Finduss PFB, the ride of Australia’s rider Sammi Birch at Mars Badminton Horse Trials, is known as Loopy Louis, because “he’s a bit of a lunatic most of the time”.
Sammi, 47, moved to the UK in 2005 and is based near Cirencester. She said the 15-year-old Dutch-bred KWPN gelding she co-owns with Parkfield Breeding has come to Badminton “fitter than he’s ever been and he still felt it, so it was a little bit like sitting on a ticking time bomb [in the dressage].
“I don’t know what it is with these horses, they just get stronger and fitter,” said Sammi. “The work this week has just not hit the sides. So I sort of had a feeling I may be in trouble.
“It’s a bit cool. I was hoping it was going to be 40 degrees — it wasn’t. Anyway, it’s a long way round on Saturday [cross-country day] and hopefully I can make up for it then.”
Nervous energy
Sammi took on the ride from Holly Woodhead in 2019 and said he has always been highly strung.
“He just finds all this nervous energy that he can’t get rid of,” she explained. “He doesn’t really eat or drink when he’s here so he’ll get home on Sunday and take a breath.
“But he’s an athlete and I certainly wouldn’t want to be sitting on anything else on Saturday.”
Sammi added that Loopy Louis is a big character at home as well.
“He’s hard to manage in every way in the stable,” she said. “I think he’s autistic or something. He’s a lovely, sweetest person — I can let my kids sit on him, pat him, do whatever, but he just can’t cope with the atmosphere [at Badminton] really.”
Main image by Tim Wilkinson
