Irish horses get their brain in the mail, so Badminton might just be the place that Queen Bee gets her chance to show off her smarts.

Best Mare: Rosalind Canter with Pencos Crown Jewel. Rosalind’s two rides are actually half siblings who share another 5* mare in their lineage. Having tenacity in her blood will help Jasmine move up the leaderboard, although they shouldn’t be too far off striking distance on
day one. It may be her first Badminton, but she’s no stranger to big tracks, and with Rosalind as her jockey, she should be in good shape to best the rest of the mares in the field.

 Spoiler Alert: Amanda Pottinger with Just Kidding. I love a longshot, and I love a thoroughbred. And I REALLY love a little (15.2) thoroughbred who loves to fancy-prance. Last year he scored a 25.9 in the first phase here, and if he can match that, he’ll be sitting pretty to storm around the cross country. Show jumping may be his achilles heel, but if the cups are deep and the pole-tapping gods are on his side, I think they could be sitting pretty Sunday afternoon.

Oliver Townend and Swallow Springs. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Abby Powell

Winner: Tom McEwen will be rolling into Badminton fresh off his second-placed finish at Kentucky with JL Dublin. Worried about him being exhausted from riding in back-to-back five-stars? Nah! Tom’s a marathoner in his “spare” time! Not to mention his Olympic silver-medal winning mount, Toledo de Kerser, isn’t exactly a slouch either. After an uncharacteristic fall on course here last year, this pair is in it for both the big win and little redemption while they’re at it.

Best Foreign Entry: It really feels like Tim Price shouldn’t quite count as a foreign entry, given his residence in the UK. But he does very proudly fly the New Zealand flag after all, so I’ll take it! If I can use this category to stick him and his Maryland 5-Star winner Coup de Coeur Dudevin up in the ranks, then do so I shall.

Best Debutant (horse or rider): I’ve got to throw a US pair into the mix here somehow, so I’m picking Katherine Coleman and her five-star first-timer Monbeg Senna for this accolade. 

Best Mare: Ros Canter’s Pencos Crown Jewel will be making her third 5* start here at Badminton, having placed fourth in the pop-up 5* at Bicton in 2021 and then jus outside the top ten at Burghley last year. This mare has a big bright future and I’ll be watching her closely this weekend.

Spoiler Alert: Oliver Townend and Swallow Springs may be EquiRatings favorites to win, but they feel a little more like spoilers to me for whatever reason. Oliver and former winner here, Ballaghmor Class, could also just as easily snatch another win here. Oh, and watch our for Ros Canter and Lordships Graffolo too! Gosh, this is another tough one to call.  

Ros Canter and Pencos Crown Jewel. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Sally Spickard

Winner: Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo

I think it’s going to be time for Lordships Graffalo — who at the age of 10 was a narrow second here at Badminton in 2022 — to have his day. With another year of experience under his belt, as well as a fourth place individual finish at the FEI World Championships last fall, we should see this pair ready to smash out a win or two on the international circuit in 2023. In 2022, Ros and Lordships Graffalo finished the Badminton weekend on their dressage mark of 26.0 — if they can achieve this or better this year, we could be looking at our next champion.

Best Foreign Entry: Tim Price and Coup de Couer Dudevin

Our Maryland 5 Star winners in 2022, Tim Price and Coup de Couer Dudevin are ready to tackle another major event. While Badminton might bring a slightly stiffer field, I think this Kiwi pair could be ones to impress or even swoop in for the whole win this weekend. An easy choice for this pick would also be Tim’s Pratoni mount, Vitali — toss a dart at the wall to figure out who the better pick would be. It’s science!

Best Debutant (horse or rider): Georgia Bartlett and Spano de Nazca

Ok, real talk: I’m mostly picking this pair because I am newly OBSESSED with the diminutive-but-mighty Spano de Nazca, who’s absolutely going to be chomping to get this weekend underway. If you haven’t met this pair, don’t miss their rookie profile penned by Diana Gilbertson here. While this pair won’t threaten the leaders on the first phase of competition, they’re a pretty reliable cross country pair who stands poised to make a climb on their first 5* effort.

Best Mare: Pencos Crown Jewel

I’m just on the Ros Canter train this weekend, and I think you might even be able to swap out this lovely mare for her stablemate in the winner pick column. Even better, “Jasmine” is a half-sister to Lordships Graffalo, really keeping it in the family of incredibly talented horses on Ros’ string at the moment. This will be another pair that will need to do some climbing through the jumping phases, but if they can finish on their dressage mark we could see them finish in that top percentile of this very competitive field.

Spoiler Alert: Tom McEwen and Toledo de Kerser

It feels somewhat silly to put Olympic silver medalists (and team gold medalists) into the spoiler field, but this is EN and we do what we want. Tom is hot off a second place finish at Kentucky with JL Dublin this past weekend and will be eager to get his old friend back out on a big track at Badminton. While they suffered a pretty heavy fall (no injuries) at the tricky solar panels on the 2022 track, that was an anomaly if nothing else as we can typically expect this pair to go quick and clear across the country. If Tom can manage a FOD again this weekend, Toledo could be the one wearing the crown when the dust settles on Sunday.

Badminton Horse Trials: [Website] [Entries] [Schedule] [Live Stream – Badminton TV] [Radio Badminton] [Tickets] [EN’s Coverage]

Once more unto the breach, dear friends: scarcely does one five-star end before the next begins, and with it, my next chance to lose friends and not influence people at all. What fun! What japes! What a great risk of losing my accreditation for next year! In any case, though, I always think it’s important to start these momentous weeks, full as they are of derring-do and extraordinary athletic achievement and emotional highs and lows, with a little bit of lighthearted ribbing. It keeps all our feet on the ground, doesn’t it? It helps us laugh as we teeter on the precipice of the things that frighten us. I am using a lot of words here to try to justify this; to quantify it as a great service to all of humanity and eventing. Have I convinced you yet? I’ve convinced myself, anyway, and that’s good enough for me. Slap a Medal of Honor on me, for I have served the Eventing Nation. And now, it’s time to give out some truly dubious prizes for my favourite looks from this year’s first horse inspection at Badminton.

First up…

The Golden Chinch for Honouring Monarchs or Burgers; Unsure

Lauren Innes and Global Fision M. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Look, I’m going to start with this one, because I know you’ll all be waiting for it. We saw a lot of nods to this week’s coronation of the Man Who Would Be Tampon — err, sorry, King — throughout the course of proceedings today, with patriotic scarves, ribbons, and much, much more besides on show from a number of riders. But none encapsulated the moment quite like Lauren Innes, who simply chucked a crown on her noggin and went sprinting down a strip of tarmac, alongside a horse, in the pissing-down rain. The whole situation, when you actually step back and think about it objectively, is faintly ridiculous, and I love that Lauren just kind of owned that. She reminds me of the good old days when you’d get six nuggets and a cardboard crown for being a Very Good Girl while your mum went shoe shopping. I hope she wears it for all three phases.

The Golden Chinch for War Efforts on the Home Front

Laura Collett and Dacapo. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

We’ve got to talk about this silk headscarf, which is a truly land girl accessory. In it, Laura Collett screams “we’re only allowed a fistful of sugar, a spoonful of butter, and two apples per week, but I’ll make you a cake that’ll prompt you to propose to me immediately.” She bellows “oh, your leg’s hanging off? Bite down on this spoon, darling, because I learned to amputate and cauterise a wound at the age of 15 when my family’s reception room was turned into a makeshift hospital, and I’ll have you sorted in no time.” She heartily screams “let me show you my abundance of turnips: I planted them myself in a secret garden I created between two paving stones using some manure I just found somewhere and now we shall never starve again. Don’t mind the sirens! The root vegetables don’t!” If she came at me in a Land Rover with all the doors sawn off, I’d jump in immediately and assume I’d make it through whichever World War she’s singlehandedly battling. For King and Country: Laura Collett. She might be wearing hot pink, but she’ll still sort this place out.

The Golden Chinch for Gucci Collabs that Haven’t Even Happened Yet, But Should

James Rushbrooke and Milchem Eclipse. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

There’s something very ‘I’m a lumberjack and I’m okay’ about this look from James, but actually, it’s more than that: it’s very ‘I’m a lumberjack and I’m about to release the hottest hip-hop album of 2023, and Kendrick Lamar can fight me if he thinks otherwise.’ I want to inspect this man’s mouth immediately because I just KNOW he’s got a stacked diamond grill on those gnashers of his. That look of deep concentration isn’t because he’s trying not to trip while jogging down the strip; it’s because he’s currently thinking up some SICK BARS for verse three of Straight Out of Badders, a song I’ll want to hate because the nickname ‘Badders’ makes me do this awful full-body cringe thing, but actually, I know I’ll secretly love it and shamelessly play it on an endless loop in my house, thus contributing to James’s inevitable skyrocketing trajectory up the charts, which will end abruptly when he’s invited onto Celebs Go Dating and admits that he wasn’t potty trained until he was like, eight, or something. Then he’ll be forced to spend the rest of his career reinventing Straight Out of Badders for adverts for, I don’t know, toothpaste, or anti-diarrhoea medication, or something, until we all agree that it might be nice to let him headline Glastonbury, just once, as a special treat, ironically. Then he’ll become a national hero, like Elton John, or Mr Motivator.

The Golden Chinch Award for Egregious Overcommitment to Y2K Trends, Part One

Izzy Taylor and Happy Days. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Right, Izzy, let’s have a chat: you’re definitely at least the same age as me, which means we lived through this horror already. You know what I mean, girl: the year 2004. The year boho inflicted itself on us all because Sienna Miller or Mischa Barton or someone willowy and blonde wore something that Seventeen magazine quite liked, and then it was inescapable. It was all crochet knits and peasant tops and, horror of horror, wide circle belts that served absolutely no purpose whatsoever. They just dangled there! On our hips! Holding up nothing! Making us look like we’d just stepped out of a casting call for extras in Gladiator! What were we thinking!!!

Fortunately, Izzy had a change of heart halfway up the strip and got rid of the belt, because in this, the year of our lord 2023, we like our accessories to actually do something for us.

The Golden Chinch Award for Egregious Overcommitment to Y2K Trends, Part Two

Alice Casburn and Topspin. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

I’m almost willing to give Alice Casburn a bit of leeway here, because at 22, she’s a card-carrying member of Gen Z, which means she didn’t have to suffer through the indignities of early noughties fashion, because when we were all being told by tabloids that having a full set of internal organs actually makes you a shameful heifer of a human being, she was being born. Yeah, take that one in. It makes me have a funny turn, too.

Anyway, as a Gen Z-er, she won’t be immune to the cyclical nature of trends, and I might be approximately 200 years old, but I do know that those teens and their TikToking are trying to bring all this suffering back into the spotlight. While I dig (do young people still say dig? Help) the flares here, I’m horrified to realise that it’s even possible to buy low-rise jeans again, because I’ve wasted so many of my young and hot years trying to wrestle my bum crack back into submission in those monstrosities that I simply do not have the energy to fight anymore. What I will say is this: Alice, if you want to do Y2K fashion, you have to do all of it. You have to really live it. I want to see you on Monday morning at the final horse inspection with a zig-zag parting in your hair. I want to see at least three butterfly clips on either side of that parting. I want you to locate some blue eyeshadow and some frosted lip gloss. I want Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse smeared along your jawline. I want those flares to have disintegrated at the back bottom seam from being stepped on so many times so that you’re walking around with a sad, wet, muddy tail dragging along behind your ankles. I want you to borrow Izzy’s belt. Don’t let me down, Casburn.

The Golden Chinch for Making My Camera Sensor Go Funny, Again

Harry Meade and Away Cruising. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Ahh, Harry, we meet again. You are Cordings of Piccadilly’s most loyal customer, and the only man for whom I need to change the exposure settings on my camera, not because of your sparkling grey horse (although well done to groom Jess Errington there, because Away Cruising looks great), but because your trousers are so much. At one point a neon yellow ambulance trundled past the trot-up and I thought I was getting a sneak preview of your Sunday look. You are a mad man and you cannot be tamed and I have to respect you for that, begrudgingly.

The Golden Chinch for Nailing the Dating App Brief

Felix Vogg and Cartania. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

So often, when you’re scrolling through, say, Hinge or Bumble (this isn’t something happens on Tinder, which is an unapologetic shag-fest, frankly) you’ll come across people who are basically just there because they desperately need to find a plus-one for a wedding they’ve been invited to. I don’t blame them, actually: surely nothing is worse than being the Token Single at a wedding and thus finding yourself tactically seated next to the Other Token Single (usually a godawful third cousin with curiously alt-right leanings), who’ll spend the whole evening talking at you before eventually doing that hot-breath-exhale-and-lean-in move that a certain type of man is so adept at. This one, you know:

 

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Here, though, Switzerland’s Felix Vogg presents himself as the answer to all your troubles. He responds to your Hinge prompt sympathising with your plight (“weddings! The worst! Is there an open bar? Count me in!”) and although it’s highly odd that you have to summon him by saying “Hinge plus one” three times into the mirror, when he appears in his natty little three-piece suit and bow-tie with that smirk on his face, you’re like, “holy shit, I think this is actually going to be great.” And at first, it is: you turn up to the wedding with a veritable snack on your arm, and that one girl you’ve maintained some public semblance of friendship with since college even though she’s actually horrible is so vexed by it all that she walks around looking like someone’s just deposited a gentle fart on her upper lip for the next four hours. But then you lose track of your date for a while, decide to grab your coat so you can slip outside for an illicit smoke… and find him in the cloakroom, attempting to consummate anyone’s wedding, really, with the mother of the bride. You vow to start trying to meet men at normal places, like… garden centres. Or bake sales. Or soup kitchens. Then you decide to maybe just not meet men at all. That’s also fine.

The Golden Chinch for Maybe Packing a Ouija Board in her Tack Trunk; Who Knows

Emily King and Valmy Biats. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

I’ll let you in on a little secret: I was a baby goth. From about the age of eleven, which was just after the moment when I got over my long-held idea that I might be Kurt Cobain reincarnated (a notion that was finally quashed when I ran out of compelling arguments against the fact that I was two years old when he died), I embraced the dark side wholeheartedly. I shopped in Hot Topic, recreationally pierced various bits of my own face with hot safety pins, listened to screamy punk about, like, disembowelment and heartbreak and the intersection of those two topics. (Actually, I still listen to all that, and I’m quite happy to make recommendations. Hit me up.) If you need further evidence, here’s me at 12, just before I discovered hairdye and eyeliner, but well after I figured out that if you put a medieval font on a random string of words, it won’t matter that they don’t actually form a legible sentence, because it’ll just look really really cool:

I am the princess of darkness, and if you ask me real nice, I might let you borrow this outfit for the next trot-up.

Anyway, all this is to say that I spend my life playing one long game of Is It Goth? And in truth, all I want is for everything to pass that spooky barometer. I want you all to come to the side of bats and black lipstick and New Wave vibes with me. I want us all to look a little bit like Robert Smith (not the showjumper) on his wedding day, which is what I kind of accidentally look like most days so I really do need that look to be cool again. Black horse? Arguably Kinda Goth. Black leather-look waterproof breeches? Maybe a Little Bit Goth. Holland Cooper coats and Fairfax and Favor boots? Not Goth At All. Emily King in a Wednesday Adams dolly dress with a black low-denier tight and a boxy blazer? Very, Very Goth. Welcome to the dark side, Emily. Here’s a song about disembowelment and heartbreak to make you feel like one of us.

The Golden Chinch for Understanding that Masculinity Spans the Colour Spectrum

This! Was simply! A Lot! But you know what? I applaud a man who has the courage to mix his pinks. Whatever that means.

Badminton Horse Trials: [Website] [Entries] [Schedule] [Form Guide] [Live Stream – Badminton TV] [Radio Badminton] [Tickets] [EN’s Coverage]

Every time we pen a form guide here at EN, I know the eventing world will be split into two camps. First, there’s the diehard nerds – the ones who’ll gobble up every one of those 25,000+ words of minutiae and enjoy every second. Then, there’s the second camp.

For you folks, we like to spin out our At A Glance posts, which you can skim read in under five minutes to get the basics of the field down pat. Don’t say we never do nuffin’ for you, chums. First up to bat, we’ll be taking a look at the horses of this year’s Badminton field – so gird your loins and dive on in; the water’s fine.

(‘Other’, for what it’s worth, includes all of our one-offs: Thoroughbred, Spanish Sport Horse, and so on!)

Badminton Horse Trials: [Website] [Entries] [Schedule] [Form Guide] [Live Stream – Badminton TV] [Radio Badminton] [Tickets] [EN’s Coverage]

The wide log piles, jumped here by Piggy French and Vanir Kamira in 2019, make a return as the biggest obstacles on this year’s track. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Welcome to the 2023 Badminton Horse Trials, presented by MARS Equestrian — the third CCI5* of the year, but for many folks, the most hotly anticipated. This year, it’s got what course designer Eric Winter describes as a continental flair to it, featuring considerably fewer ditches and dimensionally enormous fences to last year and a lot more accuracy questions — and, pivotally, arguably the most deformable or collapsible fences we’ve ever seen at the venue, with over half the course set with safety devices or made of brush. We headed out for a walk with Eric to find out what’s to come and how he went about pulling it all together.

Most of us probably imagine that the course designer’s only job during the event itself is to watch, learn, and feel all-day butterflies, but it’s actually one of the most pivotal working weeks of the year, because it’s when the majority of the conceptual work for the following year is done.

“Each year’s course is designed, at least in part, almost a year before,” Eric explains. “At last year’s event, I already had a definite thought process of what I wanted to do this year, before I even got on site for the week of the event. By the time I left the event, almost all of it was done and thought of. It’s important to start that early, especially if you have big groundworks to do, and we did have those for this year’s course — so we could just start those straight away.”

“On Sunday I always do a walk around the course in the opposite direction of the way it was run, because I find it really interesting to walk the footprints. It shows us how horses landed, but it also gives us ideas for how to use that ground for the following year, when the event will swap directions and run in the way we’re walking it.”

While last year’s course was best suited to a bold, galloping type of horse with a great jump — a Toledo de Kerser on paper, though not, as it happened, in practice — this year’s has gone in a different direction, and Eric thinks his 2023 winner will be the one that’s been trained to deal with accuracy questions, and, crucially, is ridden by a rider who can keep thinking the whole way around.

“I think it’s a different horse to last year, because it’s more technical and there’s more opportunity to run out,” he says. “I think they have to be a little bit better at staying on a line, but they don’t have to be quite as brave as they were last year. That’s my feeling at the moment, that it will be a horse that can really stay on the line and look for the flags. Your great horses can do everything, but if you have something that’s a bit inclined to jink out to the left or jink out to the right, I think you could find it a long way round.”

In one way, Eric has certainly continued on with one theme from last year: the addition of terrain to Badminton’s historically relatively flat track. He and his crew have been hard at work, both unearthing new areas of the course and creating their own lumps and bumps in the ground, as well as re-siting fences to make best use of interesting divots and lips in the terrain, which he hopes will encourage riders to get out of the arena in training.

“They have quite a lot of terrain to contend with this year. I always said when I started here that I wanted to influence people hire a JCB for a week and plough up their schooling course and put lots of mounds and lumps and bumps in so they could practice over those things and teach their four year old horses to be quick on their feet. Years ago, that was a standard practice thing, whereas now it’s not such a thing.”

THE TECHNICAL DETAILS

Optimum Time: TBC – but probably around 11:50

Jumping Efforts: 45

Cross Country App Interactive Map: Available here!

Now let’s check out the most significant parts of the 2023 course. After popping the first fence in the arena, and the second, a wide table over a ditch, outside it, our competitors will head on down to fence 3, the Tortworth Hotel Brush.

Fence 3, the Tortworth Hotel Brush, is most interesting because of its variable terrain on approach.

The terrain here is unique, with a number of not insignificant lumps and bumps on approach to the fence that are speculated to be the aftereffect of an ancient settlement that once rested on this site. (Amateur horror film directors, take note: we, for one, would be well up for watching Badminton: The Haunting, a film about an event horse that gets possessed by a peasant woman from 1100 AD en route around the course. You can have that idea for free.) This terrain can be helpful in a lot of ways: it’ll certainly encourage riders to sit up and take notice, and it’ll naturally engage the horses’ hind ends, but it also takes a bit more riding than a free gallop down to a straightforward brush fence would do. That, though, makes it a really useful set-up for what’s to come, as the first combination on course will appear quite swiftly thereafter.

Though Eric is always on the hunt for new and innovative ways to use the Badminton estate, this bit of unused ground actually ended up on the 2023 course by a happy accident.

“I initially laid out the track as I wanted it, but I found I finished up with much more distance, and a time that was over twelve and a half minutes, so I had to move a few things around,” says Eric. “This fence ended up moving back, which shortened the distance down, but also gave it a completely different feel because of the ground it’s now situated on.”

The Savills Staircase returns for 2023 as fence 4ABC.

That bit of terrain will set them up well for the first significant question on course: the Savills Staircase at 4ABC returns for 2023 and looks no less enormous than it did when we saw it in 2019. The first element is a chunky oxer table, followed by a variable stride pattern — it could be four, it could be five, it could be six, thanks to the undulations in the ground and the very viable option of a step or two of trot — to a bounce of steps down, then a bowl on to another of these capacious spreads.

It’s the first time we’re really seeing Eric ask the competitors to make a plan A, B, and C, and commit to the stride pattern that their horse’s landing style dictates in the moment, rather than sticking to their guns and valuing strides over all else. It’s classic Eric, it’s classic Badminton, and it’ll help propel them into the course proper.

Then, it’s time to open those strides back up as we head out to the beautiful facade of Badminton House, and the rather more frightening facade of the Countryside Alliance Stick Pile combination at 5AB.

Fence 5AB features the largest fence on course…

There’s a long route here, but most will opt to go straight, jumping the two beefy log piles on a left-handed turn. The first of these is visually enormous: with a 2m top spread, Eric reckons it’s the biggest fence on this year’s course.

…a logpile with an impressive two meter top spread.

Wide fences like these ones require a longer, flatter jump, which dictates the canter needed — competitors won’t want to be pussyfooting on the approach to these, although a flat-out gallop isn’t appropriate either, because they’ll need to negotiate the turn in between. A positive, punchy, powerful canter that remains engaged and in control will be the key.

At 6AB we find a new complex: the Coronation Corral, with two upright clipped gates on a bending line.

New this year is the Joules Coronation Corral at 6AB, which features routes for the CCI5* and the two Grassroots championships alike, all watched over by the impressive facade of Badminton House. The five-star route is a sweeping left-handed turn from white gate to white gate – both equipped with collapsible devices in case of a hung leg – and  with a route that’s defined by a decorative pagoda in the centre of the ‘corral’, which the riders will aim to keep inside of, though they will have the option of going around the outside of it, too, which will add “just a couple of seconds,” Eric predicts. But, he says, the most important thing is that riders take stock of their straightness and balance, riding considered, sensible turns rather than just trying to scrape through the gates on a wing and a prayer.

For Eric, putting a combination like this after the big, bold, wide fences just prior is an important part of the test he’s aiming to set in this year’s track.

“The early part of this course really asks you to lengthen, then shorten, then lengthen, and then shorten, and so I wanted to ask them to jump a very wide fence and then really throttle back for this question, before attacking the next, more forward question,” he says. “It’s all about testing the adjustability.”

Fence 7, the Air Ambulances UK Bullfinch, is simple, old-fashioned – and very, very big.

There are few things more modern than upright gates with safety devices and showjumping stride patterns, and there are few things more ‘old school’ than whopping great bullfinches, one of which we find on a very straightforward bit of ground as we head down towards the intense middle section of the course. Though the primary, thick segment of brush here falls within the usual dimensions for a brush fence on a five-star track, bullfinches are defined by their wispy top sections – and these twiggy bits, which are meant to be jumped through, can tickle seven feet tall. It makes for an imposing-looking jump, but the task at hand is actually a pretty simple one: find your line nice and early, add plenty of pace, stay positive, and enjoy the feeling of taking flight.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a bullfinch on Eric’s course here: he famously put one in coming out of the lake on his first course, back in 2017, which asked a very different question than this one does, purely by dint of being part of the water complex. There were some very mixed feelings about it upon its reveal then: some riders thought that this very vintage style of fence no longer had a place in the modern sport, while others were delighted to see a fence like this make a return. In any case, it’s hard to imagine anyone running into any trouble with this one – the only question is whether we’ll see one or two of the very careful jumpers treat it like a Puissance wall, rather than a brush fence.

Though I’m struck by how good the ground feels around the estate, it’s at this gateway to the back fields that you can start to see some evidence of the record-breaking rainfall that England has experienced this year, wreaking havoc on the short spring season. For Eric, the risk of either a very wet or very dry spring is something he has to consider well in advance, and it can affect how much preparation time he and his team get, too.

“Before the rain came in March, we actually had a really good winter — so good, in fact, that we were able to start getting fences out in the middle of February, about a week earlier than we’d planned,” he says. “It was glorious sunshine, so we said, ‘stuff it, let’s do it this week’, and we put out the guts of everything that was really heavy — the tables and things — then. But you do have to have a contingency plan, and if we had consistent rain coming into Badminton week, we do have plans and ideas for how we can slightly alter some routes to accommodate that.”

Fence 8ABC, the Lightsource BP Hollow, crosses new terrain and opens up a whole new field for the Badminton course.

Once they’ve cleared the Bullfinch, riders will get to do some horsey tourism: the next expanse of the course is one that’s never been used in the event’s history. This includes a new stretch of field, with a question on the way in and another on the way out – but really, what’s most interesting about this spot is the groundwork that’s been done to create an entrance into the field. The natural perimeter of the new field is abutted by a ditch and stream, and Eric and his team have spent the last year digging a wide expanse of it out and refilling it to create a natural sunken road of sorts. This year, they’ve used it to create a combination that features a MIM-clipped upright rail, a big down bank, and then an angled brush fence atop an incline, but the beauty of the space is its nearly limitless potential going forward.

“We started digging the ditch out in November, with the idea in mind that there were so many different combinations we could place here, whichever direction we’re running in,” he says. But groundworks of this magnitude at Badminton always require a careful touch – not because of the rich history of the place, but because of what can be found underneath.

“Years ago, [course builder] Alan Willis was putting in some carved mushrooms,” he recalls, and then gestures at a nearby sewage works. “That has a high pressure pipe that comes through the entire estate, and it really does run with an enormous amount of pressure. While they were putting the mushrooms in, they were driving the stump down, and there was suddenly a rumbling — and with that, the pole went forty feet into the air, followed by a column of eighty feet of high-pressure human shit!”

Woe betide Andrew Nicholson, who went on to fall from Jagermeister at that spot, and probably wondered why the ground had such a tang to it.

The Isuzu 4 Bar at 9 will require a very positive ride.

Fortunately, no sewage pipes were harmed in the creation of the new field, despite its proximity to the source of the material, but perhaps that’ll be another good motivator for competitors to stay on as they navigate that three-part combination at 8ABC and gallop on down to a very imposing bit of firewood indeed: the Isuzu 4 Bar at 9. This is another very old-fashioned fence that demands a positive, forward, attacking ride — and those who get a bit backwards to it could pay the price in annoying frangible penalties, because a backwards horse will find the enormous jumpable width of the fence a big ask and could well clip it on the way over. In a way, it’s this year’s Broken Bridge — it certainly requires the same kind of approach, anyway, and shouldn’t cause any real trouble.

“I think it’s always the thing with five-star that your run-and-jump fences are rarely really just run-and-jump fences,” says Eric. “They always have to lift you off the ground and require a bit of effort, whereas at four-star, the run-and-jump fences are more likely to be boxes with a nice shape to the front.”

The MARS Equestrian Sustainability Bay water at 10AB features a deceptively large drop in…

After clearing the 4 Bar and landing running, Eric will once again ask riders to shorten up — but here, at the first water question on course, he’s done a classic Eric Winter: there’s no telling, really, how a horse will land on the steep drop landing of the A element of 10AB, the MARS Equestrian Sustainability Bay, so there’s no real guarantee of what your stride pattern will be to the log in the water.

The trick? Walk all the variables, whether your horse jumps up in the air and lands steep, or whether he’s nearly launched himself into the water, and prepare to think quick and decide which plan you’re committing to in that moment before touchdown, says Eric.

…to a small-ish log fence in the water that must be respected.

“I think they’ll generally land a long way down,” he predicts. “But they need to have variable stride patterns in mind, and not go too straight, either.”

Though the log in the water at 10B is one of the smaller fences on the course, it also has a narrow jumpable area, so if a rider doesn’t offer it enough respect, we could see a silly slip out the side door here, making those careful multitudes of walks all the more important.

Though Badminton is historically considered a flatter five-star — certainly in comparison with the likes of Burghley — Eric has been pleased to find and make best use of some considerable undulations between that new ‘sunken road’ of sorts and this water. That’ll add in an extra mental and physical test, and it also lends an appealingly gutsy and old-fashioned feel to the back end of the course.

12AB, a bounce step to an owl hole, comes so close after 11, a t-bar ditch and log, that it feels rather like a CCI4*-S.

After that, it’s down to a T-Bar fence with a ditch on the approach at 11, followed by a rollback turn to a step up to an owl hole at 12AB, which looks sparse enough at the moment but will be getting a serious dressing up with plenty of brush. This section, Eric says, is more like a CCI4*-S in its intensity and number of fences per 100m, so horses and riders alike are truly in the guts of the track now and will need to keep their wits about them.

13ABCD is a serious question, featuring a trio of brush boxes and a small, but significant, ditch.

All the intensity of the last couple of minutes will pay dividends as competitors get to 13ABCD, the KBIS Brush Boxes. Here, there’s a couple of options — but the best, and fastest, is the direct route that hinges almost entirely on how well thought out the approach is that riders devise to the first element, a broad brush box. In order to get the best line to the small ditch, situated at the bottom of a little hollow and then back up over an angled brush box, they’ll need to jump that first element on quite a steep left-to-right angle — one that’ll be partially defined by an unjumpable element on the approach.

“That means that if you go the slow way, and jump the first element straight, you can’t get to the ditch — so you’re forced to take the long route, which takes you around to another brush box and then over a rolltop,” says Eric. “It’s a very long alternative — and it’s a long way mentally, too — so I think you’ve got no choice, really, if you’re going to try to go for the win. It’s easy to think you can come to Badminton and just have a nice time and plan to take all the long routes, but I think this question really pushes you to make a decision.”

The ditch sits in a natural quarry, adding intensity.

Eric’s looking forward to seeing how riders tackle the tricky direct route, which he thinks will be one of the most interesting combinations of the day.

“How the distance works up that bank [to the final element] will be very interesting,” he says. “The more you put an arc on the line, the more likely it is to get you there on the two-and-a-half or maybe the three, but if you ride it straighter, you get there in two — but in doing so, you need to accept and prepare for a more extreme angle of fence, which makes it harder.”

The Footbridge returns, but this time, Eric says, it’s been given an ‘easier’ approach.

Though Badminton purists will be sad to see that this is one of those years sans Vicarage Vee, its infamous ditch line does get put to use by the faintly terrifying Footbridge at 14, which features a wide, MIM-clipped oxer set at a steep angle over the ditch. It’s a mainstay of the Badminton track, and it never looks any smaller year on year — but, Eric says, of the two directions you can approach it from, this clockwise run down to it is actually the slightly easier of the two.

“It’s probably as good as it gets,” he says with a laugh. “The terrain picks up slightly on the approach, so you’re coming to it on a slight arc, and you’re set up to gallop to it easily. There’s a certain way to get to a fence that’ll make even a moderate horse look classy, and this is it. When you come from the other way, you have to make a turn, and you’re in charge of making it yourself, whereas this year it does a lot of the set-up for you.”

The Lightsource BP Pond reimagines those tricky solar panels of last year, taking away the bounce question and inserting, in its place…

Last year, the Lightsource BP Solar Panels made an auspicious debut when their tough open distance-to-a-bounce combination saw hot favourites Tom McEwen and Toledo de Kerser end their day early, and a whole spate of experienced horses and riders make a bit of a scrambling effort through the question. This year, the bounce is no more — but they’ll still demand plenty of respect at 15AB, where they now feature a bit of variable terrain and another small water to cross en route to the second element.

For Eric, one of the great responsibilities of a course designer — and especially the designer of arguably the world’s premier three-day event — is to impact how riders train at home, particularly in a sport where safety is constantly under scrutiny and education can’t reliably be standardised.

“The bounce [from 2022] was a good learning experience for the riders,” says Eric. “They don’t do a lot of bounces in training, generally — everyone jumps plenty of skinny fences, but I think there’s less of an emphasis on making horses quick off the ground [in training], so there was an element of wanting to encourage that sort of work that went into setting that question.”

That’s a responsibility he certainly doesn’t take lightly. “I always think good course designers have something to say,” he muses. “They aren’t just putting a fence down in a field. There are some courses you see where it’s just boxes around the edge of a field — just dotted around as best they can to get a couple of days of sport. But actually, you need to really think about the skills that riders might be neglecting in training, then you can start to look at how you build question to encourage them to revisit those skills. The best thing about having the Badminton job is being able to affect riders’ training — so you start to educate course designers, and you influence riders in what they do at home, which starts to work on the process wherein they train horses to be quicker and sharper. That, on a fundamental level, makes the sport safer than anything else. No amount of deformable clips will make up for the horses not being trained to be quick with their feet and able to get out of trouble.”

Last year’s bounce, and its subsequent impact on training, might not be in evidence here — but there are still bounces on this course, at both the Savills Staircase and the Owlhole, which Eric is looking forward to seeing in action.

…another water.

At this question this year, there’s a choice of three A elements and four B elements, lending a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure feel to this question. The most direct route can be seen in the photo above: that’s the A element of choice just visible in the foreground, where it’s situated atop an incline, and from there, they can head out over either of those B elements, each on an angle. There’s plenty of different lines available to them just from that A to those two Bs, or, if they want a slightly more straightforward journey, they can do a wide arc back to one of the two other Bs, not visible to the right of the photo, which will require them to then turn themselves back around to head down the galloping lane. The other A elements, to the left of the one pictured, also create a slightly longer, but slightly easier, trajectory.

Then, they’ll head on down to fence 16, a let-up fence in the form of the wide, solid Pedigree Dog Kennel table, which puts them right on their line for…

Fence 17A is an upright rail atop a respectable mound.

…fence 17AB, the LeMieux Mound, which begins with an upright rail atop a fairly sizeable mound. That’ll get them sitting and popping neatly — in theory, anyway — before they free-wheel back down the hill and into a shallow quarry of sorts, at which point they’ll need to be very sure which of the B elements they’re aiming for on their way out.

After leaping the A element at 17, the LeMieux Mound, competitors will have the choice of two boxes, which will be covered in brush.

The B elements were last seen in action in 2022, where one was the final element of the Quarry – and the site of that slightly contentious whoopsy for Oliver Townend and Swallow Springs, which ultimately resulted in no penalties. If they don’t look familiar now, it’s because they’ve not yet been dressed in the thick, green layers of larch brush that will slightly beef up their dimensions come competition week.

The more direct route is the left-hand one – here’s the line from the lip of the incline.

So how to ride them for maximum efficiency? Go left, for one thing, says Eric. While the angle of this box is much steeper, when he walks me through the line, it all begins to make a lot more sense: if you ride pretty well straight up the lip, there’s a point at its apex where the left-handed turn presents itself to you, and that line suddenly looks much more doable.

“The more you hang right, the more time you waste, but there’s a reasonable distance from the top of the incline to the flat ground on the approach to the mound,” he says. “But I think it’ll be interesting, because in my experience, horses always go to the top of these banks — but if you walk the line from the lip of the incline to the fence, you’ll find yourself way off the take-off spot and in No Man’s Land, as it’s eight yards.”

Riders will need, then, to plan the spot on the bank meticulously, giving themselves a nice one-stride distance to get over this steeply angled B element. If they want to take some of the difficulty out, they can plan to go right instead — but this adds time on the clock, as it requires turning back afterwards to get back to the track and on to the next section of the course.

Fence 19AB is a related distance of two tables after the MARS M at 18 – and most notably, they’re both collapsible.

Now, the really intense bit of the course in the back field is behind them — but riders mustn’t fall asleep at the wheel, as there’s still plenty to come, including Badminton’s iconic lake. First, though, they’ll pop fence 18 — the MARS M — and then bowl over 19AB, a pair of tables fitted with new and novel collapsible technology.

It’s impossible to talk about this year’s course without reflecting on last year, in which we saw this question comprise the M followed by two flower boxes, one of which was subsequently removed from the course after several high-profile horse falls — including that of Nicola Wilson’s JL Dublin. Though Eric and his team scrutinised the line intensely both before and after the event, he still isn’t quite sure what went wrong — but this year, he’s doubled down on safety and introduced these deformable tables, which are still relatively new technology, as a way to ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself.

For Eric, too, taking the fence out in last year’s track was a no-brainer.

“If you have a course that relies almost entirely on one fence to exert influence, you don’t have a good course,” he says. “You have nothing to lose from discarding one fence if there’s a balance of influence around the course. But you stand to lose so much if you leave it in and you have another serious accident.”

Collapsible tables in action.

One of the major takeaways from last year that Eric wants to impress upon competitors is that if they’re not happy with a combination, they must feel able to speak to the course designer or another official about their thoughts, because the course — even once it’s been signed off by the ground jury — can still be altered if there’s compelling reason to do so.

“After the event, I had several people come up to me and say, ‘oh, I knew it wouldn’t jump well for this reason or that reason’,” he says. “But not one single person approached me before cross-country to say anything at all about it.”

The lake features an interesting, and more difficult, question this year, with a broad brush corner to a frangible rail into the lake, followed by another corner in the water.

After clearing the tables, competitors will canter perpendicular along the side of the lake, jumping the World Horse Welfare Jetty at 20 — a table with flowing water over its top face that has become a staple of the course in recent years — before heading to a major question at 21ABC and 22. This year, it looks set to be a much more influential part of the track than last year, when it was fairly straightforward. The key here for Eric is to build both a suitable question for competitors, and something that’ll be exciting for spectators — because this is the most crowd-heavy part of the track.

“You’re under some pressure, as a course designer, when it comes to the lake — because how on earth do you do something innovative on a spot that’s been designed on since the 1940s?” he says. “It’s really tricky to do something new. When I was very first here, I walked with Hugh Thomas and he said, ‘this is the lake; you fancy yourself as a bit of a designer, don’t you, so any suggestions are welcome!’ I was actually here as a technical delegate, but I did want to design courses, and I thought, ‘how could you do that?!’ But actually, he was dead right: when you remember all the old courses, we’ve seen so much built through here that the options feel limited. It’s not the longest stretch of water; you can’t really build a mound in the middle of it. They tried building a bridge in the middle one year and it was a complete disaster area. It’s difficult to know what to do with it, but I think we’ve got something really different this year.”

Last year, he felt his question here was “formulaic”, but this year, it’s an interesting marriage between old- and new-school eventing. The first element is a broad, brush-topped corner, followed by a left-handed turn to a MIM-clipped rails. The faster route is to the left, which is a drop directly into water but with a very clear line down to the final element, another left-handed corner, this time in the water. Because of the lettering of the fences, once riders have opted for that left-handed corner at the first element, they need to commit to going straight the whole way through — it’s an AB, whereas its right-handed alternative is simply an A, and the left-handed rails are a C, while the right, which pops you onto a stride of dry land before hitting the water, is a BC. The corner in the water is separately numbered and is 22, whether you jump it on the left or the right. There’s also an alternative 22 on dry land for those who need an easier escape route.

The use of rails dropping into the lake isn’t new: we’ve seen it several times before, particularly in the 60s, when a very similar jump was built and reused a few times. The difference, of course, is those safety devices, which have raised some questions about whether horses’ natural instinct to drag their hind ends over a drop fence to slow their trajectory will be punished with penalties here. Eric, though, believes that riders who really manufacture the correct canter to this fence will have very little to worry about.

“If you just float to it and let go of your reins, you’re going to lean all over it and probably take that clip. When I had a big log here without brush on top of it, a few people came to it and dropped their reins and chased and missed. They ended up all over it and then ended up in the water — and I don’t want that. I thought this would be a good place to exhibit the new technology we have working, and to encourage riders to really make a proper job of it and ride it straight and balanced.”

Two open timber corners make up the question at the Voltaire Design Huntsman’s Close at 25AB…

Next, they’ll gallop back around the edge of the lake and then splash back through it at the end closest to the house, popping over one of two identical brush-topped skinnies on dry land at 23, which is an easy enough question after the intensities of the previous few minutes.

Of course, that mental breather isn’t going to last for long — this is Badminton, after all. After jumping a wide brush-topped table at 24, the Beaufort Brush Box, they come to Huntsman’s Close, which feels a bit lighter and brighter (and visually clearer, too) this year after the removal of a few more trees. This year, the question they’ll meet is a duo of MIM-clipped, open timber corners at 25AB. The first is right-handed and the second is left-handed, which means that a one-sided horse won’t be favoured here — but those who need a bit of extra wiggle room will have a long option to hand.

“It’s a very different place from how it was in the 70s,” says Eric. “I wanted to create a slow route here near the end of the course in case it’s very wet, so that it could still flow and not pull the horses off their rhythm too much or doubling them back on themselves too much. That’s tough on them when they’re tired.”

…and with both a left- and right-handed corner in the mix, one-sided horses won’t have an easy time here.

The Jubilee Clump Brush at 26, with its open ditch and 1.45m brush, is another mental breather before…

The HorseQuest Quarry at 27AB appears as it did in 2019.

…they pop through the HorseQuest Quarry at 27AB, which is a familiar wall-to-wall combination without any added extras this year. Its dip and rise between the jumps does increase the intensity of the question somewhat, but also, it’ll serve to help a tired horse re-engage the hind end, so although it’s a combination fence, in a way it’s almost a bit of a let-up in itself, because it’s so clear. The only real risk comes if riders try to cut corners and jump on an angle with too much forethought, because the grounds flows away so quickly upon landing from that first element, and it wouldn’t be a real reach to expect a horse to hang a leg at this stage.

The broad timber boxers at 28AB, the Wiltshire Brewers Drays, are the final combination on course.

Then, as they head back towards the safe enclave of the main arena, there’s one last combination to tackle: the wide Wiltshire Brewers’ Drays at 28AB. Though they’re visually imposing — especially without any dressing on them yet — they’re well equipped with safety technology in case a horse doesn’t quite get off the ground enough here.

Last year, Eric explains, he saw some riders pick up too much speed in this final minute, taking risks as a result — this, he hopes, will slow them down and force them to respect the fences and look after their horses on the way home.

“There’s four frangible fences in the final six or so fences,” he says. “They’re not enormous, but that just serves to slow them up for the final distance.”

The familiar Rolex Pheasant Log reappears at 29 as the penultimate fence, while the final fence, the Coronation Finale at 30, has been moved back to the entrance of the arena.

“We’re just playing with the location to see if it’s better. Several riders said that when they came into the main arena and had to make the turn, their horses sort of switched off a little bit — so this is different.”

Though the job of the course designer certainly doesn’t end when the jumps are laid out and decorated, Eric’s looking forward to the incomparable education that he, and the riders, will get on Saturday. Even now, he tells me, the course designing game never ceases to surprise him.

“Last year was confusing, because several very good horses were eliminated, but then a lot of much less experienced horses and riders flew around without issues,” he says, referring to 2022’s high percentage of clear completions.

But, he says with a wry laugh, “I started last year thinking I knew a bit about course design, and finished last year realising I knew f*&%-all! I designed the courses at Hartpury for the Junior and Young Rider European Championships, which are held at CCI2*-L and CCI3*-L, and then we re-used the same courses – no changes at all – for the main international event there, two weeks later. The ground remained the same; the weather remained the same. You’d think the statistics of which fences caused trouble would be the same – but it wasn’t at all. The most influential question one week didn’t see a single issue the other week, and vice versa. I sat down afterwards and looked at the statistics and thought, “well, I can’t explain that – maybe I know nothing!”

Somehow, we doubt that. Go Eventing!

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