Mark Todd and NZB Land Vision, winners Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials 2011 Photo: Peter Nixon/FEI
In the video below Mark Todd talks about his win at Badminton last year and what he has planned for 2012. For the young folk among us (or, at the other end of the scale, those whose memories are failing), it may be worth recalling some of Toddy’s achievements at Badminton. In 1980, at a time when New Zealand was a world away from the high class events in the UK, Toddy won Badminton aged only 24 on Southern Comfort (the horse, that is, not the drink, although...). He had gone to the UK on very limited finances aiming to get some international experience under his belt – he certainly achieved that but his first win at Badminton was no fluke. In 1994 he won on Horton’s Point, a catch ride he had barely ridden prior to piloting it around Badminton; in 1995 he broke a stirrup leather and rode over half of the course with only one stirrup. In his first autobiography, “So Far, So Good”, Toddy remembers the feeling as he rode towards the famous Badminton Lake complex “I almost felt like bursting out laughing at the thought of galloping down to one of the most difficult fences in the world with only one stirrup.” Ironically, although Toddy survived, the horse he was riding, Bertie Blunt, was eliminated at the Horse Inspection the following day but the combination went on to win in 1996. Then, after a seven year retirement from the sport, he made a great comeback to win Badminton yet again in 2011 on NZB Land Vision, a horse he had purchased from British eventer, Oliver Townend. Did You Know?
- Andrew Nicholson was Toddy’s groom at Badminton in 1980
- Toddy’s win in 2011 made him the oldest winner of Badminton
- His winning horse in 1994, Horton’s Point, is still the oldest horse to win Badminton
- Lucinda Green once said “ Toddy could win Badminton on a skateboard”
- He also had two other ‘catch rides’ at Badminton resulting in a third and fifth, prompting British rider Karen Dixon to say “He could make a donkey jump 10 feet”
- In 1980 Toddy was 45th after the dressage, but was one of only three inside the time limit on the cross-country. Going into the final day he was third and won when Lucinda Prior-Palmer and Helen Butler came unstuck during the show jumping
- In 2011 Toddy was 4th after the dressage but went into the showjumping in the lead after a clear round on cross country with only 6.8 time penalties. He jumped a clear showjumping round to take his 4th title – 31 years after his first win
- NZB Land Vision is one of only five greys to have won Badminton
- A second volume of his autobiography — covering the years between 1998, where the first book left off, and his 2011 Badminton win – will be launched to coincide with Badminton 2012
