1 August 2019 Horse&Hound
31(now Green)’s fourth Badminton triumph and
it all came down to the bounce of a rail.
“The luck was with Lucinda and I have
no hard feelings towards her,” says Sue. “I
did 13 Badmintons. In those days, just to
get there with one horse was amazing. I had
showjumped clear, so had done all I could, but
Lucinda was great in her day and could take
the pressure. The rail bounced out of the cups
and went back in. If she’d had it down, I would
have won.
“I tried at the time to be proud of what I’d
done, but there was the ‘if only’ bit. I soon got
over it, though. You move on. I’m pretty cool
about it now.”
S
TEVE HADLEY lifted a serious haul
of silverware during his showjumping
career but narrowly missed out on two
of the sport’s biggest prizes when finishing
second in the King George V Gold Cup and the
Hickstead Derby. He missed out on outright
victory in the Derby by just a time-fault.
“In showjumping, the difference between
finishing first and second is mostly about
prize money and a second is OK in a lot
of competitions, but those two classes are
different — they are two prestigious titles I
would have liked to have put my name on the
trophy,” says Steve. “I’ve never brooded or
fretted about it, but I’ve always regarded the
Derby as the one that got away.”
His near miss in the Derby came on
Prospero in 1971, the year of the famous
Harvey Smith V-sign incident — and Steve did
actually “win” the competition for a few days
after Harvey was disqualified and before he
was reinstated as the victor by the stewards.
“The press went crazy the following day
and I was inundated by people asking for myreaction, but I said as far as I was concerned
Harvey won the Derby fair and square,” recalls
Steve. “I wouldn’t have wanted to win the
Derby under those circumstances anyway.”
Steve had lost out to Harvey in a jump-off
to decide top honours and was left pondering
the cost of his first-round time-fault.
“It was a great day, but the way it happened
makes me feel unlucky — Prospero was good
round Hickstead, but we’d had torrential rain
and he couldn’t handle the soft ground. He
slipped down the bank and landed in a heap,
so I had to turn a circle, which was three
faults in those days and took me over the time
allowed — he jumped everything clear,” says
Steve, who therefore tied with Harvey on four
faults after round one. “I couldn’t help but be
pleased for the old horse because he jumped
his heart out, but he deserved to win a Derby.
So I was disappointed that it was a second and