Badminton wait list all accepted – and Harry Meade set to make history

All the horses on the Mars Badminton Horse Trials wait list have now been accepted to start in the competition (8-12 May).

Three horses were on the wait list when the event entries were first published.

Two of the withdrawn horses are British-ridden – Ellfield Voyager (ridden by Alexander Whewall and owned by Sheila Rowe) and Halenza (owned and ridden by Heidi Coy) – and the third is Commander VG, piloted by Lithuanian competitor Aistis Vitkauskas and owned by his rider and the Kloeve-Mogensens. Heidi would have been making her debut at Badminton.

The pairs who come off the Badminton Horse Trials wait list to replace them are Chris Stone’s Bicton Horse Trials one-off five-star winner Chilli Knight, ridden by Gemma Stevens, Neil Record’s DHI Babette K, ridden by Becky Heappey, and Jane Dear and Charlotte Opperman’s Away Cruising, ridden by Harry Meade.

Badminton Horse Trials wait list: how it works

Badminton accepts 85 entries each year and wait-lists the rest in order of FEI points won at top-level events over the past two years. Wait-listed pairs replace those who withdraw until 2pm on the Sunday before the event.

Although Away Cruising had the most FEI points of the wait-listed horses, he was actually the last of the trio to be accepted into the main start list because Harry Meade has two other entries and riders are only permitted a third horse once all the other wait-listed entries have been accepted.

If Harry starts on Away Cruising, Red Kite and Cavalier Crystal, it will be the first time in some years that a rider has piloted three horses at Badminton, as this has not been allowed at recent runnings of the event.

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