In a battle boasting echoes of that between David and Goliath, a 14.2hh gelding called Annandale Idris trounced the opposition to claim victory in the Voltaire Design Badminton Grassroots Championships results at BE100, despite almost every other rival towering over him.
The son of Ewyn Dorian was piloted by Kate Raynor, who admitted: “I’m only 5ft tall, so I don’t swamp him. We followed two 17hh-plus horses into the dressage arena, though, and I was worried he would look like a Shetland by comparison, but he gave it his best shot. He’s by a Welsh section C stallion out of a thoroughbred mare, meaning that he’s got a tiny Welsh body on top of thoroughbred legs!”
On the final leaderboard for the grassroots championships results at BE100, this pair ended up two penalties clear of Jane Rogers and Corrieview Merlin Magic, who were making their fifth and most successful appearance at this contest, while Katie Wood and Solitaire King were a further 1.4 penalties off the pace in third.
This trio finished on their dressage scores, as indeed did the entire top 12, but such perfection at the head of affairs disguised the fact that Glen Mac Robert Smith’s showjumping track and James Willis’s cross-country course exerted a huge influence on the 56-strong field and the cream was truly able to rise to the top.
“The beginning of the cross-country was incredibly intense,” said the winner, in part referring to the tricky nature of fence seven, the Voltaire Design Hollow, a rail-ditch-rail complex, which, looking at the analysis sheet, perhaps deserved the title of “bogey” as it was responsible for 11 spoiled scoresheets.
However, the pint-sized Annandale Idris made light of every jumping effort.
“He got better as we went round,” said Kate. “I was worried whether he would be fit enough, as he’s not had many runs, but he stepped up to the plate.”
Kate, who lives in Yatton Keynell, just a stone’s throw from this eventing Mecca, produces horses and works as a freelance riding coach, including part-time at Stonar School, while she is also a part-time foaling assistant at West Kington stud.
“I spend a lot of time wishing that there were more than 24 hours in a day,” she smiled, echoing the thoughts of the majority of these true amateurs who virtually all juggle jobs with family and horses.
Runner-up Jane Rogers, for example, is a part-time bookkeeper and she also regularly supplies her sister’s Burrow Farm Gardens’ tea room with scones.
“I had to make 400 before I left for Badminton,” said the 58-year-old, whose son, Tim, is an event rider.
The striking 16-year-old home-bred Corrieview Merlin Magic is, in fact, responsible for dragging Jane out of competitive retirement.
“Tim broke him in and did a few competitions. At that point, I’d given up and wasn’t jumping. Then, when Tim went to work for Harry Meade and left me with a load of home-breds, I tried to sell Magic. Tim asked me why, and so I changed my mind and came out of retirement to ride him.”
Katie Wood will be sitting her first A level in two weeks’ time, but she admitted that the grassroots championships had provided a brief respite from the intensity of studies. The 17-year-old boards at Sedbergh School in Cumbria and she credited her mother, Cilla Backhouse, with her podium finish as Cilla puts in all the work with the seven-year-old Solitaire King while her daughter is away from home.
“I really didn’t expect him to go this well,” Katie said. “It’s also my first time here; I’ve never even spectated at Badminton.”
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You might also be interested in:
‘A lot of questions’: see all the fully dressed fences on Badminton’s grassroots championships BE100 cross-country course
‘A proper test’: see all the fully dressed fences on Badminton’s grassroots championships BE90 cross-country course
Walk the Badminton grassroots cross-country course: ‘The BE90 is tough – the BE100 riders need to bring their A game’
Oliver Townend takes early Badminton dressage lead on ‘quickest event horse I’ve ridden’
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