Badminton 1991.

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McGrools

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Don’t know if link will work but as horse action is weathered off just watching round up of Badminton 35 years ago. Shocked at how different it looks! Not a skinny in sight, extremely solid fences. And the riding looks a lot more ‘agricultural’ shall we say. I can’t believe 91’ is 35 years ago! 😩😩
 
Happy days. I’ve had a very quick scroll through bits of it and lots of memories I worked for one of the top riders for a summer in the early 90s which brilliant and somewhere have a video of me going in to do a showjumping round when the previous horse coming out of the ring was Murphy Himself.

I really used to enjoy jumping my little ex racehorse against the event horses as I was in it to win it and they were in it generally as eventing prep, so it was rather nice to beat names 😁. That said I think the standard of event showjumping has improved hugely since then.
 
I just saw this on FB. From the Dunham advanced event at Quebec in 1971. The jump itself is fine but i took one look at the ground and went, nope!

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It was posted by Tamarack Hill Farm with this text

The back story behind this photo of Cat jumping out of an enlarged barn window at the Dunham, Quebec advanced three day event in 1971---
A bank barn is built against a hillside, with some sort of a stone or poured cement foundation supporting the vertical face. What this does is have the uphill entrance at ground level, which was usually the hayloft portion of the barn; the animals would be kept in the bottom floor.
So Paul Popiel, the event organizer, used an existing barn hayloft to have the horses come through, reinforcing the plank floor, and, as I remember, maybe putting down some gravel to make it less slippery.
Then there was the challenge of having too big a drop on the landing side, so they built up a gravel pile to land on, as you can see.
When we riders approached the open barn door we could see the hole on the far wall that we had to jump through, but all we could see otherwise was blue sky. I can’t remember whether we also had to jump up over something, or if it was just a drop, but from the way Cat’s hind legs are kicked up. I am guessing there was a small jump in addition to the drop.
As the horses came across the plank floor there was a BOOM BOOM reverberation which added to the drama!
This arrangement might seem a little sketchy by 2026 standards, but back then, 55 years ago, we were sort of inventing the sport as we went along, and were also doing that on a shoestring budget.
Click to expand...
 
humblepie said:
Happy days. I’ve had a very quick scroll through bits of it and lots of memories I worked for one of the top riders for a summer in the early 90s which brilliant and somewhere have a video of me going in to do a showjumping round when the previous horse coming out of the ring was Murphy Himself.

I really used to enjoy jumping my little ex racehorse against the event horses as I was in it to win it and they were in it generally as eventing prep, so it was rather nice to beat names 😁. That said I think the standard of event showjumping has improved hugely since then.
Click to expand...
The horses looked a lot more like very strong hunters back then. Brakes looked to be a rarity! 😆
 
My 1st time there was in 1983 - a very very cold and wet one! It was like Glastonbury in a monsoon.
I never did get warm, or dry, sleeping in the horsebox was vile, I remember dragging spare rugs over me as it was so cold. Was grooming for our local very esteemed PC instructor., she completed but outside the top 15. To complete that year was in itself pretty good. Trying to clean tack between phases was horrible, the mud was so embedded.
That said, the organising team were brilliant, hot drinks offered etc.
Lucinda Green won on Regal Realm, they too crossed the xc finish absolutely looking like they'd been winter hunting.
 
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