‘Priceless was perfection; he didn’t deviate an inch right or left’: how Ginny Elliot’s legendary eventer mastered the trickiest tracks in the world
In H&H’s series on cross-country course-design through the decades, Ginny Elliot describes the challenges of the ’80s and ’90s – and remembers some iconic fences
It’s easy to hark back to the cross-country courses of yesteryear, and pit the traditional “rider-frighteners” versus today’s technical questions, but the reality is far more nuanced. Ginny Elliot, who won 10 gold medals as well as five Burghleys and three Badmintons in the 1980s, refutes the idea that accuracy is more important today.
“When Frank Weldon took over building Badminton [1966–1988] it was all about bravery and accuracy – accuracy was super important,” she says.
“Now, yes, they have to be very accurate too because of the skinnies – which are difficult – and various other challenging questions, but it’s a different sort of accuracy.
“Angles were the main question for us; we had to be pinpoint accurate on our line or we’d land in a ditch. There was such a wide space to get it wrong because the rail was 20ft wide from right to left, to another rail 20ft wide – your angle and accuracy had to be absolutely correct, you couldn’t deviate six inches.”
Ginny gives the example of the angles at Badminton’s Tom Smith’s Walls – now no longer jumped – and the “S-fence”, built of timber.
“You were running downhill,” she says. “There was one stride between each rail, so you had to find your way through on the right striding.”
Burghley’s infamous Brandy Glass in 1983 – so called because from aerial view it was shaped like its name – was another.
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“It was angled post-and-rail to angled post-and-rail to a corner, super-difficult, and dear Priceless was perfection; he didn’t deviate an inch right or left,” says Ginny.
She’d been told by chef d’equipe Malcolm Wallace not to attempt the influential direct route if she was on time.
“I think I was the only one who jumped it straight – because my watch wasn’t working, so I had to!”
The onus was on riders of that era to decide their own line and stick to it.
“You had to choose something like a piece of bark on the timber, and a tree in the distance to line up, especially if there were three fences in a row or open corners on a bending line.
“We jumped very natural fences that sat well in the countryside, utilising the natural resources. In my memory, we didn’t have protective rails on ditches like at the Vicarage Vee nowadays, so if you were near the end of the day, the ditch was considerably bigger.
“We rarely had fillers or flower pots; the fences were less dressed,” she adds. “I remember at Badminton a massive parallel on an angle over an open ditch. So you had to make sure you’re on exactly the right line or you land in the ditch.”
“We had to be pinpoint accurate on our line or we’d land in a ditch”
ginny elliot
“Frank Weldon was a genius course-designer. We often sat in our lorries the night before cross-country agreeing that there were two or three unjumpable fences – how wrong we were. Frank had certainly managed to frighten the riders, but the fences jumped well.”
The challenge was to solve the course-designer’s puzzle.
“One fence I couldn’t work out in my head was at Gawler World Championships in 1984,” she says. “It was a rail, one stride, rail drop into water and then bounce over another rail. I watched it for a while, and it wasn’t working out. Even Charisma fell there.
“A very few managed the bounce, but it was ugly to watch. My question was, having dropped a long way down landing in the water, physically how could the horse get his weight back on his hind feet to take off immediately over the rail?
“So I worked out that if I could get Priceless to take two strides in the one stride, he’d drop in short and then could fit in one stride to the rail instead of a bounce. I just prayed and he did it. It didn’t sit well in my tummy but I was reasonably confident he could do it.
“Priceless had a remarkable brain and sense of quick decisions, a genius.”
They won double gold.
The Gawler fence would be outlawed today – the track produced 26 fallers from 43 runners.
Ginny Elliot assesses the influential water jump at the Gawler World Championships, which featured a bounce in the water
And sometimes, the fences were rightly deemed unjumpable.
“At the Denmark Euros [Horsens, 1981] there was an upright on top of a bank like the Hickstead Derby bank, so horses would have landed right at the bottom,” Ginny remembers. “I walked the course with Richard Meade and I was just a child with nappies on!
“Richard looked at my face when we finished the course and said, ‘don’t worry, they will have to change two of those fences’. They removed them after the chef d’equipes’ meeting and thank goodness, because I was number one to go!”
Bouncing and bucking through bullfinches
Bullfinches were quite a feature in the ’80s. They still pop up today, but they’re arguably less frequent – and certainly less taxing. Ginny remembers a bounce of bullfinches at Burghley, where Night Cap cleverly scrambled in a stride.
“A bounce of bullfinches didn’t make any sense in my head and he must have been suspicious – but he was very clever and luckily I managed to stay on board. I hated that fence.”
Priceless managed to negotiate a huge bullfinch with a massive ditch in front on a steep downhill approach, bucking after Ginny tapped him on the shoulder to tell him to pay attention to the enormous obstacle ahead.
“Bucking was not what I needed when I felt we should be going 80mph! The crowds watching must have thought this very amusing,” she says. “Priceless, renowned for his cheeky behaviour, managed to stop bucking just in time and jumped it really well – goodness knows how.”
Another natural feature, banks, were also more prevalent, with iconic fences such as Luckington Lane and the Normandy Bank now no longer in use. These were a useful method of slowing horses down to make the optimum time sufficiently tough, but from a designer’s perspective, steps and staircases use up too many of the permitted number of jumping efforts.
“Priceless had a remarkable brain – a genius”: pictured at the Trout Hatchery at the European Championships 1985, held at Burghley, where he and Ginny won double gold
Mastering the cross-country test
Despite – or perhaps because of – all these taxing fences, Ginny was a consummate cross-country rider, her smooth style belying the difficulty of the tracks. Two of her top horses – Priceless and Master Craftsman – never had a cross-country jumping fault, through their careers of multiple five-stars and championships.
“I was told early on in my career that a horse already knows he is a horse – the art of horsemanship lies solely with the rider,” says Ginny.
“I’ve always asked what the designer is asking from the rider, in terms of how to present their horse in the best way to negotiate a particular fence,” she explains. “Gear-changing is nearly the most important, and the smoother this happens, the less time you use.
“All horses are different and have their Achilles’ heels. As a rider, it’s our responsibility to do the gear changes, the rhythm and accuracy. And if you did all that you should have a high chance of jumping the fence happily.
“You can’t afford to take money out of the bank, so you don’t want a hairy moment at fence four,” she adds. “I would be very cross with myself if my horse hit a fence in front. I had another job to do on Sunday, so my horses had to finish in the best possible shape.”
And with Ginny’s extraordinary tally of medals and trophies, she certainly fulfilled her mission.
“A horse already knows he is a horse – the art of horsemanship lies solely with the rider”
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Martha is an experienced journalist who is mad-keen on horses and dogs. Her reporting CV includes the Paris Olympics, European championships, Aachen World Equestrian Festival and World Cup finals. After growing up with assorted liver and white springer spaniels, she enjoyed 14 years with two rescue dogs. Now, her constant companion is Fidget, an extremely energetic and habitually muddy black and white springer. Martha has written on topics as diverse as a top horse’s clone to the best GPS trackers for dogs, as well as equestrian and rural matters for Country Life, The Field, The Times, The Spectator and The Telegraph alongside Horse & Hound.