Kiwi equestrian Tim Price has finished as runner-up at the Mars Badminton Horse Trials in Gloucestershire, riding Sue Benson’s 17-year-old gelding Falco to a clear show-jumping round on Sunday that lifted him from equal fifth overnight to second place.
Price ended the five-star event on a final score of 33.9 penalties, behind Britain’s Ros Canter, who became the first rider in history to win Badminton three times in succession with Lordships Graffalo on a winning total of 25.7.
The result is Price’s best at Badminton in a career that already includes wins at Burghley and Kentucky. His previous best at the Gloucestershire event came back in 2017, when he placed third aboard Xavier Faer. He confirmed in the prizegiving area that he had been chasing a result like this for some time.
He told Horse and Hound that the Sunday placing felt like a long-awaited reward for the partnership with Falco. “I’ve always said it – when he was making mistakes [across country] at two- and three-star level, the thing I was desperate to get to was a Sunday at a long-format event, a significant one,” Price said. “I’ve had a few of those Sundays now.”
Price went into the show-jumping phase carrying both pressure and pain. Three weeks before Badminton he broke his collarbone in a cycling accident in the Netherlands. He still rode two horses to good finishes at the Kentucky Three-Day Event in late April, then went under the surgeon’s knife a second time so the bone could be plated more securely before he flew to England.
Despite the injury, Falco picked up only four time-faults across the testing Eric Winter cross-country track on Saturday, a round that RNZ Sport described as one of the standout efforts of the day. The clear inside the time over Sunday’s twisting Kelvin Bywater show-jumping course then sealed the runner-up cheque.
Falco himself has one of the more remarkable stories on the international circuit. The little gelding has won Pau in France, finished second at Maryland 5 Star, earned double world championship bronze and placed sixth at the Paris Olympics. He underwent surgery for a tumour in October 2023, had his front teeth removed earlier in 2026, and is now 17 years old. His owner, British eventer Sue Benson, is herself a former Badminton runner-up from 1979 and has produced the horse over many years.
Price spoke warmly about Falco’s character after the prizegiving, telling Badminton Horse Trials that the horse repays trust with everything he has. “Falco is a fantastic little horse, all head and heart. If he’s enjoying it and his confidence is there, he gives me everything,” Price said.
He was not the only New Zealander on the Badminton scoreboard. Young rider Tayla Mason finished sixth on Centennial after a clean show-jumping round, a result that puts her firmly on the list of Kiwis to watch as the team rebuilds towards Los Angeles 2028. According to Equestrian Life, six New Zealand combinations lined up at the start of the event. They included reigning 2024 champion Caroline Powell with Greenacres Special Cavalier and High Time, Jonelle Price with Chilli’s Midnight Star, and Jesse Campbell aboard Cooley Lafitte.
Tim and Jonelle Price, who are based in Wiltshire and run a busy eventing yard with their two children, have spent more than a decade as the most successful husband-and-wife pairing in the sport. Jonelle won Badminton in 2018 on Classic Moet, while Tim has now finished on the Badminton podium twice, with two Burghley titles and a Kentucky win to go alongside this latest placing. Their consistency at the top of five-star eventing has helped keep New Zealand near the front of a sport historically dominated by Britain, Germany and France.
Canter’s victory came against the backdrop of her becoming a mother last year, and she added two time penalties to her show-jumping round to seal the title with Lordships Graffalo. Britain’s Harry Meade dropped from second to third on Annaghmore Valoner after rolling a single fence in the final phase. With Canter’s three-peat, Tim Price’s runner-up effort, Mason’s top-six placing and Powell still flying the flag for the country that won here last year, the 2026 edition was in many ways another reminder that Kiwi riders continue to punch well above their weight on the most demanding days of the eventing calendar.
The runner-up cheque at Badminton is worth around £85,000 in prize money, but as Price acknowledged in the mixed zone, the deeper currency for him this weekend was the validation of a long-running partnership. Falco was bought as a young horse with potential, struggled with the consistency required at the lower levels, and has spent the past four years quietly turning into one of the most reliable five-star horses in the sport.
Price now turns his attention to the European summer five-star calendar and to recovery from his second collarbone operation, with Burghley in early September the next major target on his diary. Falco, all 17 years, missing front teeth and all, looks set to be there with him.
What did you make of Tim Price’s runner-up ride at Badminton, and which of the New Zealand combinations would you back to bring home the title in 2027? Drop us a comment below, we’d love to hear from you.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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