BOOK EXTRACT l BADMINTON HORSE TRIALS AT 75
Pippa Funnell is a rider who has inspired the affection and ambitions of generations of young people with her achievements, sometimes against all the odds. She was hugely successful in the early stages of her career, winning the Young Rider European title on her first horse, Sir Barnaby, and from the outset was a notably empathetic producer of young horses who could display instinctive ringcraft in the dressage arena, but it was a long and on occasions dispiriting 10-year wait before she made it, triumphantly, onto a senior team.
Many riders have found the gap between under-21 competition and seniors hard to surmount and not all of Pippa’s horses, however devoted she was to them, and however successful at the lower levels, were right for her when it came to the big time. She was endearingly open about her travails and was one of the first to volunteer as a guinea pig for sport psychology and, with it, the power of positive visualisation techniques.
By the turn of the century, however, Pippa’s time had come, with back-to-back European double golds and an Olympic medal on Supreme Rock, a horse who didn’t initially show world-beating potential and with whom Pippa had persevered while others doubted him.
‘Rocky’ was bred in West Cork, Ireland, by Lindy Nixon-Gray and was owned by the enthusiastic Pitt-Lewthwaite Syndicate — also known as the ‘Barmy Army’ — which was fronted by Emma Pitt and her mother, Di Lewthwaite, a former international skier. He was a big, generous-hearted horse with scope and presence, but he was also gangly and not adjustable; this meant that when he came into a fence wrong, he often had no option but to stop.
Progress was, therefore, initially slow, but, by the time Badminton 2002 came around, the pair was favourites, even though Pippa was hobbling with an ankle injury sustained in a fall at Belton and Rocky had missed his last pre-Badminton run because of it. In the event, none of this mattered; they led from the start, and had a dream cross-country round.
Pippa took one long route, incurring time penalties, and, as a result, had no leeway going into the final showjumping round on Sunday. She did, though, have the enormous advantage of the ever-calm presence of her husband, William, an international showjumper of note, and a clear round for just one time penalty clinched victory.
It was a British top three: William Fox-Pitt finished second on the flashy Tamarillo, a horse about whom he was becoming increasingly excited, and Leslie Law was third on Shear H20. William was suffering from an inconvenient groin strain, but that didn’t stop him entertaining the press. “I held onto the mane across country except at the drops,” he revealed afterwards. “The Beaufort S
