Gemma Stevens and Jalapeno at Badminton in 2023. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.
Speak to any rider who’s put in an entry for a five-star, and they’ll all sing you some variation of the same song: “I’m not even worrying about the cross-country right now – all I’m worrying about is getting there.” Keeping a horse at top-level fitness while also avoiding minor strains and injuries is one of the toughest balancing acts a horseperson can manage, and so for every stacked entry list we pore over with excitement, there’s always a handful — sometimes a double handful — of horses on it that’ll disappear from the line-up before we even touch down on the competition grounds.
That’s certainly been the case with the MARS Badminton Horse Trials field of entries so far, which is now sitting pretty at 82 following a spate of withdrawals. That’s good news for some: all three of our initially waitlisted horses and riders have now been accepted to the competition, though one of them, Becky Heappey with DHI Babette K, is also on our withdrawal list. But the addition of Harry Meade‘s Away Cruising means that the British rider will be the first in this modern era to take three horses around Badminton, thanks to a tweak to this year’s rules, and we also have the good fortune of welcoming Gemma Stevens and her 2021 Bicton pop-up five-star winner, Chilli Knight, back to this level.
Aistis Vitkauskas and Commander VG. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Our thoughts are with those who’ll unexpectedly be staying home, though, even if their sad departure is someone else’s golden opportunity. We’ve seen eight withdrawals so far, all but one of which has come from British competitors. The outlier? Lithuania’s Aistis Vitkauskas and his game, tough Commander VG, who contested four five-stars last year and has been a stalwart competitor at championship level. The duo have earned their country an individual berth at this summer’s Olympic Games and so, we’d like to hope, their withdrawal is out of an abundance of caution and favours a safe, steady lead-in to Paris.
Beyond Aistis and Commander, and Becky Heappey and Babette, we’ve seen withdrawals come in from comeback queen Bubby Upton, who has pulled second ride Magic Roundabout from the entries, but remains in situ with Cola; Andrew James, who will not ride the homebred Celtic Morning Star after a tricky final prep run at Burnham Market saw them retire in the CCI4*-S; Alexander Whewall, who has withdrawn Ellfield Voyager after missing all his planned prep runs; and Heidi Coy, who scratched Halenza due to a minor injury.
We’ve also seen two withdrawals from major contenders: Gemma Stevens will not run Jalapeno, who finished sixth in extraordinarily tough conditions in last year’s running of the event, due to a ‘tiny little tweak’.
“She […] needs 6 weeks walking but she is absolutely fine in herself,” writes Gemma in a statement on social media. “She is feeling in the form of her life and is so fit and ready to go which has made this even harder to take this time for us as a whole team. Over the last year we have had our fair share of injuries (all completely different) and we all work so hard every single day — it really does take a village and so much meticulous care, time, work and effort to get event horses to a 5* and we started with that care at the beginning of November with Jala.”
Piggy March and Brookfield Inocent. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Also withdrawn is 2019 winner Piggy March‘s sole ride, Brookfield Inocent, who was tipped as the winner by EquiRatings – but who has struggled to stay consistently sound since the 2021 season, when the pair won team gold and individual silver at the European Championships after withdrawing from the travelling reserve slot for the Tokyo Olympics. He returned at the start of the 2022 season on exceptional form, but after two short-format runs in April of that year, wasn’t seen again until August of 2023, when he once again returned for two short-format runs with top placings, and then bowed back out of the spotlight. This year, the 15-year-old ran a slow HC in the Intermediate at Thoresby rather than undertaking his intended run in the CCI3*-S, but didn’t come forward for his Advanced entry at Burnham Market last week.
We wish speedy, uncomplicated recoveries and fruitful reroutes to all those combinations withdrawn from Badminton so far. You can take a look at the full, revised entry list here, and keep it locked onto EN for a full form guide analysing the results and stories of each and every combination, coming soon. This year’s MARS Badminton Horse Trials will take place from 8–12 May. Until then: Go Eventing.
EN’s coverage of MARS Badminton Horse Trials is presented by Kentucky Performance Products, your one-stop shop for science-backed nutritional support for all types of horses. Click here to learn more about Kentucky Performance Products.
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