Shock and sadness after top rider, coach and organiser’s death aged 70

The news of the sudden death of rider, coach and organiser Brynley Powell, aged 70, shocked and saddened his wide circle of friends around the eventing world.

Bryn was born at Chandler’s Ford in Hampshire but in early childhood his parents moved to his grandparents’ farm north of Farnham, Surrey, that he would eventually inherit.

It was hacking distance from the Army-owned Tweseldown racecourse, and from the training base of Brian Crago, the Australian eventing medallist, and his leading showjumper wife, Judy, who were among Bryn’s earliest mentors and lifelong friends. He joined the very competitive Staff College and Sandhurst branch of the Pony Club, where contemporaries included Tiny Clapham.

In an eventing career spanning 30 years, he won the Windsor international horse trials the day his daughter Rachel was born. His best elite level result was with Spiderman III, fifth at Burghley 1992, having been second after cross-country (the only ones inside the time) to winner Charlotte Hollingsworth. On the strength of that he was shortlisted for the championship squad.

After his competing wound down, he began coaching, with many overseas clients. Notable pupils included Olympians Susanna Bordone and Heidi Antikatzidis.

He designed and built Deerswood, a training base on part of the farm, for visiting students; two traditional-style quadrangle stable yards with luxury apartments above.

Tweseldown

In 2002 he took on the lease of Tweseldown, immediately investing £300,000 in improvements and was thrilled to obtain all the running rail from the redevelopment of Ascot racecourse. He began developing the British Eventing (BE) calendars, introduced CCI2* and jointly organised its traditional point-to-points with Steven Astaire.

He gave up the lease in 2015, tiring of constraints imposed on land management by Natural England after Tweseldown was designated part of a special protection area.

Known for speaking his mind, Bryn often took issue with the authorities and stood up for other riders when he felt they had unwittingly fallen foul of the rules, famously reporting BE to the Office of Fair Trading over its fixtures allocation process. He publicly supported Heidi Antikatzidis in her open letter to the FEI just before Athens 2004, over concerns about sedative use in the sport.

Bryn was blessed with the capacity to turn the most mundane occasion into a party but had a serious side too. He often surprised dinner companions with his grasp of world politics and was a voracious reader of history books.

The Covid pandemic prompted Bryn to focus on his other lifelong interest, sailing, spending the last four years refurbishing his vintage clipper Seaquest. He had planned several epic voyages while supporting Rachel, her husband James and their young family in reinventing Deerswood as a boutique Airbnb.

Brynley Powell suffered a heart attack while visiting friends in Wales. He had spent the previous day relandscaping his former cross-country schooling area. In that spirit his family will create a memorial garden around the old water jump; donations are invited online.