Two weekends of five-star eventing and two record-breaking performances from the current best in the sport.

On May 1, Michael Jung set a new record-low five-star finishing score at the Land Rover Kentucky Three-Day Event; one week later, Laura Collett set a new record-low finishing score for the Badminton Horse Trials (England), the oldest five-star of them all, by breaking a record set by Jung in 2016, when he won the Rolex Grand Slam with La Biosthetique Sam FBW.

Collett and her Tokyo Olympic team gold medal partner London 52, a 13-year-old Holsteiner (Landos—Vernante, Quinar Z) she owns with Keith Scott and Karen Bartlett, led Badminton from wire to wire.

Laura Collett and London 52 added 0.4 show jumping time penalties to their dressage score to win the 2022 Badminton Horse Trials on a final score of 21.4. Libby Law Photography Photo

Their dressage test, which scored 21.0 penalties (equivalent to a 79.01%), gave them a 2.4-point lead on their nearest competition, and they just kept opening the gap from there. After turning in one of the event’s six double-clear cross-country rounds, they led by 4.7 points and went into show jumping poised to break their own record-low five-star finishing score for a British rider (21.3), set at the 2020 Pau (France) CCI5*-L. The pair jumped clean but missed the time allowed by 0.47 seconds, adding 0.4 time penalties to their final score and missing out on their own record by one-hundredth of a point.

Their 21.4 finish was still good enough to set a new Badminton record, beating Jung and the legendary “Sam’s” 2016 score, which adjusted to reflect modern scoring was a 22.9.

Watch how they did it, phase by phase:

Dressage:

Cross-country:

Cross-country from Collett’s helmet cam: 

Show jumping:

Click here for more coverage of the 2022 Badminton Horse Trials.