APRIL DIARY - ONLY DAYS TO BADMINTON

With the event starting on 29th April this will be the last ‘monthly’ diary this year. As usual, April has been extraordinarily busy with continuous activity on site. Most of our contractors are hard at work – the park resembles a big building site with now probably several hundred people working to get everything ready.

It hasn’t rained here since Easter so the ground generally is now pretty dry. The benefits of the turf management programme are very obvious indeed, with the course and the arena looking and feeling totally different to their ‘natural’  surroundings. We are irrigating the drier parts of the course that are accessible and looking every day at the constantly changing weather forecasts – three days ago thunderstorms were forecast for this coming weekend, but no longer! Even if the going turns out to be firm, it will be very even and smooth with a good covering of grass.

Lots of filming has taken place here this month, all of it now on our website. First Yogi Breisner’s preview, then the course walk with Polly Stockton, then a short piece when Pippa Funnell came for Horse and Hound and World Horse Welfare, our nominated Charity of the Year. Chris Lewis our TV Producer came for his final visit this week, when we made sure the camera positions could see the strung course properly and the sponsors banners were sited to their best advantage but complying with the TV regulations.

Last week saw Press Day when we invite local, national and equestrian journalists for a preview of the course in a fleet of Mitsubishi Shoguns, the opportunity to take photos and ask questions and then enjoy an excellent lunch hosted by the Duke and Duchess. It was a happy day with many old friends meeting for the first time this year.

There are also many very necessary but unexciting meetings – for example the gathering of all the ‘Agencies’  involved in the event, particularly in terms of public safety. We had the Avon and Somerset Police,  Avon Fire and Rescue, the South Gloucestershire Council, the Great Western Ambulance Service for a fruitful hour or so; with the regularity of this annual event the main task of this meeting is to ensure that all involved know of any changes.

We waited with bated breath to see how many of the qualified Grassroots riders would actually enter and our predictions were just about right – 170 odd between the two classes, so more than we had really wanted but we reckon we can just about cope without starting before dawn! That course has really taken shape in the last few weeks and suddenly with the stringing and flags it, just like the International course, looks ready for customers. At a couple of places around the Lake the stringing does look a bit like a maze but hopefully it will all be clear to those walking each track.

After the huge entry, withdrawals from the International event had been many fewer than usual – some people thought we must be out of date on our website as it changed so rarely! However the past week has seen quite a few more and it seems more possible than we thought that by next Tuesday Mark Todd might actually get in – to ride here 30 years after his first, winning appearance in 1980.

The dreaded Icelandic Volcano claimed one very sad casualty, in that Philip Dutton’s ride Woodburn was unable to travel from the United States and so had to withdraw – he at least will get a run in Kentucky but we are sorry this top American, formerly Australian jockey cannot be here. We asked the generous Sue Stewart to be on stand by to judge as a member of the Ground Jury in case Nicoli Fife could not make the journey from New Zealand, but at the moment it looks much more promising that she will be able to come.

The Box Office closed to advance bookings on Monday 19th April with pre-sales at a record level. This does not necessarily mean we will have record crowds at the event, since lots of people, particularly on cross country day, just come and pay at the gate, but it certainly shows that interest is very high and many people, like us, are hugely looking forward to next weekend. There are still a few show jumping seats left which will go on sale again at the Box Office on the grounds during the event itself. We have to shut the Box Office 10 days before the start, simply in order to guarantee to get tickets to customers before the event  starts – as it is, with the usual last minute rush, our small team lead by Carol Alexander will have had to print, collate, stuff envelopes and post tickets to nearly 2000 addresses this week.

We always hope for good weather over this coming weekend, as Sunday brings the Fence Judges and Stewards briefings – in a tent and then at each fence on the course, so that they can all discuss the individual problems that might arise. Traditionally the organising team then has a picnic in the park –  either on the lakeside or sometimes in one of the marquees. The caravan site is being pegged out, beds put down in the stables and names stapled to the stable doors, the stables canteen will open on Tuesday for early arrivals and many of the staff working here. The next week will go all too quickly!,

Press Day signals Badminton is just around the corner

The annual Press Junket at Badminton (today), usually highlights that Badminton is just around the corner and is front and centre in the minds of the nation's press and media. The Horse & Hound already have their "Count Down to Badminton" running on their home page (15 days away now), and social networks, blogs are all a twitter of all things Badminton, as riders prepare themselves and their horses in the hope of capturing one of the biggest equestrian sporting accolades, The Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Trophy.

Mitsubishi in their ever supportive role of title sponsor bring an enormous fleet of their popular 4x4s to Press Day to provide transport for the media on Hugh Thomas's sneak peak of the cross country course.

Meanwhile, a battalion of contractors continue to work tirelessly installing miles of cabling, acres of canvas and a myriad  of other items that provide the infrastructure for event, like no other.

Another two busy weeks ahead!

The Good Old Days......

For those of us too young to remember Badminton in the 1950's & 60's, our friends over at British Pathe have been kind enough to rummage around in their archives and dig up some classic footage of the horse trials from the good old days, and thanks to the wonders of modern technology and "t'internet" we are able to share these with you now.

Follow the link below and marvel at the differences in riding style, attire and cross country fences to those of the modern day trials.

Badminton Horse Trials Golden Age Footage

March Diary

For years the first Friday in March was always feared by us in the Horse Trials Office, being the last ‘big day’ when the Beaufort Hunt were in Badminton Park – and therefore liable to chew up the cross country course! Happily 5th March this year passed with no damage at all, thanks to the course being marked out and the hunt followers cooperating hugely and treating the course with respect.

March as always has been hugely busy. Entries closed on 12th – as usual now most came over the last few days – and we had even more than usual, so Jane Tuckwell had the unenviable task of checking them all and sorting out the acceptances and the Waiting List. It is very sad that not everyone who wants to can compete here – but the points system for acceptance is at least completely objective and does reward those with the best form over the past couple of seasons. 

As foreshadowed last month, the Technical Delegates came in the middle of the month and so all the portables had to be in position for them to see. The only exceptions to this were the first and last fences which will go in the main arena and the Mitsubishi Pick Ups at the Lake which will appear just before our Press Day in mid April. The TDs were very happy with the course as a whole and we were able to make all the adjustments so that we and they ended the very useful day happy. It really is important to have independent experts come and check the course out, partly because they have not been involved with it on a day to day basis and they see the fences afresh, as of course the horses will do.


Immediately after the TD day we had our TV Producer Chris Lewis together with facilities provider Robin Stonestreet of SIS Live and BBC Editor Michael Cole to see the whole course and fix the camera positions, which had been roughed out last autumn. Chris, coming back to Badminton after 4 years, had some great ideas for new positions at various fences and there will be very few parts of the course where there is no coverage. There will be 13 cameras out on the cross country, so viewers of the ‘Red Button’ live coverage should see most of the action.

Caroline Bromley-Gardiner has sketched the fences at Badminton for the Programme for ever – in fact she is the only person ever to have done them and came up with the idea herself – and she has a deadline of Easter Monday, so has to make a start as soon as there is enough to see. She is always asking Alan Willis what a fence is going to look like and he often does not know! Sometimes we finish a fence off to look like her drawing, rather than the other way round! Caroline is a proper artist and also a horsewoman, so she has the ideal attributes. 

Late in the month Jamie Hawksfield of MBPtv came to film an interview with Yogi Breisner. When edited, this will be illustrated with footage from previous events and will form a fascinating Event Preview, which will be on our website and also on Horse and Country TV and will after the event be available to overseas TV stations, together with the Course Walk preview, to be filmed just after Easter, and the edited highlights of the actual event. It looks currently as though more overseas countries than ever are going to take coverage of Badminton 2010.





On the technical side, developments are continuing in the search for ‘safety’ improvements. Frangible Pins have been in use for several seasons, but some course designers and builders have been keen to see development of these so that they can be used with the rail on the far, or landing, side of a fence rather than on the front of the posts – the idea being that when hit hard at the moment the rail may not break the pin often or quickly enough. British Eventing commissioned Martin Herbert and colleagues at Bristol University to research how hard horses hit fences and the frangibilty of pins and, to cut a very long story short, they have come up with a new method of securing the rails that will enable us to ‘reverse pin’ fences. At Badminton we are keen to use the new system and so Martin was joined here at the end of March by a team from BE and of course the Willis Bros and a (very cold) day was spent installing some of the new devices. It is good to be at the forefront of developments in the management of the risks involved in our sport. 

The only sad note in March was the news that Dr David Lewsey, Chief Medical Officer here for a great many years up to 2005, had passed away. David was instrumental in bringing the medical facilities particularly for the competitors up to date – for instance he started ensuring that all the doctors on the cross country course held an Advanced Trauma Life Certificate, so that they had the knowledge and experience to treat traumatic injury. He was hugely respected as a GP in Tetbury himself and took great and justifiable pride in leading a top flight medical team at Badminton.

Early April will bring the Course Walk filming; our Press Preview Day; the interactive course map on the website. We are now only 4 weeks away from the event and there is no doubt that tension mounts! Ticket sales are excellent and we hope all is set fair.

February Diary

A typically contrasting month of British weather, with snow and ice everywhere at the start and near spring sunshine at the end! The ground as we start March has dried up well, so portable fences were taken out of the yards and positioned near to their final locations without any damage being done.
The cross country track will soon start getting detailed attention as the time for fertiliser, vertidraining and mowing approaches, but in February the plan is simply to protect it against overgrazing by the sheep and have it well marked in the Deer Park so that no one drives or rides on it!
The last week in February saw a plethora of meetings – all routine but unusually packed into a few days. First our Traffic Meeting, when all the agencies and contractors get to know each other again, the current year’s passes are explained and a few modifications made to the traffic plan. Then the Vets Meeting – a short session on the new FEI Veterinary Regulations, which come into force in April; and then a fascinating day lead by Jim Green from Hampshire Fire and Rescue who gave us a presentation on rescuing horses safely when they are stuck in ditches, rivers, peat bogs or cattle grids; and then showed us all his (not very high tech) kit which enables horses to be turned over, moved etc in safety. His strong messages – saving horses must not imperil human safety while, as so often, calm professionalism is needed from the rescuers. Unfortunately our usual website photographer Tim Nicholls who lives in Badminton village had a nasty bout of gastric flu while the event director had left his camera at home!
Finally that week the Medical get together – a reminder when taken with the other meetings of how lucky we are to have the voluntary support of such exceptionally well qualified and motivated professionals. A quiet year in 2009 is no reason not to prepare thoroughly for 2010 and one small change welcomed was the move of the helicopter landing site away from the horse’s route to the Start!

The Tented Village is now fully planned on paper and Site Manager Harry Verney has started ‘pegging out’. Hundreds of pegs mark the corners of every tent, accurate to less than a foot (or 30 cm) and the different colours are understood (we hope!) by the tentage contractors, electrical contractors, plumber, telephone engineer and all the others who need to know. Danco our tentage supplier will start on site in the middle of March, about the same time as Arena Seating will commence work on the Grandstands.
Rather to the Event Director’s discomfort, we launched our presence on Facebook and Twitter – he may eventually get used to it and no longer has the excuse that his iphone reception is not good enough – a switch to Vodafone and a SureSignal booster in the office means he is no longer out of touch!

With his hat on as Course Designer, he attended an excellent seminar run by British Eventing to discuss modern trends in course design, the use of safety features such as the pins, risk management on the cross country and where course design should head. Partly as a result and also because of international discussions, we may expect to see a return to some at least of the features of fences from the past – for example true upright gates or rails & ‘open’ corners – features that made a rider take care with his line and speed. There is a consensus that some course building features introduced in the name of safety in recent years have actually made the sport more dangerous as, from Grassroots to International level, we have let riders ‘get away with’ bad riding. Naturally we must continue the attempt to reduce the number of falls, especially rotational horse falls and this is where Badminton will try to marry the old, eg vertical rails, with the new, eg frangible pins.

A big task at the very end of the month was to do the jigsaw that is the deployment of Fence Judges and Stewards. The late John Hills was the master of this, so this year his successor Sam Trounson spent 2 hours with the Director and Assistant Director trying to ensure that no one judges the same fence as in recent years, that the team of judges and stewards at a fence are compatible, that all the crossing points will have enough personnel, that radio operators and fence scorers are allocated to the right spot. Here again, it brings it home how dependent we are on expert volunteers!


Now there is much to look forward to as we really count down to the event which starts in just under 8 weeks time. Entries close on 12th March, the Technical Delegates visit on 17th, course building resumes in earnest and the tents will start to arise – roll on April!