“This Badminton is my redemption”

WATCH out for Tamie Smith and Mai Baum (pictured, below) next week, because they could be our dressage leaders.

US pair Tamie (full name Tamra) and “Lexus” have scored in the 20s for all their international tests since 2018 and their personal best is a 20.4. But the rider says Lexus – who belongs to Tamie’s former working student Alexandra Ahearn and her parents Ellen Ahearn and Eric Markell – is more difficult than he looks on the flat.

“He’s a weird horse to ride and is like a worm – he’s so wiggly,” she says. “He doesn’t have the best work ethic and I’m lucky he is so flash. When he makes a mistake, he still gets a fairly high score.

“And he’s such a showman. He has such an ability to take his anxiety and put it to the right place when he goes into the ring.”

At Kentucky last year, when lying second after dressage, Lexus broke a frangible pin going into the rail-ditch-arrowhead complex across country and finished ninth.

“That will eat me alive until I’m in my grave,” says Tamie, acknowledging the error probably led to her being the alternate on the US squad in Tokyo instead of being on the team, as well as costing her a five-star win.

“I knew I was down on the clock and I took a risk knowing he’s careful and didn’t get him back enough. I learnt a tonne from it. Now, I ride that sort of fence very differently.”

Tamie, 47, says Badminton this year is

“my redemption hopefully” after her ride, Wembley, was spun at the first trot-up in 2019, having been fine moments before.

“We picked up the trot and he started limping,” she remembers. “I was trying not to stare at him because I could hear it. I was like, ‘What do I even do?’”

A rivet that held on one of Wembley’s leather foot pads had given him a blood blister.

“I’m forever traumatised – I get massive amounts of anxiety at every trot-up now,” says Tamie.