Tom McEwen and JL Dublin top the day one leaderboard at Badminton. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
If the story of Thursday morning was how tough it was to get any marks at all out of the ground jury, then the story of the afternoon is surely how expansive of a lead one man was able to secure.
Morning leader Oliver Townend will have known that his 29.3 with Ballaghmor Class wouldn’t have kept him in front at the end of the day, and he’ll have known, too, that Tokyo Olympics teammate Tom McEwen would be the prime candidate to knock him out of it.
That’s exactly what happened, and by some margin – though Tom’s test with his two-time Kentucky runner-up JL Dublin wasn’t without its surprises. The pair broke in the extended trot, earning them 3s and 4s from the ground jury, but such was the strength of the rest of their work that they still walked away with a 22.4 and the overnight lead, which they hold on a margin of 4.9 penalties. (A curious note about today’s judging, thanks to EquiRatings: this morning’s session saw combinations averaging scores 2.9 penalties worse than their 6RA, or Six Run Average, while this afternoon’s saw them average just 0.2 penalties worse.)
“It’s a shame that our highlight piece, the medium trot, broke. I let him get too long, and I went a little bit too much, too early – but you know what, he was absolutely awesome,” says Tom. “To relax and show all that power and rhythm and still come out in the extended walk as he did and do those pirouettes; he pulled together a super, super test. People aren’t doing bad tests out there [and still aren’t getting the marks], but he got a mark that he really, really deserved, even with that mistake.
“He put on a heck of a performance today,” he continues. “The ground in there is is pretty perfect, but what you can’t see from the outside is those small undulations. We’ve probably all been on the surface all winter, and actually probably now all spring, because it’s been so firm. None of us have really been on the grass that much. So it’s all those little bits of practicing — but Dubs was awesome. His changes were brilliant. His walk was excellent. His last walk was brilliant. It’s just that one mistake, and sure, you can do the ifs, buts and maybes, but how do you know? Maybe that mistake sort of woke both of us up and we made us think ‘maybe we need to go and get a few more marks!'”
Tom McEwen and JL Dublin. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
‘Dubs’ was double-entered for both Badminton and Kentucky, and while US-based fans will have been disappointed not to see him try for the title for a third time, this slightly later spring goal allowed for an easy lead-up for the gelding. Rather than overextend him and compete him for the sake of competing him, Tom opted instead to turn the gelding away for a long winter holiday with retired stablemate Toledo de Kerser and then compete him only sparsely this spring.
Tom McEwen and JL Dublin. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
“He’s an unbelievably talented horse, as we all know, but we’ve really been saving him,” says Tom. “He’s actually been wanting to come out [to an event]; we’ve been teasing him by taking him out jumping, and he’s like, ‘but this is just jumping!’ We took him to dressage on Sunday to go run through a test, and he’s like, ‘this isn’t the real deal.’ So he’s come here and he’s just been on it all week. He’s ecstatic to perform, and I was delighted to have an afternoon dressage with him, because the worst thing for him would have been if it was empty in the morning. If it was completely busy in there, he’d have gone up another level again. He’s a showman and he loves his job.”
Their test today marks their best-yet score at this level, though Tom admits that he’s “not much of a stats man — you can get too clued up on stats, but the thing is that the judges change every time. He’s been putting on performance after performance after performance, so I was really hoping to be up there. The judges aren’t giving out marks, and they’ve been quite consistent all day in using the range of marks and not throwing them away. I’ve done as much as I can today, and I’m very pleased with that!”
Emily King and Valmy Biats. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
Emily King sits in a smart second place overnight with the sixteen-year-old Valmy Biats, who posted a 27.3 after a pleasing test with some tiny bobbles in the walk work.
“I’m so pleased with him – he went in there and he definitely held his breath a bit, so even though you’re not meant to talk to them I was like” – she drops her voice to a conspiratorial whisper – “‘good boy, Val, you’re okay!’ and giving him a scratch on his wither to try to chill him out a bit.”
Getting the French-bred gelding to find his inner zen in this phase has long been a focal point of Emily’s training with him. This spring, she’s been ticking the boxes by adopting a Wim Hof-esque immersion method: if she can put him in situations that dial up his tension, she can work on honing her methods of bringing him back to her.
“He’s a funny horse; he’s not a scatty, hot, excitable horse, it’s just quite internal – he just tries so hard and goes in and holds his breath,” she says. “I’ve been taking to lots of different places this spring to try to get him to do that, in a way, so I can then try to get him to breathe and let him know it’s alright. I’ve been trying to get him really chilled so I can get my leg on him and he’ll let me ride him, because sometimes, he’s so sensitive and full of power that if I touch my leg on him he’ll go nought to sixty. So I’ve been trying to imitate that, and it’s definitely helped.”
Today, that work paid off – mostly.
“He trotted in and saw the cross-country fence, and I was like, ‘Val, come on, don’t start with that!’ I could feel his heart going, and I was thinking, ‘don’t try to go out of the start box now!’,” she laughs. “He felt amazing in there but just went a little bit tight, so I just had to adapt to how he was in certain places in the arena. But the fact that he did a 27, that’s because he stayed so with me in the ‘crunch’ moments, so I was very proud of him.”
Emily and ‘Val’ return to Badminton after finishing fourth here last year – a welcome end to a string of bad luck the otherwise successful five-star competitor had suffered at this fixture.
“I’m certainly less like, ‘oh, god, I’m here again; I’d better try not to mess it up again’,” she laughs. “I’ve managed one completion and I’m like, ‘wahoo!’ That definitely settles your mind, subconsciously. And I know him so well; I’ve had him for a good few years now, and I don’t know how many five-star starts we’ve had, but it’s a good few of all different types. [At this point] you just know them, and you can sort of go through the course in your head and preempt what they’re going to feel like, which I think helps a bit.”
Tom Woodward and Low Moor Lucky. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
23-year-old Tom Woodward is making not just his Badminton debut, but his five-star debut this week — and what a start he’s had with the excellent Low Moor Lucky. The pair sit in third place overnight on a 27.9 — better, even, than all but one of their four-star scores.
“It’s pretty surreal,” says an elated Tom. “We’re local, and so I used to come here every year to watch as a kid. We’d stay in the old campsite as a family, and I used to look at the jumps out there on course and think, ‘cor, how would you ever do that?’ I was probably thirteen when I decided I wanted to try and do it, and I’ve just been so incredibly lucky to have him as a partner, because he’s just immense. I can’t thank the horse enough – he’s put me on the map and allowed me to pursue a career in the sport.”
The steadily-building atmosphere in the arena might have caused some horses to back off, but for Tom and ‘Lucky’, it was a boon — particularly after the rider opted to change his warm-up plan.
“He’s actually quite a lazy horse; I normally never ride him more than once before his test, and that one ride is normally only 25 minutes,” he says. “But he was quite wild last night, and so I thought I’d do a bit with him this morning. And then [I warmed up for my test] and he was backwards! I felt like a Pony Clubber trying to move him along. I thought, ‘oh, no – maybe I’ve overcooked him.’ But he loves the crowd, he loves the atmosphere; it lifts him. It just gives him that bit more quality. And he’s never seen a crowd like that!”
While Lucky obviously thrives in the hustle and bustle of competition life, he wasn’t always an obvious champion.
“He was actually only broken in as a nine year old, and he’s called Lucky because he was given one final chance,” says Tom. “He was pretty feral, but you wouldn’t know it now – he’s Mr Cool. But he only did his first event in the September of his ten-year-old year, and I got him as an eleven year old. We did our BE100s [US Training level] and worked our way up until now. So he’s eighteen, but he’s fairly low mileage – we’ll get through this week and see what else he wants to do. If he decides one five-star is enough, then that’s fine by me – he doesn’t owe me anything.”
Lucky has been Tom’s partner through all his career milestones so far: “I did my first-ever two-star on him back in 2019 and then we went on to do the under-18 championships, and we’ve just cracked on from there. We never bought him thinking he’d do this – we just bought him for me to learn from, and he just kept going.”
Their score means that Tom tops the list of Badminton debutants’ dressage scores in the last decade (thanks again to EquiRatings for this little tidbit!) – but did he ever expect he’d be able to make such an exciting start to his first go at the level?
“Quietly, yes,” he says with a grin. “But I didn’t tell anyone! I mean, he did a 25 last year at Blenheim, and I’ve always known how capable he is. But because we’ve learned together, I’ve been very green, and I’ve sort of felt like it’s taken me two years to actually catch up with his capabilities on the flat.”
A period of time off for the gelding last spring ended up helping them a long in this capacity, quite unexpectedly.
“I was fortunate enough to have two other four-star horses in my string, and I learned so much from them [in that time],” explains Tom. “They wouldn’t be as capable as he is on the flat, but I had the time to learn my craft at that level, and actually, when I got back on him, it was like going around on train tracks. If I give him the right instructions, he just does it, and he gives an amazing feel. So I quietly hoped today, and thankfully, it came off – with big thanks to my dressage trainer, Lisa White, who’s made a massive difference to us.”
Yasmin Ingham and Rehy DJ. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
It doesn’t feel as though World Champion and five-time top-ten five-star finisher Yasmin Ingham ought to be a Badminton debutante, but that she is – and while being such a high-profile first-timer must come with its own unique pressures, she kept her cool in the buzzy atmosphere of the ring to produce a 29.1 with the experienced Rehy DJ. That puts them in provisional fourth place overnight, ahead of morning leaders Oliver Townend and Ballaghmor Class, now fifth on their 29.3.
“He’s probably not naturally the most big-moving horse, but when he’s accurate and he does things correctly, then that’s when he’s rewarded with the mark. So I’m really pleased that the judges did reward him where he was good today,” says Yas of ‘Piglet’, who has placed in the top ten in three of his four five-star starts.
None of them, though, have had quite the same close-quarters buzz that Badminton’s arena offers.
“It’s such an atmosphere in there! I’ve never been here before, and it’s just electric, to be honest,” says Yas. “I’m delighted with him and how he coped, because he would react to noise and things, and obviously going in behind Tom [McEwen] was probably not ideal for me – there was quite a lot of clapping and things, and I was pleased with how he coped with that.”
Will Rawlin and Ballycoog Breaker Boy. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
Will Rawlin slots into ninth place overnight, behind Gemma Stevens and Chilli Knight (sixth), Kylie Roddy and SRS Kan Do (seventh), and Bubby Upton and Cola III (eighth), with Ballycoog Breaker Boy, with whom he scored a 30.6. That represents a nearly six-mark improvement over their test last year, when they finished 24th.
“I just wanted to go out there and do what I know the horse and myself can do, and we did that,” says Will. “I’ve had very good training sessions with Tracie [Robinson] over the last couple of days. There were a few bits in there [that could be improved] – he got a bit tense in the walk, and there’s a lot of walk in that test. I was thinking, ‘oh god, just stay relaxed, come on!’ He tensed up, which he didn’t last year, so that’s maybe something to think about for the future – I might put some padded ears on him or something just to dull the atmosphere, because there definitely was a lot of it today.”
Despite those moments of tension, though, he says: “I was absolutely thrilled with him; he was really rideable. He’s a big, long horse, and I do find it difficult sometimes to get him connected and engaged in a test, but I feel like we got that today.”
Gaspard Maksud and Zaragoza. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
British-based Frenchman Gaspard Maksud rounds out the top ten overnight with Zaragoza, with whom he finished sixth at the 2022 World Championships and the same at Burghley last year.
“I’m delighted with her,” he says. “I know she can do a bit better than that, but it’s a big atmosphere, and [the crowd reacting to] Tom [Woodward] before just wound my horse up a little bit, but that’s okay! She was good; she was very serious in her work, and it’s a mistake-free test, with a couple of little things I can tune up to get it better.”
Joe Meyer and Harbin. Photo by Cealy Tetley.
The first of our US representatives, Tiana Coudray and Cancaras Girl, sit equal nineteenth overnight on a score of 34, while Ocala-based Kiwi Joe Meyer starts his first Badminton in 15 years in provisional 35th place on a 40.4 with the little ex-racehorse Harbin.
“It’d be nice to get a few more marks, because I thought he actually did really well for him,” says Joe. “He’s a hot, fizzy horse, and so the walk has always been hard for us, but he’s just got better and better. He’s a real goer.”
Tomorrow sees the first phase continue on apace with a further 41 horse and rider combinations to come. The action kicks off again at 9.00 a.m. BST/4.00 a.m. EST with Wills Oakden and A Class Cooley first in the ring, and plenty of exciting talent to follow. Highlights include 2023 champions Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo, due in the ring at 9.28 a.m. BST/4.28 a.m. EST; the return of Oliver Townend with 2024 Kentucky champion Cooley Rosalent at 15.28 BST/10.28 a.m. EST; and Burghley dressage record-holders Tim Price and Vitali closing out the day at 16.17 BST/11.17 a.m. EST. You can check out the times in full here, and catch up on all today’s finer points in Cheg’s live updates archive here. Until next time: Go Eventing!
The top ten at the end of day one at Badminton.
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