Walk the BE90 Badminton Grassroots Championships cross-country course [PICS]
Check out how challenging the BE90 Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Grassroots Championships cross-country course was in 2014.
Championship stats — how the class panned out
- 86 runners
- 21 finished on their dressage score
- 47 showjumping clears
- 25 collected faults at fence eight
- 18 did not complete the cross-country
Most influential fence
This was fence eight (an ABC combination) the ASX Triple, comprising a rail-ditch-rail. The combination required a short, bouncy canter on the approach in order to give horses time to assess the ditch.
The winner
Zoe Symes, 23, topped this class in 2014 riding 15-year-old Serendipity IV. The pair lead from the start after posting an impressive dressage score of 18.3. They then rolled one showjump before going cross-country. Serendipity, who has a sporadic eventing record, then flew around the 2,900m track to clinch victory. Zoe works as an oil and gas recruitment consultant in Southampton during the week, and returns home to Bath at the weekends to ride Serendipity. Zoe’s mother, sister and 72-year-old grandma help keep the horse fit during the week.
Fence 1 — BE First
Fence 2 — Quarry House
Fence 3 — Willis Chase Fence
Fence 4 — Shogun Step
Fence 5A/B — Shogun Step
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Fence 6 — Four Star Wall
Fence 7 — Table
Fence 8A/B/C — ASX Triple
Fence 9 — The Hollow
Fence 10 — Curved Brushes
Fence 11 — Tree Trunk
Fence 12A — Outlander Angles
Fence 12B — Outlander Angles
Fence 13 — Danco Shooting Butt
Fence 14A — PHEV Silver Birches
Fence 14B — PHEV Silver Birches
Fence 15 — Brush Oxer
Fence 16A — World Horse Welfare Garden
Fence 16B — World Horse Welfare Garden
Fence 17A — Wadworths at the Lake
Fence 17B — Wadworths at the Lake
Fence 18 — Mirage Wishing Wells
Fence 19 — The Benches
Fence 20 A/B — Team GBR Corners
Fence 20A alternative — Team GBR Corners
Fence 20B alternative — Team GBR Corners
Fence 21 — Trakehner
Fence 22 — James’s Book
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A graduate from Durham University, Madeleine joined H&H in 2011 and became Features Editor — producing content across the magazine and website, including the popular inside back cover article ‘The horse that made me’ and the weekly ‘The best of my fun…’ interview. She has written on topics as diverse as hay making and headcams, to hot totty in the horse world and circus horses. Madeleine now works as a freelance feature writer for Country Life, The Telegraph, Horse & Hound, cntraveller.com, The Spectator and The Field, as well as writing obituaries for The Times.