World’s best Eventing athletes set for Badminton

The prestigious Horse Trials are held on the grounds of the Badminton Estate in South Gloucestershire, about 85 miles west of London. The commercial area opens today, Wednesday, May 2, with horse inspection in the afternoon. Dressage runs Thursday and Friday, followed by the Cross Country phase on Saturday and Show Jumping on Sunday, May 6.

Badminton House, overlooking the competition site, dates back several centuries, and in 1949 it was the resident Duke at the time who put on the first event to help British riders train for international competitions. That first year, the young horse Golden Willow claimed victory with rider John Shedden.

This year, most of the biggest names in the sport, including Germany’s Michael Jung, New Zealand’s Sir Mark Todd and Andrew Nicholson and Great Britain’s Pippa Funnell, will battle for the storied Mitsubishi Motors trophy. And they and others will be standing in the way of Townend – winner of last September’s Burghley Horse Trials and last week’s Kentucky Three-Day Event in the United States – who is chasing after the £255,000 Grand Slam prize for consecutive victories at Burghley, Kentucky and Badminton. On the entries list, Townend’s horse is Cooley SRS.

As ever, much attention will be focused on the four-mile cross-country course made of solid man-made and natural obstacles. British course designer Eric Winter, who has a long history with the site, has littered the route with logs, gates, piles, mounds, tables jumps, quad bars and of course Badminton’s famous water features. For more on the challenges of this year’s course, including the ‘Eclipse Cross Pond’, ‘Vicarage Rolltop’ and ‘Shogun Hollow’, see here.