I am in a dreamworld – Record-breaking Laura Collett wins Badminton title

Olympic gold medallist Laura Collett admitted she was in a “dreamworld” after winning her first Badminton Horse Trials title in record-breaking fashion.

Not only did Collett land the £100,000 top prize aboard her Tokyo Games ride London 52, her final score of 21.4 penalties was the lowest in Badminton’s 73-year history.

The 32-year-old Gloucestershire rider finished 4.6 penalties ahead of Britain’s reigning world champion Ros Canter, riding Lordships Graffalo, after a nerveless showjumping performance.

And with Collett’s Tokyo gold medal-winning colleague Oliver Townend taking third on Swallow Springs it meant a first-all British Badminton podium since 2002.

“This morning, it really hit me after Saturday’s cross-country,” said Collett.

“I am in a dreamworld. My goodness, that horse. He just jumped higher and higher out there.

“Piggy (fourth-placed defending Badminton champion Piggy March) said to me ‘you wouldn’t swap the horse, would you,’ and I said ‘no, but I would swap the rider’!

This horse owes me nothing- Badminton Horse Trials winner Laura Collett

“He is just exceptional, and he has truly shown the world everything that I always believed in him.”

It was Badminton’s first staging since 2019 because of the coronavirus pandemic, and Collett added: “We have missed it and we’ve missed the crowds. It is great to be back.

“This horse owes me nothing. He has given me my first five-star win (at Pau in France two years ago) and an Olympic gold medal, and yesterday was the biggest, most intense cross-country course he has ever seen.”

A first Badminton title is Collett’s latest major achievement during a career that has also seen her suffer adversity.

A terrible cross-country fall at an event in Hampshire almost nine years