‘The trophy had his name on it...’
“APRIL without Badminton is like Christmas without plum pudding,” wrote H&H columnist Loriner in 1975. Unrelenting rain had left competitors and spectators wallowing in the mud and organisers with no choice but to cancel the event.
The event is now normally held in May, but Loriner’s statement echoes the sentiments of many this week, with coronavirus denying us our annual pilgrimage to Gloucestershire for “The Great Event”.
Badminton has been cancelled six times since its inception in 1949 and was run as a one-day event in 1963. So who has triumphed in the years following and what are the chances of combinations holding their form?
BADMINTON 1975 was already under way – 55 competitors had performed their dressage tests, with Lucinda Prior-Palmer (now Green) and Be Fair leading on a score of 39 – before it was abandoned.
“Badminton Park would have been left looking likeCOL FRANK WELDON
