Sarah Clark

The Badminton debutante talks to Lucy Elder about her journey to five-star, the unorthodox Jeanz and the best three seconds of her life so far

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ONE winter morning in the Adelaide Hills, Sarah Clark hitched up her trailer and started the 10,000-mile journey to Burghley with her beloved horse LV Balou Jeanz.

Sarah had dreamt of riding at Burghley since she was a child. A dream fanned by her aunt in the UK, who would send her copies of Horse & Hound and VHS recordings of the BBC’s coverage of Badminton and Burghley.

Her remarkable journey ended with a fairy-tale result, completing with a clear cross-country jumping round at the event that had first lit the fire in Sarah’s belly from those old tapes and thumbed magazines.

She wasn’t sure if she could afford Jeanz’s return flight – she had thought as far as Burghley, but beyond that was an open chapter. As it turned out, it was cheaper to keep Jeanz in Wiltshire for the winter, and so Badminton will be their sequel.

“I had this discussion with my mum before we even put him on the plane, that even if it all went wrong, we didn’t regret trying, paying the money and putting him on the plane,” says the 34-year-old.

“It’s the same now. Even if we don’t make Badminton, I don’t regret trying and I don’t regret each step. Every step further down the path is more icing on the cake and more of a bonus. So if the next step is the last, that’s fine. He owes me nothing.”

Sarah flew home for the Australian summer to sell some horses to fund her Badminton campaign, leaving her pride and joy in the top-class care of David Doel and his team. It was of course a wrench, but she is endlessly grateful to the Doels for looking after him.