Ros Canter won Badminton for the second time in 2025 on Lordships Graffalo, taking the title by one penalty when Oliver Townend lowered a rail.
Ros Canter won the MARS Badminton Horse Trials for a second time in 2025, on the Duke of Beaufort’s estate in South Gloucestershire from Wednesday 7 to Sunday 11 May.
The 10th Duke of Beaufort started the trials in 1949 in the park of his own house. British riders had nowhere at home to prepare for international competition, and he had the ground. He advertised the first one as the most important horse trials in the world, a claim that time has turned into an understatement.
Badminton remains one of only seven five-star events in the sport, the top grade the international federation awards. The cross country is the reason: fixed timber over the estate’s own ditches, banks and water, ridden at speed by horses that have already passed a dressage test and will jump a course of poles the following day.
Oliver Townend and the grey mare Cooley Rosalent led from the dressage onwards and went into the final jumping in front. Canter, second overnight on Lordships Graffalo, her 2023 winner, jumped clear and inside the time. Townend, last to go, then lowered a rail and finished second, one penalty behind, with Ireland’s Austin O’Connor third on Colorado Blue. Canter, a member of Britain’s gold-winning team at the Paris Olympics the summer before, dedicated the victory to her coach and mentor Caroline Moore, who had died two months earlier.