Caroline Powell and Greenacres Special Cavalier: our birthday Badminton champions. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

In 75 years of Badminton, we’ve seen some extraordinary things: we’ve seen five-year-old champions (our debutant winner, Golden Willow, in 1949); high-flying kids (Richard Walker, who won in 1969 at the age of eighteen aboard his Pony Club horse); near-ponies atop the podium (Our Solo in 1960 and Our Nobby in 1968, who were both 15hh); and retirees return to triumph (Mark Todd in 2011, who was 55 and returning to the sport off the back of a bet at a party). We’ve seen extraordinary accomplishments in the face of adversity, and no shortage of heartbreak dished out over the estate’s well-worn lanes and tracks. We’ve watched on as heroics have unfolded – great saves, the demolishing of statistics, and comebacks that have united the packed grandstands in willing their architects to the finish. We’ve laughed together, we’ve cried together, we’ve gasped in tandem as poles have bounced in their cups and nearly, nearly headed downward, but somehow, kismet has overridden gravity and the fairytale has won out, as it did in 2018 when Jonelle Price won with Classic Moet in the mare’s first clear round in four years.

And so it seemed that the obvious story might be handed to us today: second-placed William Fox-Pitt would jump clear, or as clear as he had to, with Grafennacht, taking the victory from overnight leaders Tim Price and Vitali, who would have just enough rails to drop a couple of places, as their form suggested. William, who is the world’s most successful five-star rider of all time, with fourteen wins to his name already, would make good on his week-long promise that this would be his last Badminton – while accepted the trophy, he’d retire officially in the ring, having helped usher the sport from old (the hey-day of the classic long-format of eventing, as it was when he made his debut in 1989 and for another near-decade-and-a-half thereafter) to the new. We’d see one of the young guns — Ireland’s 27-year-old debutant Lucy Latta, perhaps, or Emily King, herself a daughter of an eventing legend, finish in second place, effectively representing a passing of the baton from the old guard to the new. We’d leave Badminton full of a contended sort of emotion, feeling, finally, as though there might be something like hope on our horizon.

But eventing rarely gives us the obvious story, and so often, it gives us instead the story we need: the story that’ll throw our expectations out of the window, stop us in our tracks, and make us think about where we are, what we’re doing, and why we’re doing it. And, sometimes, it’s the story that gives us all a sage reminder of just how much good can happen if faith, in a horse or a system or in oneself as a rider, can ride all the waves that come its way.

So unfolded the grand finale of the 2024 MARS Badminton Horse Trials. It had been a week of change: our first-phase podium of Ros Canter, Bubby Upton, and Tim Price was replaced by a new-look post-cross-country podium, with Tim stepping into top spot after a nippy clear with Vitali, William Fox-Pitt taking overnight second with Grafennacht, and Irish debutant and one-horse rider Lucy Latta delivering the fastest round of the day to climb from 46th to an extraordinary third place. It was proper, vintage, game-changing sport – and that theme would continue today as jumping course designer Phillip Kelvin Bywater produced his toughest track yet.

Ordinarily, we see ‘easier’ courses at Badminton and Burghley, both of which host the phase on undulating grass arenas after a seriously stiff cross-country challenge. Conversely, the continental five-stars, Luhmuhlen and Pau, have the toughest final phase, with big, square, technical tracks that make use of pure showjumping questions and benefit from surfaced arenas. But this year, Bywater’s Badminton course leant much more in the direction of its European counterparts – and from the very start of the morning’s session, that increase in intensity made itself very clear.

Seventeen horses and riders came forward to jump in the early session, and between them, they toppled 59 poles. That’s an average of three and a half poles per rider, but in reality, we saw several six or seven-rail rounds, just two one-rail rounds, and not a single clear. The time, too, was proving tight: just three riders caught it in that group.

“Usually,” said Jonelle Price, who came down to watch from the mixed media zone while preparing for her afternoon draw, “we see all these guys in the morning group who have gone a bit slower [yesterday] come out and jump well, and then we go and skittle them in the afternoon. But they skittled them all, so there’s not much hope for us.”

She wasn’t wrong. As the top twenty gathered this afternoon in the collecting ring, which thrummed with quiet tension and the buzz of focus, there was a sense that they were all about to head into battle, and none were quite so sure of their odds. The first of them, Rosie Bradley-Hole and her first-timer Romantic, tipped two rails; their successors, Harry Meade and Away Cruising took three. One (a very good result in the context of the day, actually) fell for Zara Tindall and Class Affair, two came down for British-based US rider Grace Taylor and Game Changer – and then overnight sixteenth-placed Bubby Upton and Cola entered the ring in a bid to complete their comeback event, just eight months after the rider suffered a nearly-career-ending injury, and they did it. They went clear, they caught the time, and they broke through the skin of the tension. It was possible. After another couple of one-rail rounds, for Wills Oakden and Arklow Puissance and Gemma Stevens and her 2021 Bicton CCI5* winner Chilli Knight, it happened again, or nearly, anyway, when Tom Rowland and Dreamliner jumped clear and finished two seconds over the time.

In similar fashion we crept through the list, occasionally logging a one-rail round, groaning our way through no shortage of two-rail rounds, and wincing as those three-rail rounds unfolded in front of us, until we hit the business end of the line-up. Jumping in sixth place, New Zealand’s Caroline Powell delivered a classy, tidy round that added no faults and made it look very easy indeed, and then fifth-placed Sarah Ennis and Grantstown Jackson tipped five, dropping them right out of the hunt. Fourth-placed Emily King and Valmy Biats knocked two, despite being one of the highest-rated in the field in this phase, and third-place Lucy Latta and RCA Patron Saint, too, toppled two.

William Fox-Pitt and Grafennacht. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

It was William’s turn, and everything fell suddenly, achingly, unnervingly silent. He circled the ring, registered the sound of the bell, tipped the peak of his hat to the judges, and picked up a canter. He approached the first, Grafennacht tapped it, but left it up; at the second, she seemed sharper and jumped high, tight, and clear. But then the third came down – a fence he could afford to stay ahead of Caroline, who had crept up to the podium. And then the first part of the treble at 6A, too, fell – another fence he could afford. They jumped the rest of the treble clear, popped neatly, too, over 7 and 8 and the first part of the double at 9A. The crowd held their breath, but to no avail: the second part came down, and this time, he couldn’t afford it.

But he wasn’t done. After navigating the long swing back from 9B to 10 that, too, fell, as did the influential upright over the water tray on a related distance at 11. And, as he turned back to home, with just two more fences between himself and the finish, so, too, would the planks at the penultimate fence at 11. The pair left the arena with six fences on their score card – despite being tipped as statistically the best jumpers in the top five.

Tim Price and Vitali. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

That meant that overnight leader Tim Price would go into the ring with two rails in hand, a worryingly short advantage: at each of Vitali’s four five-stars, plus the Tokyo Olympics, he’d had exactly three rails apiece. Tim, who has attributed the talented gelding’s problems in this phase to mental overwhelm, had spent the winter showjumping him in Spain and the morning session today riding him back and forth down the path to the in-gate in a dressage saddle, letting Vitali hear the noise of the crowd and trying to persuade him that, perhaps, he was just going in to do another test.

But for them, too, it would turn out to be a tough day in the office. Early on, fence three fell, giving him one left in hand, but then they cleared four, five, and the tough treble at 6ABC without issue. Seven and eight, too, were box-ticking exercises. And then, on their way to the double at 9AB, the distance looked to disappear on them, and Tim, desperately trying to salvage it, made a last-minute adjustment to the stride. They tipped the first element; the second stayed in situ, but now, they had nothing left in hand if they wanted to stay in first place.

The story would be told by fence 11, that influential water tray, and when they brought it down, they did it properly. The win – the culmination of a climb from first-phase seventh to second phase sixth to the very top of the leaderboard on the final day, was Caroline Powell’s.

Caroline Powell and Greenacres Special Cavalier. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Is this an unexpected win for Caroline? Perhaps – it’s so rare, after all, to see the victor come from outside the top five, and just last year, she and the now-eleven-year-old Irish-bred mare finished in last place, having picked up 40 cross-country jumping penalties and a heaping helping of time, but committing, nonetheless, to an educational experience. But actually, really, it’s not at all unexpected. Caroline, for her part, is every inch a champion – in 2010, she won Burghley aboard the late, great grey Lenamore; in 2012, she contributed to a team bronze medal at the London Olympics for New Zealand with the little horse, who was then twenty years old. She’s been placed at the five-star level countless times, has ridden at two Olympics, has competed twice at the World Equestrian Games, and has been at the top level of this sport since making her debut at Burghley in 1999. That’s twenty-five whole years.

And with ‘Cavvy’? There’s been the fifth place finish at Pau, which came on the mare’s five-star debut in 2022, the seventh place finish at Aachen last summer, and a sixth place finish, too, at Maryland’s five-star last October. From the mare’s coming of age in the first year of the pandemic, when she finished in the top twenty at the Seven-Year-Old World Championship at Le Lion d’Angers, Caroline’s been eyeing Paris. But to do this along the way? That was something that, perhaps, the 51-year-old competitor had begun to stop thinking could be a possibility.

“It never even entered my mind that I could win it,” she admits. “You know, you sort of get to an age where you start to ebb down a little bit and you think, ‘oh, this is my last time’. I’m saying to [groom] Tristan [Hudson], ‘don’t let me do this ever again!’, and then when entries are coming around, ‘I’m not entering!'”

Caroline Powell and Greenacres Special Cavalier. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

But despite all that, she keeps showing up, and so, too, does her gutsy, game mare, who she rides for and co-owns with first-time owners and great friends Chris and Michelle Mann. The pair began their week in seventh place on a score of 30 and then, over yesterday’s influential track, added 13.2 time penalties in a round that writ large all the necessary lessons that Cav had learned over last year’s track. Today’s buoyant, brilliant round was the cherry atop the cake, even when Caroline thought she might ‘just’ climb to third place.

“She was absolutely amazing — I’m so privileged to ride such a good horse,” beams Caroline. “She’s just a true professional; you don’t really realise how good she is but she was really amazing. We were coming here with the hope of getting into the crowd, because she can be a wee bit leery, so we were sort of thinking that if we do get the chance to go to Paris then she needs to meet the atmosphere and she needs to just become a bit more rideable. So we were here to test the waters and train her and things — so to win it is incredible.”

Caroline Powell and Greenacres Special Cavalier. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

That Paris ticket is looking very nearly like a sure thing for Caroline and Cav now, and even better, Caroline, who has been hard at work since the Lenamore heydays, showing up and battling through Badmintons and Burghleys with horses for whom it never quite happened, and who’s continued the long slog of training all day, every day, in every kind of weather, now has every reason to believe in her ‘why’ again. And that – fruitful decades within the sport as it changed from the old format to the new, and as her own career ebbed and flowed, and as she kept the faith in a horse that spent most of 2021 having 20s every time she went cross-country – represents the very best of what makes eventing so compelling.

“I never actually thought that it was ever even going to be a possibility, because you know, you go for so long and you have a great horse like Lenamore, and then you have nothing, really, to back it up and so you disappear for a while,” she says. “Cav has been quite consistent for the past couple of years, but she’s also has been quite tricky. To have her at this level now, though, is just amazing, and to have her so professional in her job, is just a dream come true.”

That thread of a narrative I’d started to write this morning about the ‘old guard’ passing the baton to the new did, then, actually happen, just in a slightly different way than intended. William’s rails dropped him down to eventual thirteenth – “it just wasn’t my day, was it,” he says, adding that this is, in fact, his last Badminton and his last five-star. “I won’t be coming back to Badminton now. I think that’s a shame to finish on a bit of a downer, but I’m cool with that. She’s a great horse, so I shall look forward to see what happens next, and I’ll do young ones,  so I’m going to carry on a bit. There’s no tears; I’m very matter-of-fact about it. I think it’s the right thing.”

Lucy Latta and RCA Patron Saint. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

That drop, plus Tim Price and Vitali’s slip down to eighth place, does pass the baton to the next generation, and the very newest of faces. Despite her two rails, Irish first-timer, one-horse rider, and amateur competitor Lucy Latta was still able to secure second place with RCA Patron Saint, closing out a dream week that saw them deliver the fastest round of the day over yesterday’s cross-country track in just their sixth start outside of Ireland.

“It’s something else in there — [the atmosphere], the crowds, when you’re warming up and the cheers and everything,” says Lucy. “It really does get the hairs on the back of your neck standing. I had a really good round – he was really jumping for me considering that was his first time [going cross country for] 11 minutes 19 and how big the fences were yesterday. O had a total rider error to fence three, so I’m really kicking myself about that: I sat up when I shouldn’t have, but that’s for me to learn from my mistake and I will do that the next time. But he jumped really well, and I’m really pleased with him.”

27-year-old Lucy, who works full-time as a brand manager for hard seltzer company White Claw and whose family, which includes cousins Esib and Robbie Power, who are a five-star eventer and a Grand National-winning jockey, respectively, and a grandfather who rode round Badminton and Burghley, is now looking ahead to a bid for even bigger things to come.

“I can dream about the Olympics –I would love to think I could go,” says the rider, whose finish completes a cumulative climb of 44 places from her first phase spot on the leaderboard. “He was phenomenal this week, and there’s still loads to improve on with him in the dressage, and things to clean up in the showjumping.”

Alexander Bragg and Quindiva. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Lucy’s wasn’t the only colossal climb of the week. After producing one of just three clears inside the time today, Alex Bragg and Quindiva were able to sit tight and wait for everyone above them to have rails – and ultimately, they climbed to third place from overnight tenth, having started the week in 51st place. They finished on the same score as Lucy and RCA Patron Saint, but as Lucy had fewer time penalties on her cross-country sheet, she took the leaderboard hierarchy.

Not that that’s dulling the shine of the day for farrier and five-star fan favourites Alex, who says with a broad grin, “we’re going to be living off this forever. I don’t think it’s sunk in for us – we’re just overwhelmed, and so pleased.”

Badminton, he admits, “seriously hasn’t always been my favourite event”, thanks to a string of bad luck and heartbreak at the competition, and so this, he says, “is a magic result. My dream was to be in the top ten with her, and to finish better than that is amazing – I’m speechless, for once.”

Alex’s prowess over today’s track came, in no small part, as the result of plenty of time spent doing pure showjumping with the catty mare, who has previously qualified to jump at the Horse of the Year Show.

“This mare is phenomenal at jumping,” he says. “I do a lot of jumping anyway, so I did go in confident, but it’s so easy to just tip a rail, and you always think, ‘have I got enough jump’? But she went in the ring, jumped fence one, and it was like, she is not touching a rail. It was only ever going to be my fault [if she had one]. And I remember coming to the final line, and I took this massive deep breath ,and I think the horse thought we finished — I was like, ‘don’t cop this, Alex, you’re nearly there!’  And then to finish clear was amazing, and to come back in is a surreal feeling — to think ‘okay, you know, top six is maybe on the cards’ and then it’s boom, boom, boom, boom. And then here you are, on the podium here with these girls, and the rest is history, so they say!”

Emily King and Valmy Biats. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Emily King, too, has had so much prior bad luck at Badminton, including falling at the penultimate fence on her debut in 2016 while sitting second – but this week, she put all that behind her, delivering three excellent performances to take fourth place on her first completion here. Like Lucy, she, too, had two rails – a surprise for her very good-jumping horse, Valmy Biats, who’s only had one rail in an FEI event since 2022 — but was delighted with how the French-bred gelding finished the event.

“He jumped phenomenally – he touched number two, touched going through the treble, but he  jumped so good generally, and God, I’m so pleased with him,” says Emily. “Just to finish is amazing. I just love him, and I’m so proud of him – he’s never run super quick and then jumped on the last day on the grass, so it’s his first time doing that, and I’m just thrilled with him.”

Jonelle Price and Grappa Nera. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Tom Jackson climbed three places to finish fifth with Capels Hollow Drift after knocking just one rail, while Jonelle Price and her 2022 Pau winner Grappa Nera, too, had one rail to finish sixth. Both riders had been equal 22nd after dressage.

Seventh place went the way of Tom Rowland and Dreamliner, who completed their first five-star together – and just their ninth run as a partnership – with a clear and 0.8 time penalties to finish their climb from first-phase 29th. That made it a very happy birthday indeed for owner and breeder Angela Chamberlayne, who has also bred two full-siblings to the gelding.

Tom Rowland and Dreamliner. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

“He’s magic,” says Tom, who took the reins from Oliver Townend fifteen months ago. “He hasn’t had a fence down in a long, long time. I watched this morning and it was quite chaotic, and I thought, ‘well, it doesn’t matter, you can go have a couple down, that’s still a respectable score’. But he’s been jumping really, really well and that’s down to Jay Halim who I’ve been going to, who builds some beastie courses in his arena.”

Tim Price’s eighth place might not be quite where he’d hoped to finish, but a fifth top-ten finish at this level in five starts with Vitali is no small accomplishment – and to manage that finish even with five rails is a testament to the difficulty of today’s track.

“Man, that’s disappointing,” says Tim. “That’s going to hurt, because he’s been going so well and I’ve just been trying different things. He’s different on day three [of a three-day] to a one-day. He had four out of four clear rounds in his build up to this. But once he had that early rail, which is probably him on a good day in this environment, I think we got away with a bit of breathing on a couple but he was jumping okay. Then, just after that triple, I I took quite a quick one in over the triple bar, but I’m used to him be him more reactive to come back, so I was prepared to just fiddle him back, and I thought that would actually help at the double. But he just kept tanking, got under hollow and then took it out at the knees and that just totally rattled us.”

Pippa Funnell and MCS Maverick. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Ninth place went to Pippa Funnell and her 2023 Bramham winner, the tricky-brained MCS Maverick, who knocked two rails, but for whom the rider felt nothing but abject pride.

“I’m really pleased, because I feel he’s had a great experience, he’s learnt an awful lot — and I’m going to have to keep going a bit longer, with a horse like him,” she laughs. “I’m not going to be defeated! He’s only a ten year old, and he’s got plenty of ability, and hopefully we can keep channelling it and keep developing strength.”

Bubby Upton and Cola. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

The top ten is rounded out by Bubby Upton and Cola, who completed their five-star comeback after Bubby’s horrific fall last August that saw her spend the later part of last year relearning how to walk. Their incredible week was capped off with one of those three clear rounds inside the time – a fairytale finish for the two-time British Under-25 National Champion.

“What a horse,” she says through tears. “I’ve said it time and time again, but he just jumped his socks off out there, and he’s been faultless all week. I’m just as proud as punch of what he’s gone and done this week after everything we’ve been through.”

Grace Taylor and Game Changer. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Grace Taylor finished best of the North American contingent, tipping two rails to finish 18th with Game Changer, while Tiana Coudray and Cancaras Girl had three to take 25th and close the door on Tiana’s return to this event for the first time in a decade.

“I’m really, really proud of her,” she says. “She came out today really well, and she jumped really well. We made some mistakes, she had some rails, but actually, as far as the horse has come through this competition and her ability, moving forward, it’s really exciting.There was no lack of jump today, and no lack of carefulness and willingness, just some adjustments I should have made to how I rode her to make it play out differently for her — but I’m just so excited that I have a Badminton horse that’s on such good form. Hopefully we get more goes at this in the future.”

Tiana Coudray and Cancaras Girl. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

The next go, she says, will, with any luck, come this autumn: “The obvious choice is Burghley,” she says, “but I have this pipe dream of taking her to Maryland. but that would, of course, require a lot of fundraising which is probably not realistic when Burghley is up the road from us. So that would be the pipe dream, but I think one way or another, this weekend has proved what I probably thought for a while, which is that she’s a proper 5* horse and hopefully now, our job is to keep her on the road for a long career.”

Jessica Phoenix and Wabbit. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Canada’s Jessie Phoenix completed her Badminton debut with Wabbit in 30th place after tipping six rails, but her overriding feeling was one of pride in her ex-racehorse’s deep well of try.

“Definitely we were looking for less rails, but honestly, the heart that that horse has is just tremendous,” she says. “Even to be here completing his first Badminton, we’re just thrilled. Coming to Badminton is like things dreams are made of, and I was saying that with his owners just after the show jumping round. I’m like, ‘he did it!’ He was all class yesterday — his cross country round was just an amazing feeling, and he was so proud of himself. Honestly, he’s really proud of himself right now. He thinks that he’s just the champion.”

Cosby Green and Copper Beach. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Cosby Green finished her own Badminton debut just behind Jessie in 31st place, adding seven rails to her scorecard with 18-year-old Copper Beach.

“It was definitely not the round I was looking for, but we completed!” she says. “He was a star yesterday, and just came out a bit fresher than anticipated today. That’s a nice problem, but he was just running through me. It’s good to know he was feeling good.”

Boyd Martin, too, had a slightly bittersweet finish to his up-and-down week – he tipped two rails with Tsetserleg, who began the week in fourth place but dropped down the leaderboard with jumping penalties on cross-country, and took a final 34th place. But, in doing so, he became just the second rider ever to complete all seven global five-stars – an achievement only previously logged by fellow competitor Tim Price.

Boyd Martin and Tsetserleg TSF. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

“I’m obviously a bit heartbroken from yesterday, but he jumped well in there,” says Boyd. “I would have loved to have gone clear, or have one down, but this is his harder phase, and it felt like he actually jumped good. A part of me is devastated, but part of me is still pleased with the horse, because the event was not perfect, but there were bits and pieces that felt like Thomas is at the best he’s ever been. You always have dreams of being right in there at the last minute and jumping first thing on Sunday morning is not what I had envisioned, but half the world’s fighting over a bowl of rice. So we will go home and get stuck back into it and come back again and try again.”

Now, he’s thinking ahead to another crack at five-star with the seasoned 17-year-old, and perhaps one closer to home.

“The Turner family [who own him] have been very generous to me in flying him around the world,” says Boyd. “Part of me thinks that we’ll probably head towards Maryland. It’s one of the 5*s he hasn’t done and it’s 20 minutes down the road from my house, rather than being in Europe. I still feel like the horse has got a bit left in the tank — he doesn’t feel old or used up and I feel like he’s still enjoying himself, and I feel like there’s parts of his performances where we’re getting the best work out of him. Then, obviously, there’s a few parts where I’ve got to ride him a bit better and he’s still got some weak points, but he’s a champion horse and to be in his seventh year of 5* is a huge credit to the heart and toughness and soundness of this horse.”

Of his own accomplishment in completing all the world’s five-stars, he says, “It’s been a long road. I started doing this when I was 19 years old and they were long formats and I didn’t wear a body protector cross country. I was wild, and young, and staying up late, and partying all night, and coming out for the show jumping — and now I’ve got grey hair and I’m a bit stiff and sore and I’ve got three kids. It’s what I live for, though. I really thrive on these 5*s, especially these classic ones. I think all the 5*s are unique; they’re all different. They’ve all got a different flavour. Right from the first one, with Flying Doctor back in 2000, I knew what I was put on this earth for.”

And so, with that, we come to the end of another Badminton – a birthday for the event, and a chance to celebrate all the different ways that greatness can manifest itself. From the returning champion who believed she might have disappeared into the dust of the history books to the newcomer who just wanted to give it a go and found herself on top of the world; from the comeback kid who wouldn’t let herself be broken to the living legend who was always going to bid farewell to the top level on his own terms; from the horses who tried so hard and learned so much and might not feature in the reports this week, but who could come back from last place to take the win in 2025.

It’s been a fitting finale to an important year. We can’t wait for the next one.

Go Eventing.

The top ten of the 2024 MARS Badminton Horse Trials.

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Tom Jackson and Capels Hollow Drift demonstrate the incredible scale of the Badminton fences. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

It’s been a golden day of cross-country at the MARS Badminton Horse Trials, and not just because the sun shone merrily all day, steadily working the ground back to something like decent going – it’s also, from top to bottom, been a great showcase for our sport, with just one horse fall recorded. That came late in the day for Wills Oakden and his second ride, A Class Cooley, and was only a horse fall by the rules: the pair found a tricky distance to the final skinny stump at the Lightsource bp Mound at 26ABCD, and pecked on landing. The gelding stumbled, pitching onto his front end, and while his shoulder did touch the ground – the requirement to be considered a horse fall by FEI rules – his hind end remained upright and he swiftly righted himself, sans rider.

And so, that one relatively undramatic moment aside, there was much to celebrate. Problems were spread evenly across the course, with Huntsman’s Close at 7 providing the most action – ten riders faulted there – the Lightsource bp Mound at 26 not far behind with nine, the Sunken Road at 20 causing eight, six at the Lake at 10, and the LeMieux Eyelashes coffin complex at 15 causing three problems. The ground, which had raised so many question marks over the last few days – would it be holding, or very variable, or dead underfoot? – certainly did play a part, with riders having to manage their horses’ energy levels sensibly, but it was better than expected and improved throughout the day, yielding an average 16.3 time penalties, or just shy of 41 seconds over the time, and 32 of our 62 starters jumped clear, giving a 51.6% clear rate and a 66.1% completion rate. We’ll head into tomorrow morning’s final horse inspection with a field of 41, overnight withdrawals notwithstanding.

Tim Price and Vitali. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

But that’s tomorrow, and right now, we’re all about today. Though our pathfinders, Tom Jackson and Farndon, made the course look straightforward with a steady clear that bolstered the overarching feeling of positivity around the place, the day absolutely exerted its influence, and we end it with a new leader in the clubhouse. New Zealand’s Tim Price and Vitali now hold the top spot, having added just 4 time penalties – theirs was the fourth fastest round of the day – to climb up from overnight third.

The door was opened for that upward move by two significant moments. The first came for overnight runner-up Bubby Upton, who rode as though she’d never had the horrendous injury that saw her spend the end of last year relearning to walk: she and Cola looked a picture around Eric Winter’s track, finishing with 15.6 time penalties but, more crucially, with a frustrating 11 jumping penalties, too, for activating a MIMclip at fence 21, a silver birch rail set just back from a lip at the top of an incline. That drops her to eighteenth overnight.

And then it was the turn of last year’s champion, Ros Canter, who led the dressage with her 2023 Pau winner, Izilot DHI. That she had a MIM activation of her own at the deformable upright A element of the Lake at 10ABCD was a shock; that she went on to have a run-out at the final element, perhaps even more so. But the fact that she then opted to put her hand up and retire after circling back and giving the relatively inexperienced horse a confidence-boosting pop over the final skinny wasn’t at all – she’d been vocal after her leading dressage test that she intended to set out competitively but with a completely open mind, and would be ready to put her hand up the moment she felt her historically quirky, spooky, but hugely talented young horse might be overfaced.

“I’m very philosophical and positive about the whole thing,” she says. “It was always going to be a question mark as to how ‘Isaac’ was going to cope with the day today, and he didn’t quite cope with it. That’s absolutely fine — he went pretty spooky on the run up to the Lake, and then it just set the tone and that tends to be what happens with Isaac. Once he’s lost it, suddenly lots of things that aren’t normally spooky became extremely spooky, and that’s fine. But he’s a class horse, and I think the world of him. He’s one of the world’s best. We know what he’s like — he’s been like this all along. We either win or we don’t and when we don’t, we do it in very dramatic fashion. So at least you’ll remember him, one way or another!”

And so it’s all eyes on Tim and Vitali, now – a position they’ve been in before. They led the first two phases at Burghley last year, where they ultimately finished fourth after a three-rail round on the final day. That’s a work in progress – the gelding has had three rails at each of his four five-stars, and at the Tokyo Olympics — but Tim’s been hard at work on it, jumping the gelding in Spain over the winter and looking excellent in that phase at Thoresby CCI4*-S this spring, where he jumped clear in a tight arena. He’ll need that good juju to continue in order to take the win: he goes into jumping on a two-phase score of 31.7, which gives him a leading margin of just 1.3 penalties – that’s just three seconds in hand, but certainly not a rail.

Tim Price and Vitali. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

There may be a question mark looming over tomorrow, but today was another masterclass from the 14-year-old gelding and his world-class rider, who have never finished out of the top ten in those four five-stars thus far.

“He’s proper cross country horse, isn’t he,” says Tim with a grin. “I was just saying to Austin [O’Connor], it’s just so nice that even with these ones that have been around a few five-stars, they just keep getting better with knowing what it’s like to be pushing towards the end, and recognising themselves in that way, and just keeping on giving. And that’s what he did. He keeps thinking, he keeps getting in the air when it’s important, and he’s just a thrill to ride.”

Tim had a late draw – he left the start box after three p.m., three-and-a-half hours into the action, and while that can be a tough situation to manage with rather a lot of time to wait and worry, he used it to his advantage. Most pertinently, we saw that in action at fence 17AB and 18, the MARS Sustainability Bay water, which featured an upright rail to a drop in at 17AB and then a log at 18, placed perpendicular to the drop. Very nearly all the field opted to run up out of the water and, rather than turning at the last stride to find the line and pop the log on an angle, throw in a right-handed turn and circle back to jump it straight, which wouldn’t incur penalties as it was a separately-numbered fence. But Tim, having watched that so many times and having seen a couple of decent attempts at the straight route, decided to trust his horse, his line, and his process, and took it on directly, saving himself several seconds in the process.

“It’s hard, because we all say we want to watch some but don’t want to watch too many, and you don’t want to wait, but I just tried to keep making that a bit of an advantage,” he says. “You know, you’re not afraid to change your plan. I walked the course this morning and the ground was better than I expected, but then it rode a bit softer, and these are things we learn a little bit from the way that horses are dealing with them. So things sort of changed and manoeuvred; I walked with my good mate, [Brazilian Olympian] Carlos Parro, this morning. He’s really helpful — I find him very positive, and he’s got a good eye for the through-the-horse’s-ears kind of look at fences, and so that was really beneficial as well. But mostly, it’s just been a good day of quietly waiting till 3:13 this afternoon.”

Tim Price and Vitali arrive home in fine style. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Though Tim and Vitali’s class-leading round at Burghley last year was excellent on paper, Tim felt at the time that the horse didn’t feel as good as he perhaps could have on that run. This time, though, he was much happier with the feeling underneath him – an improvement that he attributes to changes in the gelding’s management.

“It’s just worked really well this time. We’ve got his body, his stomach, and the looking after him working well this time, and then he’s had good preparation,” says Tim. “We’ve had four good runs, which have all been in the soft ground, which in a way it turns out to be an advantage when you come here and you’re a little more on top of the ground, so I think that feels good for the horses. It was just a good run in. Burghley wasn’t the best run; we lost Gatcombe [in August], and that’s [a competition that] really sets them up beautifully for Burghley, but this time he’s had all his gallops and he’s felt very good. I think hopefully we’ll stay in a good stead for the three phases.”

William Fox-Pitt and Grafennacht. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

William Fox-Pitt, who has been such a mainstay at this event since his debut in 1989, has been floating the idea that this might be the last time we’ll see him here — “it should be, shouldn’t it?” he mused after his dressage test – and if that’s the case, then he’s making sure he ends his reign on a high. He’ll go into tomorrow’s final day of competition in second place after nipping around the track for just 2.4 time penalties with his 2023 Maryland runner-up Grafennacht, returning home to the collecting ring to an electric wave of collective emotion and fondness.

“How lucky am I to have her in my swansong era?” he says. “Sometimes, you know, she really makes me feel like I can ride. I saw some long ones and I didn’t pull the reins. That was quite exciting! Particularly number one, I thought ‘bullseye!’ because I hook and pop number one like ‘here we go, nicely, all very calm.’ But I took a good shot, and she was cool there. I’m very proud that she did the job.”

Coming back elated isn’t always a given, as William well knows: there are the wins, such as those he logged in 2004 and 2015, and there are the retirements, the eliminations, the penalty-riddled rounds, and the ones, too, that come so close to being great but for the niggling little regrets. Today, though, there was only joy and pride in a job well done.

“So many Badmintons are ‘if onlys’ or ‘I wish I had’ or ‘I could have’ or ‘I should have’,” he says. “So I’m just so chuffed. She nailed it today, and I’m happy.”

William came achingly close to catching the time, but decided to play it safe, as nearly all today’s competitors did, and add a loop to the final element of the MARS Sustainability Bay water – a choice he doesn’t regret at all.

“She lost no time in the second half — the only time she lost was going the long route [at 18] and that was my three time faults. I’m afraid that was six seconds, wasn’t it? If not more? And I made that choice — I’m still right that I made it. But purely, I thought, ‘I don’t want any stupid ifs — ‘why didn’t I go long like everyone else?’ ‘Why didn’t I see that?’ I was totally going to go straight this morning. She would have gone straight, but what if you go home with a runout — I’ve done that enough times, so you know what? I’m sacrificing. At least tonight, I won’t be going ‘bollocks!'”

The rest, he says, “rode well, and I’m surprised that the ground rode as well as it did. I said yesterday, I think it’s a clever course. It was demanding, it was relentless with the S bending, testing that shoulder control, that straightness. But they’re always so good here with lovely big flags — I think that’s always a real Badminton flag. You know you’re here, but the flags certainly give you a bit more of a tunnel. You’ll go off to Luhmuhlen, and you’ll get a pokey one down there that they’re kind of hoping you don’t see. But at Badminton, they are there for the riding and I think that does make you get on it.”

William Fox-Pitt and wife Alice celebrate a super day in the office. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Everywhere around the course, William got the sense that the twelve-year-old, who finished fourteenth here last year and who’s the first mare he’s ever ridden at this event, was giving him her all.

“I missed a bit in the bottom of the Quarry [at 4AB and 5], but that was probably good to sharpen us both back up,” he laughs. “She was really good over the Eyelash coffin [at15abc], Because I thought she could well have thought that ditch was rather horrendous and straightened up to it, and it would have been a hell of an angle, but she stayed on her line there. I kept on saying to myself ‘shorten my reins!’ — I know my reins got a bit long, but she didn’t need any reins, did she? She would’ve gone around in a head collar! Anyone could ride her – she’s a good old man’s conveyance.”

Though Grafennacht finished last year’s Badminton with three rails down, that came after a much more gruelling run around the cross-country, and on ground in the showjumping arena that was much tougher than tomorrow’s is likely to be. Ordinarily, she tends to be more of a one-or-none horse; she had one on the final day at Maryland in October, but there are no out-and-out showjumpers in the current top ten, and so the competition remains, achingly, excitingly, enormously wide open.

“I’ve not been [in this position] in a while – tomorrow I’ll have to wake up!” says William.

Lucy Latta and RCA Patron Saint. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

In an anniversary year, as it is this year at Badminton, there’s naturally even more of a focus on the rich history of a competition such as this – but while the intricate threads of the past are so important, so, too, is the future of the sport.

That future was represented in fine fashion by a name that won’t be familiar even to many committed fans of the sport, who propelled herself firmly into the spotlight after delivering one of the most exceptional rounds of the day today. Ireland’s Lucy Latta isn’t just a Badminton first-timer, nor is she just a five-star debutant – she’s also a one-horse rider, who fits in training and competing her horse, RCA Patron Saint, around a full-time job as brand manager for drinks company White Claw.

But, she says, “I think whenever anyone here is like, ‘I have a full time job’ or anything like that, they’re like ‘oh, you’re an amateur.’ I don’t look at it like that. I have two jobs and I do both very professionally — as professionally as I can. So I wouldn’t let myself off the hook as easy as being like, ‘I can make a mistake because I’m an amateur’ — I don’t think like that at all. And I don’t think you can coming somewhere like here — you have to be in it and focused and really determined to get from point A to point B.”

Riding just one horse means, too, that she knows him inside and out – a great benefit when tackling the biggest, toughest course of one’s life.

“There’s pros and cons to it. Like, I’m not away at any events for weeks at a time. I get to train, me and him, all the time, all year round, so it means our partnership is extremely strong.”

The strength of that partnership certainly helped 27-year-old Lucy and ‘Paddy’ today: they delivered the fastest round of the day, coming in just one second over the time to add 0.4 to their first-phase score of 37.2, boosting them an incredible 43 places up the leaderboard to overnight third. She’s now 4.2 penalties behind William, giving him a rail in hand but nothing more.

“He was amazing out there, like, he just gallops all day long,” she says. “He didn’t look at any of the crowds. I wasn’t sure, because he hasn’t done a five-star before at an event of this calibre with the crowd out there — it’s just insane. But he stayed listening to me the whole way. He was so adjustable, so brave and just gave me everything that he had. I mean, I had every faith in the horse cross country, and to pull it off is something else. I would have taken hands and all if you told me we’d be in this position when we started the week.”

Staying up on the clock in the early part of the course was a key part of Lucy’s very near capturing of the time.

“I have blind faith in this horse, and I know he’d stay galloping, so I didn’t want to give away any time around the good ground in the first few minutes of the course,” she says. “I knew I’d be able to give him a breather if he needed more air in his lungs and to take time on the way home. I knew he’d get the trip. And it helped that I’d done Blair [Castle 4*L] — I finished fourth last year — and that was soft ground and it’s extremely hilly there. Granted, it’s a minute and 20 seconds shorter, and the fences were not as big as here, but I just had so much faith that he would get the trip.”

Also helpful is that looking at Lucy aboard Paddy isn’t at all dissimilar to the happy old sight of Ros Canter aboard her lanky World Champion, the late Allstar B.

“I’m only five foot two, which helps, and I’ve gotten myself as lean as I possibly can just so that those last few minutes would be made a lot easier on him,” she says. “I felt he needed a breather up at the top, jumping those three brush fences and the gate [at 28ABC and 29]. I felt like, ‘okay, maybe I’m just going to have to ease off him coming home’, and when he turned the hill and came back down and saw the crowds, I was like, ‘oh my gosh, he’s actually full of running’. I’ve every faith going to any event now that he’s well able to get the trip, and he’s able through these type of fences. It’s consistently so much bigger, every fence, than what you would get at four-star long. Of course, those aren’t small, but this is just a whole other level, and he’s just a professional at this phase.”

Horses might not be Lucy’s full-time occupation, but they’re certainly in her blood: her grandfather evented at top level, her mother evented at junior level, and her cousins Robbie and Esib Power are a top-level jockey and a top-level eventer, respectively. Esib, she explains, has been a particularly significant influence on her riding.

“[Esib] has been an amazing coach to me,” she says. “I’ve been based there for the five weeks in the lead up to the event. She’s given me so much advice and guidance on all aspects — dressage, cross country, getting them fit for show jumping. She’s a phenomenal coach — she’s done six Badmintons and is a brilliant rider in her own right. She has just helped me tremendously. I can’t thank her enough.”

Emily King and Valmy Biats. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Badminton is an extraordinary physical challenge, but one of the major tasks in nailing down an excellent performance is managing your headspace – and that’s even harder when in a competitive position at an event you’ve historically had bad luck at. That was the case for Emily King, who’s had more than her fair share of rotten luck at this fixture, and who still made the noble call last year to put her hand up when she felt Valmy Biats tire in the final third of the course, despite knowing she could retain a very good placing if she pushed him through it. And so karma, perhaps, owed her a good turn — and today, it came. She pulled off a remarkable feat of mental compartmentalisation to deliver an excellent, quick clear with the gelding, adding 8.8 time penalties to move up one place to overnight fourth.

“To be honest, I try not to think about the fact I’ve never finished before and more think — this sounds a bit silly — but it’s another competition,” she says. “So you have to try and just do what you know works. And I thought, at Thoresby he was awesome in the mud, and he really jumped around the dimensions of Burghley, which was the biggest he’s done. So I really tried to concentrate on the things I know make his performance go well, rather than get a bit swept away with ‘you’re at Badminton, you haven’t finished before’. I look at it this time, and try and just focus. I felt so nicely in sync with him that then, he could really concentrate on the little bits rather than having to work too hard and it all becoming a bit blurred.”

But, she says, “I’m not going to lie, I was thinking about it coming up that last avenue to the big roll top! I was like ‘you’re nearly there, don’t mess it up, come on!’ And there, I just let him gallop in between, but I wanted to really just set him up. I thought, you know, ‘I’ve got to this point before; I’ve just been a bit free and a bit brave [Emily fell at the penultimate fence in 2016 while in second place]. I thought ‘no, I want to get home — I want to be quick, I want to be competitive, but I want to get home’, and I think just giving him that extra lifeline helped his balance. He so wants to jump around, he wants to do a good job, so it’s up to me to just help his balance, and I’m glad I didn’t let him down.”

That balance is the key factor, she explains, to getting the very best out of the scopey gelding.

“He’s an incredible cross country horse, and the only mistakes we’ve had is when he’s actually too brave,” she says. “I’ve come and I’ve overridden and it’s gotten us into trouble, but it’s bloomin’ hard going out round there. You just want to just sit back and kick and kick. But with Val, it can cause problems. I’ve got to really hold his balance, be a touch extra balanced, and a touch cautious but whilst going quick — which, when you haven’t done a huge amount of five stars, you’ve got to just really believe in his scope. I tried to do that and he was incredible. He galloped so well at the end; I didn’t have to chase him. He just felt so within himself. It was actually fun!”

This season has seen Val looking on the form of his life: he and Emily won the Grantham Cup CCI4*-S at Thoresby for the second year running, and much of his success on softer ground can be contributed to how he’s managed at home. He lives out 24/7 on variable footing and terrain, and much of his galloping work, too, is done on grass, no matter the weather.

“He’s been so lucky having had a few runs this spring on the soft going. We’re so lucky at home — my partner’s parents let us gallop on the grass there, and I think he’s galloping in the sticky going at home, he’s used to, he’s conditioned. He’s not going on the all-weather gallops with a little incline. He’s so fit, and I think he’s come here and he’s within himself, rather than halfway round finding it a bit tiring. I’m really thankful to be able to get him that fit, but obviously, you can get them as fit as possible at home, and as fit as possible around the four shorts and the Advanceds — but the five stars, they just stretch them. Stretch their lungs, stretch their bodies and they come out and just find it that bit easier. And he did find it easy, which was lovely.”

Sarah Ennis and Grantstown Jackson. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

At the FEI European Eventing Championships last year, a little-known, low-mileage horse was handed the pathfinder role – and despite ground conditions even tougher than that year’s Badminton, diminutive Grantstown Jackson and his rider, Ireland’s Sarah Ennis, skimmed right over the top of the sticky mud and nipped home with just a couple of time penalties to show for it and no obvious diminishing of the petrol levels in his tank.

Today, they did just the same again in the gelding’s sophomore five-star start. They added just 3.6 time penalties to record the third-fastest round of the day, propelling them from 42nd overnight to fifth going into the final day of competition — and smashed every expectation that last year’s Europeans had placed on their shoulders.

“I’m so proud of him,” says Sarah. “He lived up to his name after Europeans. There’s been a pressure on about that: everyone’s like, ‘Oh, he’ll make the time, he’s so fast.’ I was just on it everywhere; he made it feel so easy.”

His easy speed, she says, comes down to “light feet, and the engine within him – he’s 80% blood with a Thoroughbred mother. He’s very funny at the first gallop of the year — he’ll bolt up the gallops, and you just let him go because there’s no point — when he gets to the top he’ll stop. He just has this will to run. When he was broken, he ran off a lot, and that’s the thing — he just likes running. He’s like Forrest Gump! That’s him. He loves running. He loves galloping. And he just got faster and faster. All the time I went, ‘good boy Jackie boy,’ and you feel him going ‘Oh, that’s okay, I did well’ and move on to the next one. You don’t want to go out of the startbox and put the gun to their head and think ‘we have to be the fastest’. I just decided I had to go out, let him hit up the rhythm, and then try and stay there as much as you can with straight routes. Because it just goes wrong when you’re chasing at the start. You just have to level your head.”

Sarah and Jackson’s scant time penalties came as the result of one long route: like much of the field, they chose to add in a circle to the separately-numbered final element at the MARS Sustainability Bay water.

“That was definitely our nine seconds, but I just didn’t want to take the chance at 18 with a little skinny log,” says Sarah. “He just wouldn’t be so cool when you adjust the last stride — h likes to be left alone. But what a cross country machine, like with no ‘oh shit moments’, as I call them, which was amazing around a track like that. I couldn’t be prouder of him. He’s incredible, but he took a long time to mature, and now he’s the ultimate machine. So I’d say to people out there who think that it’s not working, to actually hang on in there. Especially with Irish horses — they get better and better and better, and you end up with this.”

Caroline Powell and Greenacres Special Cavalier. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

One of the dominant themes of the day has been progression from this time one year ago, when horses and riders alike had to battle through extraordinarily tough conditions and many crossed the finish line with uncharacteristic penalties on their scoresheet, or didn’t cross it at all after their riders decided to call it a day.

One of the horses in the former camp was then-ten-year-old Greenacres Special Cavalier who, despite having jumped clear around her five-star debut at Pau the autumn prior for fifth place, picked up green jumping penalties early on the course. But rather than retiring, Caroline Powell decided to use the rest of the round to give her talented young mare experience of longer distances, trickier combinations, and the intense atmosphere of the Badminton course, and by the time the pair finished, ‘Cavvy’ looked to have matured considerably.

Since then, she’s gone from strength to strength: she finished in the top seven at CHIO Aachen, won a CCI4*-S at Ballindenisk, and then travelled across the Atlantic to Maryland 5*, where she finished sixth. And today, on her return to Badminton, she completed the circle, starting the course with the maturity she finished it with last year and looking throughout like a horse with years more mileage than she actually has. They ultimately crossed the finish line 33 seconds over the 11:19 optimum time, adding 13.2 time penalties to their tally and stepping up one place on the leaderboard to sixth.

“She enjoyed that, didn’t she? I think probably a bit more than I did!” laughs Caroline. “She loved it — this is the day she enjoys. She didn’t even notice the ground, which I didn’t think she would, as it’s drying out all the time.”

Caroline Powell and Greenacres Special Cavalier. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Caroline was one of the few riders to do the straight route at 17AB and 18, the MARS Sustainability Bay – but initially, she’d actually planned to add in the loop to the log that we saw so many other riders do today.

“I did have a rethink about the tree after watching Tim and Jonelle do the skinny thing so beautifully,” she admits. “I thought, ‘hmm, we might give that one a shot!’ But everything else was bang on [my initial plan]. She took a few tired steps just coming home and then she came through [the finish] and she’s just tanking [the grooms] home. So we’ll have to go home and calm her down!”

Caroline was also one of the first starters of the day with five-star debutant CBI Aldo, who she opted to retire at fence 20, the sunken road, after picking up jumping penalties there and at Huntsman’s Close – but he, too, will have benefitted from the exposure the day gave him, she says.

“I think the hard thing now is we’ve lost the Gatcombes, and we’ve lost the big atmosphere events, which is why I wanted to bring the other one here — just to give him that experience and bring him home safe. He’ll come out a better horse the next day,” she says. “He just went out a degree greener, and after his round, we then rewalked a few of the lines because they were very tricky. For her they were very easy, but that’s experience and that’s why both of them here. She’s had quite a good trip: we went to Maryland, she did Aachen, and she absolutely adored them — she just loves people and she loves showing off, which is a great attribute to a horse, isn’t it? She’s a bit of a diva!”

The consistency that Cavvy is showing now is a sweet payoff to a considered, committed development programme that previous Burghley champion Caroline has had her on since her international career began in 2019.

“She had her time of being quite tricky at 4* level, and we just kept running her and she kept making mistakes — and now she’s looking for the flags and she’s helping me out and doing her job, so it was well worth it,” she says. “We had a horrible year [in 2021] of having too many 20s to actually bring her through [the levels] and just let her learn. They’re not good horses until they’ve been here three or four times.”

Felix Vogg and Cartania. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

As just the eighth rider out of the box, Swiss five-star winner Felix Vogg had limited intel to take to the track with him, but he didn’t need it: his own plan was so robust, and so based around his own horse, that he was able to deliver the best round of the competition at that point with Cartania and show the riders to come that there was, perhaps, more that could be done on course than initially assumed.

“She was a bit strong at the beginning but she’s so clever,” says Felix, who felt that cleverness in full effect when he opted to take the seldom-used direct route out of the water at the MARS Sustainability Bay at 17AB and 18. The catty mare hung her left leg, but quickly rotated her shoulder to get out of her own way and landed safely.

“I didn’t hear that anyone was doing the loop – they all pretended like they would go straight,” says Felix with a laugh. “She jumped really well in — I’d said I’d only go the long way when she stumbles a bit, or something else happens, or she’s empty. But we walked it that way, and I rode it a bit different. I rode it a bit more direct. She left a little bit of leg, but she was really clever. That is a good thing about her — she really has her own opinion of what she wants to do, but at the end, when she comes in trouble, she still helps herself.”

The pair kept up a high cruising speed around the course, finishing with by far the fastest time at that early stage for just 10.8 time penalties and a move-up from equal fifteenth to seventh – but in hindsight Felix, who finished fifteenth here last year with the mare, felt that he could have made up even more time across the breadth of the track.

“I’m just a bit frustrated, because she had so much left when I came home,” he admits. “I’m a bit angry with myself that I didn’t go a bit faster earlier. But better home like this than last year [when the horses finished so tired].”

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

Pathfinder Tom Jackson took the knowledge he’d gained at the start of the day with Farndon, who finished clear with 14.4 time penalties to move up from 33rd to 14th, into his ride with top horse and 2022 Burghley runner-up Capels Hollow Drift, who was the penultimate starter this afternoon. But while ‘Walshy’ was characteristically game and gutsy at the fences, he found the holding ground trickier than his stablemate, and ended the course with 10 time penalties – a touch more, perhaps, than expected from this reliable second-phase star, but still a competitive enough performance to climb from 22nd to eighth and redeem a first-phase score that had been marred by the effects of the bum-cam yesterday.

“He was fantastic everywhere — he’s just an out-and-out cross country machine,” says Tom, who’s the only rider today to finish on two horses. “It wasn’t our best performance in the dressage yesterday, and I went out with a real determination to try and get as close as we could to the time. He was there or thereabouts, until he just started to tire. This isn’t his perfect going – his action naturally sends him down into the ground a little bit, so he gets a bit more stuck in it, so that didn’t help him out, but I’m over the moon with him. He  just tries so hard every single time, and you just can’t beat that in a horse.”

Pippa Funnell and MCS Maverick. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Last night, we got the news that Pippa Funnell had withdrawn her early-draw ride, the experienced Majas Hope, after an uncharacteristically tricky dressage that put him well out of the hunt. That meant that she was left with just one ride, her 2023 Bramham victor MCS Maverick, who was the last horse of the day to leave the start box, and who was making his Badminton debut after finishing eleventh in his first five-star at Pau last autumn.

Though MCS Maverick is a uniquely tricky horse – he took fright at the crowds at Wednesday’s horse inspection, nearly turning himself over, and has subsequently been getting escorts around the busy estate from hunt horses – he showed his innate toughness today, even at the tail end of the course when, while starting to tire, he had a couple of slightly sticky jumps at the Worcester Avenue Brushes at 28ABC. Though his steadier pace in this latter section contributed to his 13.2 time penalties, it was still enough to move the pair from first-phase twelfth place to overnight ninth.

“I’m really, really delighted with him,” says Pippa, who took the ride on just last year from fellow five-star rider and stable jockey Helen Wilson. “I know I’m going to get back to the lorry and think, ‘why didn’t I use his speed more?’ but it’s his first time here and again, I had to be escorted by two hunt horses [to get to the collecting ring and the start box]. For me, that’s where I’ve got to try and channel him so I can warm him up in the right way because to me, my warm up here was over the first five fences, getting the rideability before Huntsman’s Close [at 7]. I was actually down on the clock at two minutes because he was running just fresh, so I had to try and anchor him. He’s such a big, galloping, scopey horse, and I’m an old girl, and he’s not ready yet — he’s too naive yet just to let him keep trucking in there. I think just at the end through the brushes, I could have made it much simpler and kept a straighter line, but I think he showed by a little bit of pecking that he was weary. He kept galloping — he’s very fit, but he’s going to strengthen up. To me, it’s still a work in progress, but  to come for the first time to Badminton and to give you the feeling that he’s really ‘let me at the fence’… it was lovely to come down to the Vicarage Vee on a horse like him.”

Though she’s now in a competitive position to vie for a top placing herself, Pippa’s picked her dream podium-topper, echoing the feelings of so many here: “Oh, my God, I’m just so hoping for my old mate William to win. I will be very emotional [if he does]!”

Alexander Bragg and Quindiva. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

One of the most colossal climbs of the day came at the eleventh hour when Alex Bragg, the seventh-to-last rider to leave the start box, delivered a nimble performance with 14-year-old Quindiva, adding just 7.6 time penalties to climb from 51st place to tenth. Last year, we saw Alex, like Emily, deliver one of the commendable masterclasses in horsemanship when he opted to pull the mare up while she was running well and competitively, and today, his emotion at giving her the finish both horse and rider deserved was palpable.

“She was amazing — and it’s such an amazing feeling finishing here at Badminton,” he says. “I’ve started many times and not always come through that finish line. It’s been a tricky show for me. This mare is very sensitive, and at this time of year, mares are tough because they come into season and getting them this fit is hard. She had a tricky couple of weeks build up, so we weren’t sure if we were going to even be here, but she tried her heart out today, and coming to that last fence I was nearly in tears. I was like,  ‘open your eyes and don’t miss at this fence!’ I was just saying to one of my daughters, I punched the air before I was through the finish line, which is probably not very professional, and could have wasted one second, but when you finish like that and you have that much emotion and the crowd is going absolutely wild… thanks to all those guys in the main arena! You’ve just got to enjoy it, and all that hardship that you go through, all the bad weather we’ve had, it’s all been worth it for that for that one magic moment.”

Grace Taylor and Game Changer. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

It’s been a mixed bag of a day for the North American contingent at Badminton, who came into cross-country day with two representatives in the top ten thanks to excellent tests from Boyd Martin and Tsetserleg TSF (fourth after dressage on a 29) and Tiana Coudray and Cancaras Girl (sixth after dressage on 29.8). Now, the best of the bunch is British-based Grace Taylor, the daughter of US Olympian Ann Sutton and British team selector Nigel Taylor, who produced a steady, classy effort with Game Changer to finish her Badminton cross-country debut with 19.2 time penalties. That’s catapulted her to 19th place overnight, up from a first-phase 31st.

“I’m really proud of him – he was amazing,” says Grace. “He stayed with me the whole way round. He’s a very laid-back horse, but his eye was taken by the crowd at the odd time – but once he was in front of the jump, he just jumped. I’m so grateful to him for what he did today.”

Tiana Coudray and Cancaras Girl. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Tiana Coudray logged an exciting clear round with Cancaras Girl, who proved her mettle as a five-star horse with some game, genuine efforts over the tough track, but slips from sixth to 26th overnight due to her 30.4 time penalties.

Regardless, though, Tiana is thrilled – and rightly so, after a decade of hard work since her last appearance here.

“I have a Badminton horse! I’m thrilled,” she says. “She had to fight in a few places – she pecked really badly jumping the Broken Bridge, and I think the whole crowd thought she was going to go down, but luckily I stayed in the middle and she came back up underneath me. She was brilliant. I’m kicking myself because I set out quite slow — I think it got in my head that it’s hot, and the ground is tough, and horses are finishing are struggling to finish, and I probably set off too slow. But having said that, she finished brilliantly, and she jumped round, and she’s had a fantastic trip — and hopefully it’s the first of many, so we can move forward and set out to be a bit quicker next time.”

Tiana Coudray and Cancaras Girl. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

The tough LeMieux Eyelash Brushes coffin complex at 15ABC was another place in the course where Cancaras Girl stepped up to the plate: like many horses, she peeked at the water in the ditch at B and ballooned over it, but despite the awkward jump, immediately locked onto the angled hedge at C and made a neat effort over it when a run-out would have been easy to cash in. But for ‘Nana’, Tiana says, running out was never on the agenda.

“It felt like it wouldn’t have mattered what her legs were doing — she knew where she was going,” she says. “She’s always been, from day one, so straight and so honest. In a couple of places she maybe locked on to the wrong thing, or saw it at the last minute and then went, ‘Oh, yeah — got it!’ That makes total sense!'”

This is a second five-star start and first cross-country completion at the level for the mare, who tackled Burghley last year but was eliminated for a rider fall after picking up 40 penalties early on.

“I think I went into Burghley full of confidence because she had been phenomenal around her four-stars — really tough four stars,” says Tiana, who placed in Bramham’s colossal CCI4*-L with Cancaras Girl in 2022. “And I thought, ‘this is the best cross country horse in the world, of course she’s going to jump around Burghley!’ So I was probably a bit too casual about a few things, and I paid for it. The good thing about Burghley was she jumped far enough around that I went, ‘she’s got the scope. She’ll do the distance. She’s a five-star horse — we just made mistakes.’ And I think I set out today much more conservative, thinking ‘dot your i’s, cross your t’s, make sure to get it done.’ And clearly she’s a proper five-star horse, so now I can afford to be a little bit braver. I know now what she does around a track like this, so we kick on a bit more next time — but my God, I was so proud of her.”

Cosby Green and Copper Beach. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Cosby Green, too, dropped down the leaderboard with 18-year-old Copper Beach after logging a clear round with 38.8 time penalties, which knocked her from 18th to 32nd place – but like Tiana, she was delighted with the bigger picture of her commendable round, which marks her first trip to Badminton and just her second-ever five-star.

“I thought it was perfect – well, obviously not 100% perfect, but as perfect as I can imagine!” she says with a grin. “He was just so bold out there, and we were so on the same page. I had to set him up a couple of times, but he was absolutely flying; you never know how they’re going to jump those big jumps, and he took it absolutely in his stride, so I’m pleased. It was an out-and-out clear round, so I’m happy with that.”

Cosby, who has embarked upon her second year basing in the UK with Tim and Jonelle Price, has benefitted enormously from training with the two superstar riders, and from their insight this week, too – but today, she wasn’t able to get valuable feedback from them on how the course might ride, because both had later draws than she did. Rather than letting that unnerve her, though, Cosby took on the mantle of Team Price pathfinder with composure and confidence.

“It was scary at the beginning, but with that said, I’m proud that I was able to go out first and put that behind me – that’s their good training on me reflecting back,” she says. Confidence, she admits, has been a key factor she’s struggled with – and today’s effort is an enormously emboldening one.

“I just feel like I need to pinch myself. It’s just going to really put me in the right direction; I struggle with confidence a lot, so to have two clear five-star cross-country rounds in my first two attempts is going to make me more confident in who I am, and make me better,” she says. To boost her confidence ahead of a momentous occasion such as this one, she explains, “I do a lot of envisioning, and just kind of telling myself I can do it – kind of faking it until I make it! This morning I got up and I told anyone who would listen that failure’s not an option. Even though I don’t believe that, if I say it enough times, I start to believe it. I tell myself I can do it, and then I do it.”

Jessie Phoenix and Wabbit. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Canada’s Jessie Phoenix and her ex-racehorse Wabbit added 21.6 time penalties and picked up 11 penalties for a safety device activation at fence 23, the Rolex Grand Slam Rails, which are effectively a ‘lead-in’ Vicarage Vee ahead of the real thing a few strides later. Nonetheless, their round boost them from first-phase 62nd to overnight 33rd, and Jessie returned thrilled by her horse’s efforts on the tough course.

“He truly was amazing. That horse is just — there is no bottom to him. He is all heart and he loves this job,” she says. “Every time he gets to go cross-country it’s like Christmas to him.”

Despite her pin at the rails, Jessie opted to continue on the direct route to the subsequent, even more difficult Vicarage Vee, which the pair cleared easily.

“We came down the hill [to the Rails] and he just got, like, a little tight behind. I thought, you know, should we just keep going to the Vicarage Vee, should we do an option? And then I saw this beauty distance and I said, ‘Let’s do it.’ And he just flew over it like nothing,” she says. “It’s definitely all about the ears you’re looking through, and [the course] rode pretty much standard for the way Wabbit goes, which is just amazing start to finish.”

Boyd Martin and Tsetserleg TSF. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Boyd Martin and Tsetserleg had a tough day in the office, dropping from overnight fourth to 38th after a drive-by at the A element of the INEOS Grenadier Sunken Road at 20ABC – and that 20 quickly turned to a 60 when they crossed their tracks on the re-approach. They also added 25.2 time penalties, but ultimately completed the course.

“He’s a good old horse, and he was going great guns, but I think I just got to that point in the track and started thinking, ‘I’m in with a chance here’, and going a bit  too hard, and he was getting a bit numb in the bridle,” says Boyd. “I screwed up a  bit — I was worried he wasn’t going to make the three strides there, so I wanted to get a forward shot at the skinny, but it was ridiculous — I saw one off the turn and flapped my elbows and he ran by it. That’s definitely not how to ride that jump.”

With that behind them, Boyd pulled back on the pace and nursed Thomas home without further issues.

“I eased off a bit once he had a run out. It’s pretty hard out there — I’ve ridden a lot of 5*’s, and I thought it was quite challenging,” he says.

Meghan O’Donoghue and Palm Crescent. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Sadly, both Meghan O’Donoghue and Palm Crescent and Allie Knowles and Morswood saw their Badminton debuts end early with rider falls – Meghan was tipped out of the plate after a twisting jump over the A element of the Sunken Road at 20ABC, and though she looked, for a second, as though she might be able to make the save of the day, the steep downhill slope after the fence meant that gravity won the fight. Allie and Morswood parted company at the final element of the very tough Voltaire Design Huntsman’s Close at 7ABCD. Both riders were immediately back on their feet following their falls.

Course designer Eric Winter was delighted with how the day played out, and how his course — which was roundly praised by riders — worked.

“The ground was obviously an influence, and I’m really glad we moved back by a week, because it wouldn’t have been such a pleasurable experience last week,” he says. “Higher forces smiled upon us: from Tuesday we’ve had great weather, and it’s really dried out, which has made a huge difference. What I wanted to test was the same as always — rider skill. It’s always about jumping the fence and being patient and riding the turn; jumping the fence and having a little bit of ability to go, ‘I’m going to go on three, or four, to shorten, or lengthen’ — to trust your instincts and develop instincts with your riding. There were some great results; the more ‘mature’ riders in first and second, but as you look down the list, there was a whole heap of younger riders coming through that showed super skills today. That was as fulfilling for me as anything — that the next generation of the sport is in good hands.”

Since he took the reins as designer in 2017, 427 combinations have started the event here, and just two have finished on their dressage score.

“That’s proper cross-country,” he says with a grin.

Here, here – we’ll raise a glass to that, and to a great day of sport here at Badminton. Now, it’s onto Sunday, which begins bright and early at 8.30 a.m. BST/3.30 a.m. EST with the final horse inspection in front of Badminton House. Then, we’ll crack on with showjumping from 11.30 a.m. (6.30 a.m. EST), followed by the top twenty at 2.55 p.m. (9.55 a.m. EST). You can check out the cross-country results in full here, and catch up on all the day’s action with Cheg’s live updates here — and we’ll see you again tomorrow for lots more stories and analysis from this great weekend of sport. Go Eventing.

The top ten after cross-country at the 2024 MARS Badminton Horse Trials.

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Caroline Powell and Greenacres Special Cavalier. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

As we predicted in the lunch break report, this morning’s new leaders, 2023 Pau champions Ros Canter and Izilot DHI will be the leaders of the pack as we head into tomorrow’s cross-country – but our compact afternoon double of sessions still saw some changes at the business end of the MARS Badminton leaderboard, which ends the day with just six combinations having broken into the 20s.

Chief among those new additions was British-based Kiwi Caroline Powell, who put a 30 on the board and took first-phase seventh place with the eleven-year-old Greenacres Special Cavalier – a minuscule departure from the sub-30s scores the partnership has previously recorded at five-star, but a score that, in this harsh-marking environment, still represented a test to celebrate.

“I’m so, so pleased with her,” beams Caroline, who finished sixth at Maryland last year and fifth at Pau the year prior with ‘Cavvy’. “She just keeps getting better and better.”

Though Cavvy is still a very young five-star horse – young enough that you could feasibly think of her as being suitable for not just Paris, but also, very easily, Los Angeles – she’s already remarkably accomplished, and each outing that Caroline has given her has provided her with tools to understand how to eke the very best out of her horse. Among those? The knowledge that a buzz of excitement in the air helps to bring out the very best in her work.

Caroline has two horses here – she also rides debutant CBI Aldo, who sits in equal 33rd overnight on a 35.6 – which gave her a 50/50 chance that she’d get the draw she wanted to allow Cavvy, her competitive, rather than foundational ride, to really show what she could do.

“I really wanted to ride her in the afternoon dressage so that she could get in with the atmosphere — and it’s a great atmosphere in there,” she says. “I was chuffed to bits with her — she didn’t really miss a beat, and she was brilliant.”

Caroline Powell and Greenacres Special Cavalier. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Knowing your horse this well does sometimes mean taking the flip side with a smile, though: “When she’s in the boards, she does [focus in an atmospher]; outside, the atmosphere sort of gets to her a bit and she’s a wee bit wild,” Caroline laughs. “It’s quite entertaining — but then she goes into the arena and she knows she’s got to perform. She loves crowds, so it’s nice to be able to get her to the stage where we can put her into that situation and push the buttons in the right way. She’s only, hopefully, going to get better and better.”

This will be a second crack at Badminton for Cavvy, who completed here last year in the memorably tough conditions but had an educational run, rather than a competitive one: she picked up 40 penalties on course in a rare green moment, but Caroline opted to continue on and allow her to gain the experience and the fitness that comes with a completion. That tactic looked to have paid dividends when the pair ran at Maryland in the autumn, and now, former Burghley champion Caroline is looking forward to getting out there again with a year’s worth of physical and mental growth to work with.

“I think it’s a nice course,” she says. “I think there’s a lot to jump at the end, a lot that can go wrong. There’s no one piece in particular that I’m sort of thinking ‘oh, that’s a bit unjumpable’, but, you know, there’s so much happening, and we’ve also got the ground, which is going to be a wee bit undecided how it’s going to ride. It’s drying out all the time. I think the course is a good course — as good a course as I’ve seen for a while, and I think everything’s there in front of you to jump, you’ve just got to give it a good ride. Hopefully we do.”

Gemma Stevens and Chilli Knight. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Gemma Stevens and her 2021 Bicton pop-up CCI5* winner Chilli Knight will sit in equal tenth place, tied with Max Warburton and Monbeg Exclusive, going into cross-country as the gelding makes his long-awaited comeback from an injury he picked up on that victorious run – and Gemma, for her part, rode out of the ring beaming from ear to ear. Whether that’s because of her horse’s return, his excellent performance, which earned them a 31.7, or because it’s finally stopped raining in the UK, we’re not sure – but either way, we can confirm she’s very definitely delighted to be here, even if the scores this week at Badminton are a little, well, lacklustre.

“I mean, my God, they’re grumpy judges aren’t they?” she laughs. “But honestly, that little horse, he was exactly the same in the ring as he is out here [in the warm-up]. He goes in 100% with me, every step of the way — apart from one jog in the walk! He couldn’t have done any more than what he did today.”

These first-phase successes mean even more, she explains, because the son of 2015 winner Chilli Morning isn’t a natural dressage horse.

“He is what he is. He’s not Valegro; he’s not London 52; he’s not a big mover, but he is so well trained and he’s so obedient, so I was chuffed to bits,” she says.

Even sweeter is the reward after nearly three years waiting and working for it.

“It’s been a really long, like, massive long road to here,” she says. “We actually got him in from the field from having a whole year off this time last year, with this in mind. He’s literally worked a long, slow process from then to now, doing all sorts of different things to get him fit in a really long and slow and thorough way, to have him as strong in his body but as fit and lean as possible. It’s no stone unturned.”

Gemma Stevens and Chilli Knight. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

But, Gemma explains, there’s plenty of ways to very nearly throw a spanner in the works: “When I fell out of the lorry door on Tuesday when I got here, I was like ‘I’ve managed to get the horse here in one piece, and now I’ve fallen!’ Like, please don’t break yourself now, it’s been a whole year!”

Gemma, who’s previously finished on the podium here with the late Arctic Soul, will have a long day ahead of her tomorrow: she’s one of the last batch of riders to go, and will have to wait until 3.34 p.m. to start her campaign on Eric Winter’s track.

“[Being able to see how it’s riding] is a benefit of going near the end, although it’s a long day, and it’s terrible for the nerves,” she says. “But actually, it is nice to learn a bit about the course. It’s really tough going out first round these five-stars when you’re just not sure how they’re going to jump it, and it’s a tough track. At fence five you know you’re at Badminton, and it means it.”

And once she’s out on course?

“I’m going to let the handbrake off,” she grins. “He’s had the handbrake come since he’s been back, and he’ll be very happy about that coming off!”

Pippa Funnell and MCS Maverick. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Though she didn’t quite break into the top ten, Pippa Funnell was delighted with her 2023 Bramham winner MCS Maverick, who’s still a relatively new ride and an inexperienced, tricky, young horse. After the disappointment of her test with the much more experienced Majas Hope yesterday, which saw her score a 40.8 for first-phase 63rd, it was a welcome tonic to post a much more positive 31.9 for overnight twelfth.

“I mean, I have to be delighted because I tell you what, we’ve had a real, real difficult time trying to get him out of the stables and up here, and I think that the vet inspection really [set him off],” she says, referring back to Wednesday’s horse inspection, in which the gelding spooked and reared so spectacularly that he nearly went over.

Today, to ease his mind and give him some extra support, she enlisted the help of hunt horse Albert and rider Zoe, who escorted Pippa and Maverick from the stables, to the warm-up, and then into the arena, and back out and back to the stables again afterwards.

“I think people underestimate – it’s very easy for the public just to see the horses here [at the ring], but really there’s one thing that makes Badminton very different from any other event,” says Pippa. “That’s that the stables, behind those arches into the main courtyard, are absolutely ‘backstage’, and it’s really quite relaxed for the horses. But when they come into the park through that gate, it’s like walking onto the main stage every time. He got quite anxious in the trot-up; I think he was just surprised, because he came under the arch and clocked all these people, and he’s not used to it. You can’t prepare for Badminton; until you get here, you never know what they’re going to do — and they are very, very fit. The main thing is, in a little bit of nervousness, is try and hold their hand and figure out the best way through. You have to stay with them, you know, and keep them on side, and he was really onside in the arena.”

“It’s no secret that he’s tricky in that phase,” she continues, reflecting on the test. “He’s just a horse who’s pumped with adrenaline, and so I was very pleased. Obviously there was a blip in the shoulder-in, and after the rein back he struck off wrong, but otherwise, I was really delighted.”

There were a couple of other horses who might feasibly have been expected to have cracked the top ten, including Tom Jackson‘s 2022 Burghley runner-up Capels Hollow Drift — but he, like so many other horses today, took fright in the ring at a new camera, which has been placed close to A, bafflingly over-shrouded in dressing, and serves no purpose other than to provide livestream viewers with a wide angle, ground-level shot of each horse’s backside reversing at speed towards it while performing the reinback. A view that, if we’re totally honest, reminds wholly and completely of Bridget Jones sliding down a fireman’s pole, directly onto her cameraman – and so, in short, probably a shot that’s not worth giving poor Tom Jackson a 34.4 and 22nd place overnight, nor frightening countless other horses through the two days of dressage. Nor, indeed, pissing off sweet, jolly, perennially optimistic Alex Bragg, who pointed out how tricky it made several of the test’s bigger asks for the horses: “There’s a little camera in the corner – don’t put one there again, guys!  Whoever organised the media team, it was a terrible, terrible decision with horses. It’s so awkward walking towards that, and also having your first canter towards it.”

The people have spoken: no more strange, fun-house style bum-shots for 2025, maybe.

Now, we’re looking ahead to tomorrow’s cross-country challenge, which will begin at 11.30 a.m. with Tom Jackson pathfinding aboard Farndon, who’s 17th overnight on a 33. There’s been a lot of chat about how the ground might look tomorrow: at the start of the week, it was soft and wet, and as William Fox-Pitt put it, ‘pudding all the way down’ even if it were to harden, because of six months of nearly non-stop rainfall in the UK. Since then, it’s been hot with a light breeze, which is swiftly cooking the top layer of the mud, at least – but what that means for tomorrow is anyone’s guess. It’s very likely we’ll see variation across the course, with some sloppier areas, some quicker areas, and quite a lot of sticky, holding ground – but it’s also very likely that with tomorrow’s hot forecast, we’ll also see it change throughout the day. While early horses will benefit from virgin ground, which will be a great boon if it does get holding or churned up later on, some ground analytics done onsite by Mark Lucey also suggest that the conditions could improve as the day unfolds, with faster going later in the afternoon. In short? The quality of the going is as up in the air as the entire competition currently appears to be, with 20 penalties covering the top 64 riders, out of a total of 65 currently set to start tomorrow.

The eagle-eyed among you will note that that number has diminished somewhat – and it’s thanks to a couple of key withdrawals. Harry Meade won’t be the first rider since the early ’70s to ride three horses around Badminton’s cross-country in one year, following the withdrawal before dressage of his third ride, Red Kite, and of his first ride, Cavalier Crystal, who was sitting in 44th place on a 36.7. We’ve also seen the withdrawal of many people’s favourite for the win this week, David Doel and Galileo Nieuwmoed, who were 19th on a 33.9. David spoke to Horse&Hound, sharing the news that Galileo is fine, but not quite himself this week.

Keep it locked on EN, as we’ll be bringing you the riders’ thoughts on, and reactions to, Eric Winter’s seriously tough track – and in the meantime, you can relive all of today’s action through Cheg’s live updates, and give the course a walk with our in-depth preview. We’ll be back soon with plenty more from Badminton – until then, Go Eventing!

The top ten at the close of dressage at the 2024 MARS Badminton Horse Trials.

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If there’s any lorry we’d like to be invited to this evening, it’s Bubby Upton‘s – relentless course-walking notwithstanding, of course. Earlier, we reported on her spectacular comeback from a horrific injury last year, from which she’s returned to take the Thursday morning dressage lead – and now, at the culmination of the day’s competition, we’re thrilled to confirm that she’ll hold onto that lead overnight.

There’s never much time to bask in the moment at a five-star, but we hope that Bubby, groom Katie, and the rest of their tight-knit team sneak away from their obligations, analyses, and forward planning to enjoy a celebratory drink in the evening sunshine at the Lake. It’s not every day you put down a 27.3 at five-star, nor is it every day you lead Badminton – and that’s not even taking into account the fact that Britain’s double under-25 National Champion was relearning how to walk just over half a year ago.

Boyd Martin, too, has plenty of reason to enjoy the immaculate vibes of a sun-drenched evening at Badminton: he and Tsetserleg remain in overnight second place on their score of 29, giving themselves a sterling start to their quest to complete the one five-star box left unticked for Boyd in fine style.

Tiana Coudray and Cancaras Girl. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Although the names in the top two slots on the leaderboard remain unchanged, the afternoon certainly wasn’t short on excitement, not least for longtime British-based US rider Tiana Coudray, who stormed to overnight third place after delivering a 29.8 – her horse’s second best test ever at any international level – with the 14-year-old Holsteiner Cancaras Girl.

As she rode out of the ring to one of the most uproarious cheers of the day, it wasn’t just Tiana who was in tears – it was her entire assembled team, helmed by head groom, best friend, and business partner Annabelle James and including familiar faces such as dressage coach Tracey Robinson. A personal best at Badminton would be reason enough for high emotion on its own, but for Tiana, today’s success represents a decade of rebuilding, of working, of striving and selling and reconfiguring dreams, but in whichever form they took, always of dreaming.

“It’s every early morning you get up; it’s every late night – it’s a lot of work for very little reward, but to put it all together on the day is what dreams are made of,” she says, smiling through a fresh torrent of tears. “It’s really special.”

Tiana’s last appearance here came back in 2014, when she completed with her London 2012 Olympics partner, Ringwood Magister, when she was just 25.

“I suppose I was so fortunate, young in my career, to have an amazing horse that I got as a four-year-old and who happened to be my superstar that took me all the way,” she says. But then: “I grew up and life got real — and my business has been buying and selling horses. And so I’ve had some beautiful horses through my yard, but they’ve been sold on because that’s what we had to do.”

A moment worth waiting for: Tiana Coudray is back, baby! Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Diminutive Cancaras Girl, or Nana, as she’s known at home, was meant to be one of those sales horses – and unlike some of the excellent horses Tiana’s had to sell that she always suspected might be top-level competitors, Nana was only ever intended to be produced and sold on as a lower-level horse for a young rider.

“She’s just my little horse I got off Facebook and she was supposed to do a couple Novices and go to a kid, and here she is,” laughs Tiana. “I saw her posted on Facebook, and she was in the north of Scotland, but I thought, ‘she’s quite cute; some little girl would love to ride her’.”

She flew up to try the mare, and though she wasn’t immediately wowed by her way of going or her jump, “the reason I bought her was because of her heart and her try and her brain. It was definitely not for her movement. She’s not built for this, and her body finds it quite difficult to be loose or supple or have any kind of cadence or swing or any of those things that you kind of need for dressage. But having said that, she’s so trainable and she’s just — I love her.”

The plan, having secured the Facebook deal of the century, was to get the mare to Novice and advertise her – but there were no takers. And so she stayed, and Tiana continued to produce her, assuming that, at some point, a buyer might materialise. As she did so, she began to fall for the little mare’s try-hard attitude more and more.

“To be entirely honest, I’m so grateful that she didn’t move that well and all of that because she would have been sold, because she would have been worth a lot of money,” she says. “And so actually the fact that she was just a little bit ordinary meant that I could keep her. That’s is why she’s my first horse back at this level in all those years — so it was really special.”

A shared journey: Tiana and best friend and business partner Annabelle James. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Though Tiana credits Nana’s attitude with being such a key component in her rise to the top, it’s also, she says, the culmination of a serious team effort.

“She’s such a good girl — she shows up to work every day,” beams Tiana. “She’s 14 now and she’s starting to get where correct training is supposed to get you, I suppose, so it’s really rewarding. She’s definitely not got here on natural ability, but, you know, huge work — great trainers, obviously, and how we work her, and huge work with physios and massage and acupuncture and strengthening exercises. And my team of vets and physios have been incredible just trying to get her back stronger and more supple, and I think it’s really paying off. So, it’s so exciting. But as I say, it’s an unbelievable group of people that have got her here. It’s not me.”

Photo by Tilly Berendt.

For today, at least, the magnitude of the moment hasn’t quite sunk in.

“I cannot believe it – it’s making me cry,” laughs Tiana. “She’s not a natural dressage horse and we’ve worked so hard. The team that has helped me has been just vast and relentless and unbelievable. And even like, three minutes before going in the ring she was melting down and I thought, ‘there’s no hope’ but she was so good in there — just so brave and she tried, every single movement.”

William Fox-Pitt and Grafennacht. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Irish representative Georgie Goss now sits fourth overnight with Feloupe – a position she shares on the leaderboard with William Fox-Pitt and Grafennacht, who matched their 30.6 this afternoon. They missed out on squeaking into the sub-30 brigade after a rushed first halt saw them begin their test with 5s, though they quickly rallied and delivered a smart test.

“I was very happy, I think — apart from my first halt, which was rubbish,” says William, who finished second at Maryland 5* last autumn with the twelve-year-old. “She must have seen something in front of her in the first halt and she just stepped back and so we deserved that mark, but when you’ve got three grumpy judges there and you want to get on an eight, it’s a bad start. [Otherwise], it was a pretty good test, to be honest. Everyone said [the judges are] stingy, and they certainly were stingy to me. So let’s hope they stay in a bad mood tomorrow!”

As long as the consistency in the stiff marking remains the same, though, William is cheerily pragmatic about where improvements could have been made in his test.

“She did have a little bit of tension in the rein back, and I think she trotted a stride in the canter so there were little expensive imperfections,” he says. “When she had a good mark, she got a seven, and you just want to get [the judges] off 6.5, which is their favourite mark. And that’s kind of where they sat through my test. I wasn’t looking at the scoreboard all the time, but I was having the odd glance, and I thought ‘hmm, okay, try a bit harder!’ She presents well, and has a great outline – her half-passes should have got a nine, but they didn’t. Luckily I’m not a judge!”

There have been murmurings – from William himself, who was quoted at the Conceal Eventing Grand-Prix Showcase at Bruce’s Field saying just that – that this Badminton would be his last. But when the topic comes up today, he retains an air of some mystery around the matter of his retirement from the top of the sport.

“It should be, for all intents and purposes, but you know, who knows?” says William. “I’m never going to say never but I think it should be. This weekend shouldn’t sway me one way or the other – I’m quite clear. It would be easy to fall off and give up, wouldn’t it? But it would be tougher to give up on a good one, but that’s kind of what I would like. I’d like to jump the jumps and then think, ‘thank God I haven’t got to do that again.'”

Cosby Green and Copper Beach. Photo by Hannah Cole Photography.

5* debutant Max Warburton now sits in sixth place, followed by Switzerland’s Felix Vogg in seventh and the week’s pathfinders, Tom Jackson and Farndon, in eighth on a score of 33. Just below that, though, is another new addition to our top ten: Cosby Green and the former Buck Davidson ride Copper Beach, who put a 33.7 on the board to take overnight ninth place ahead of David Doel and Galileo Nieuwmoed.

“I’m really pleased — I felt it was a clear round, with no massive mistakes, so I really can’t ask for much more than that,” says Cosby, who’s basing with Tim and Jonelle Price for the second year.

“I’m back for year two — I wasn’t expecting that a year ago, but I just loved it too much!” she laughs. “I’ve been following them around [this week] and just trying to get their confidence.”

It’s no surprise, really, that Cosby has found her niche with the Prices – after all, it was where the Lexington, Kentucky native always wanted to be.

“It’s always been a dream of mine since I was a little, little kid,” she says. “And then I’d just graduated from uni; it was about a month before I graduated and I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and I decided to make a sacrifice and bite the bullet and come over and do it, because I want to be the best in the world. And I did quite literally go to the best in the world! I’ve idolised specifically Jonelle since I was a little girl, so I just went out on a whim and sent her an email, had no connections or anything, just told her I was looking for somewhere to go and they’d happen to have moved to Chedington, and so there was space for me to come. It was just pretty much just like a fairy tale. I had didn’t know a soul over here, and they just took me in with open arms.”

Last year, Cosby was able to attend Badminton on foot and get a feel for the event, and how it functions from a rider’s perspective – something she says has been enormously helpful for her debut this year.

“I’m so glad I did that, because otherwise I would have been in shock yesterday just seeing the people at the trot up,” she says. “I was really nervous just for the number of people. So I’m glad I have a little bit more expectation of especially what to expect on Saturday with the crowds.”

This is Cosby’s second five-star start; she made her debut with eighteen-year-old Copper Beach last season at Pau, finishing sixteenth. But the chestnut gelding also brings plenty of his own top-level experience to the table – he’s successfully completed several runs at Kentucky, as well as one at Pau, with Buck aboard.

“He’s such a saint to be able to teach me as well. Every day he amazes me that he was able to have the career he did with Buck, and then he just keeps showing up for me. It was a bit tricky at first to kind of understand what he was used to and me and trying to learn to ride a bit like Buck, and now we’ve just kind of created our own unique partnership — now, we can read each other’s minds. So it was tricky, but we’re best friends now.”

Though Cosby’s been able to head home in the off-season to ride and work and catch up with her nearest and dearest while her horses here had a holiday, it’s still a major leap to relocate to another country at the age of just 23 – but, she says, “[My family is] so supportive. They were pushing me out the door onto the plane just because they’re so supportive and they want me to be the best as well. They’re just lovely and push me and everything; they’re really happy and want me to stay as long as I can.”

Jessica Phoenix and Wabbit. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

Canada’s sole representatives this week, Jessie Phoenix and the ex-racehorse Wabbit, didn’t come to England to throw down the gauntlet in the dressage ring, and so Jessie was unruffled by their first-phase score of 40.3, which puts them into 34th at the end of the first day.

“You know what, he showed a lot of composure in that ring. He’s the fittest he’s ever been, and after looking at the cross country course on Saturday I think that’s a good thing for the rest of the week, but it definitely was a lot for him to maintain his composure in there today. I was just looking at the scores from last year, and last year the second place score was a 43, so as long as we can finish on a 40 we’ll be good,” she says with a grin. “It really didn’t feel that electric, but Wabbit has been really thinking about Saturday all week. Yesterday in his ring familiarization he was like, the coolest dude, hanging out grazing, just like he was on a hack, and then today he was thinking about Saturday. Which isn’t a bad thing!”

Jessica Phoenix and Wabbit enjoy the atmosphere at their first Badminton. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.

It’s not hard to imagine that they might finish somewhere pretty close to that dressage score: last year at Burghley, Jessie and Wabbit added just 10.8 time penalties on cross-country day, plus a rail and 1.2 time penalties on Sunday, to finish 11th, and at Kentucky, they added just 2 time penalties across the country. At Maryland the year prior, they ran clear and inside the time. And while Badminton is a new experience for both horse and rider, that just adds to the fun and the challenge, as far as Jessie’s concerned.

“It’s just second to none,” she says of the event. “It is one of the best events we’ve ever been to in the world. Just from the way they take care of the horses and the riders and the owners, and the way they present everything, it’s just really incredible. [I had an entry for Kentucky, too, but] plan A was always to come here. We were just kind of touching base with the weather moving forward, because it’s a big venture to put a horse on a plane and come over if the footing is going to be too wet to run, but honestly, I’m so thankful that we made the trip here. The footing looks like it’s going to dry out, and I think it’s definitely a competition that will be good for Wabbit. I think he has the ability to really move up on Saturday with a fast, clear round.”

Tomorrow takes us into a packed second day of dressage, starting at 9.00 a.m. BST/4.00 a.m. EST with Louise Harwood and Native Spirit. Highlights on the roster include 2022 Pau winners Jonelle Price and Grappa Nera, who can be excellent or explosive in the ring, so will be an exciting watch any which way; last year’s Pau champions and Blenheim winners Ros Canter and Izilot DHI; US representatives Grace Taylor and Game Changer, who went sub-30 at Burghley last year; our final US pair Allie Knowles and her fan favourite, Morswood; double Grantham Cup winners Emily King and Valmy Biats; Tim Price and Vitali, who set the Burghley record of 18.7 last year; Bicton pop-up CCI5* winners Gemma Stevens and Chilli Knight; and Bramham winners Pippa Funnell and MCS Maverick. Ahh, but wait, there’s more: consider Tom Jackson and 2022 Burghley runner-up Capels Hollow Drift, or Caroline Powell and the excellent Greenacres Special Cavalier, or… actually, maybe it’s best if you just consult tomorrow’s line-up yourself, and plan to tune in for the whole thing, because it really is very good.

Once again, we’ll have expert live commentary from Cheg throughout the entire day of competition, and if you want an in-depth round-up of each test today, you can revisit her updates here. We’ll be back very soon with lots more from Badminton – until then, Go Eventing!

The top ten at the end of day one of dressage at the 2024 MARS Badminton Horse Trials.

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