2014 has to go down as one of the most exciting and remarkable Badminton Horse Trials ever. With Armada being such a fabulous cross country horse the seriously beefed up course and testing weather conditions (wind gusts of over 50mph) worked to Oliver’s advantage and he rocketed up the leaderboard from =34th after dressage to finish in the runner up spot.
“Guiseppe [the course designer] was fantastically brave and has made this a proper 4* event again, this is how Badminton should be. Armada is unreal – and the way he’s behaving I hope we’ll have a few more Badminton’s ahead of us,” said Oliver.
Photo © Trevor Holt