New Beginnings

The new director of Badminton Horse Trials on starting at the bottom

- Kate Green

JANE TUCKWELL’S first job interview was at the age of 18, in the hunting field, when Col Frank Weldon, the fairly imperious director of Badminton Horse Trials, ‘rode round and round me and said “Well, young lady, I hear you didn’t do a bad job helping with the Pony Club championships. You’d better come to work for me”’.

Not many people wait 45 years for another interview, but that is what happened to Mrs Tuckwell when Col Weldon’s successor, Hugh Thomas, surprised the eventing world by announcing his retirement (after 30 years), on the Monday after this year’s event in May, and she was subsequently invited into Badminton House to talk to the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort. ‘I’d never been frightened of walking in there before, but I was then,’ she confesses.

‘I definitely thought, do I really want to do this? But there aren’t many chances to go in at the bottom—I mean, I used to go puce if Col Weldon even spoke to me —and come out at the top. I’ve been bowled over by the support I’ve received.’

Directing Badminton, the world’s oldest, richest and most famous horse trials, a major sporting event in its own right with about 160,000 plus visitors, is considered the plum job in equestrianism—Mr Thomas often said ‘I’m a lucky chap’—and speculation about his successor was rife.

In truth, no one else was in the running. The announcement that Badminton was to have its first female director in 70 years, and that it was to be the modest, discreet woman who, for decades, has calmed and charmed riders, volunteers and tradestand holders behind the scenes, has been extremely popular.