Castletown teenager Callum Staley is competing at the Mitsubishi Motors Grassroots Championships at Badminton Horse Trials today.
Badminton Grassroots is the amateur section of, and runs alongside, the Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials which is one of the biggest 4 Star (top level) events in the world and is televised every year.
The qualification process is a UK national competition with circa 14,000 horse-and-rider combinations competing in the British Eventing 90 section (90 being the height of the fences in centimetres) the class that Callum has qualified for has only 93 combinations progressing to the prestigious championships.
It’s a key year academically for 16-year-old Callum, who is studying for his GCSE’s. However Queen Elizabeth 11 High School have been very supportive of his achievement and are allowing Callum to sit his English GCSE in November because it clashes with today’s event.
Callum still cant believe he is riding on the hallowed turf at Badminton and is very proud to be flying the Manx flag. Isle of Man resident, Juliette Tranter is believed to be the only other rider to have represented the island at Badminton when she rode Orlando at the 2013 championships.
