Brian’s Badminton Report
May 2025 has been nothing short of action-packed for Brian. His hard work, dedication and outstanding performances with his horse, Jay, throughout the 2024 eventing season earned them a qualification for the prestigious Badminton Grassroots Championship!
Brian meticulously planned his lead-up to Badminton, selecting a carefully structured schedule of training events designed to build both confidence and consistency. Their preparation has been a testament to Brian’s thoughtful horsemanship and May 2025 stands as a celebration of their progress and an exciting chapter in their ongoing adventure.
Badminton Grassroots:
6-7 May - “Our first proper championship experience (BE100) for both myself and Jay. With a fabulous support team around me, I really tried to enjoy the experience whilst my team looked after Jay. The🌞was out in full force and it really was a great few days. Experience-wise, Jay did a generally accurate but tense test followed by a rather enthusiastic showjumping round with 1 pole down. Rather anti-climatically, after I had sent everyone down to the lake ("for the views").....I unceremoniously plopped out the side door at fence 10A (1/3 of the course) with Jay taking himself over to F13 before being caught! I can confirm Badminton turf was bouncy and despite my ego taking a bruising we both live to fight another day!”
Royal Windsor Horse Show:
17 May - “A high profile show for the military equestrian calendar. We were invited to form one of the Army Teams to contest the Services Showjumping class (1.05m). It's always an early start as we are the first class of the day (zzzz). We jumped a clear round for our team, with our 2x teammates picking up a few penalties which left us in 5th place overall. Each team then nominates 1x person to jump the second round, which happens in the afternoon when the audience is fully packed. So whilst nerve racking, it was an invaluable experience for Jay to jump in such an environment. With some sack the jockey moments, I tapped 2 poles near the beginning but Jay found his flow shortly after. That left our team score on +20 penalties which kept us in 5th place.
Overall, it's always an enormous privilege to represent the British Army at such high profile venues and invaluable ring experience for Jay as we have much bigger dreams and goals for him in the years to come. For me, I sometimes just need to take a breather and remind myself that everything Jay has achieved, it is because of the work I have put in. We have regrouped and have a busy month ahead in June to put in some educational runs out eventing!”
