Mary King is one of the world's greatest Eventers, but.......

I know, I know, more Badminton stuff, but this will make you chuckle! I have the greatest respect for Mary King, you just have to look at her biography to see she makes some of the biggest names in Eventing look like sunday drivers, but one thing I kept seeing on TV during Badminton was the ad she very kindly did for Ride Alert.

When I first saw this I thought it was a spoof, and I can't believe someone posted it on youtube....sorry to tease Mary, we love seeing you at Badminton (on a horse), but we couldn't resist ;-). In fact we're sure daughter Emily is fighting back the giggles, which is really why this makes us chuckle......



All for a good cause though.....

The Frangible Pin Saga continues.....

Apologies, my head is still full of Badminton and something I wrote about last year has cropped up again, the Frangible Pin. Back then it was all about some bright spark at the FEI wanting to add penalty points for breaking one, as if it were showjumping, this time it's more about improvements.

They [Frangible Pins] are undoubtedly making a positive contribution to safety and a new design was tried out at Badminton Horse Trials in 2010 (see picture, courtesy of the Badminton website). The young Chinese rider Alex Hau Tain experienced the effect of these when falling off his first horse, Jeans, this year.

There is talk again of introducing penalty points for breaking these, which is of course a ridiculous suggestion. I notice 'The Captain' suggests £90 is expensive - Gatcombe ticket sales must be down on last year!

Improvements in safety are priceless, and it beats having to having to soften the courses any further.

Grassroots Championship should stay for Badminton 2011

So over the last few days I've been surfing around the web looking at the reviews and opinion from Badminton and noticed some chat (and a H&H article) about how some riders from the main event were complaining about the Grassroots Championship disrupting the main Badminton event.

A little surprisingly perhaps, 'The Captain' (Mark Phillips) seemed to disagree and thought it all rather jolly, although he admitted not going over to watch.

I have to say I thought this was an excellent decision to include this in the Badminton schedule and perhaps one of the only ways in which the top end of the sport really gives back to the grassroots that feeds it.

Now it's all too easy for all of us on the sidelines to sit in judgement on what should have been done or isn't being done, but give Badminton its due, they did run the grassroots cross country through the main deer park and even through the lake, albeit a toe in the water.