This year’s Mitsubishi Motors Grassroots Championship will be held at Badminton for the third year since the Championship was moved to the popular location in 2010 and is also supported by Natural Animal Feeds and other supporting sponsors including HSBC.

This celebration of Eventing at the introductory levels has given people who ordinarily may not have the experience or confidence for Badminton’s  International  competition a chance to compete on the legendary turf of the Badminton estate. Riders also benefit from the high levels of course design and build from the expert team,  the Willis Bros,  who have built courses all around the world including at the Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney Olympic Games.

Last year’s winners include Kelly Turner (the BE100 title winner). Kelly is a full time mum and freelance instructor: “For me, last year made me even more determined to compete at the very top of the sport. It was a fantastic stepping stone towards achieving my ultimate goal of riding around the four star competition at Badminton. As well as helping me decide that I wanted to compete with the best of the best, last year’s success did a lot for me in terms of my teaching:  following all the press coverage we got, I had lot of enquiries and have since launched my own website and am running numerous teaching clinics.”

We will be bringing blogs from previous winners plus riders aiming for their first Badminton Grassroots championships this year in the build up to event plus live updates footage and photos during the competition.

The qualifying period for the championships in 2013 begins again at Skipton Horse Trials 4-5 August 2012 for BE90 competition and at Central Scotland 11-12 August for BE100. Full information on becoming a member plus qualifying criteria is available from www.britisheventing.com