EVENT director Hugh Thomas believes the winner of next week’s Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials will have booked their place on the plane to the Rio Olympic Games this summer.

Thomas and course designer Guiseppe Della Chiesa are in charge of the international 4-star event and are optimistic that a strong field of riders, who include Olympic champion Michael Yung and British team members William Fox Pitt and Zara Phillips, will saddle up for the first section of the event, which starts on Thursday, May 5 with Games selection in mind.

“Badminton is the top level of international Horse Trials and there always a frisson of excitement in an Olympic year. No rider who has won Badminton has ever been left out of that Olympic team by their selectors,” said Thomas.

However, traditional course routes for the cross country section have been cast aside this year as riders are to be sent the same way out of the arena as last year, bucking the trend of alternate years taking alternate directions “The cross country course produces the result,” added Thomas.

But the organisers will be praying for a dry three days for competitors which can effect the outcome, particularly on Saturday May 7, the day the riders set out on the tough cross country element.

Thomas added: “Historically, the most important thing about Badminton is the weather, which effects the going around the course.

“We have to design and build to cater for changeable weather in advance.”

Entrants will have to be precise in the dressage element of Badminton before they take on the cross country day.

Some features of that cross country element are that there are now only two rather than three birch fences at the Alexanders Silver Birch, then the same large tree trunk, looking down the Avenue towards Worcester Lodge.

Last year, Savills Escalator was less hazardous than it could have been so more of a slalom effect is required this time.

The Devoucous Keepers Brush is the same as ever, but there is always the penultimate question at the Rolex Crossing.

It is different logs and different distance this time, then riders are finally back into the arena over the Mitsubishi Finale.

Thirty-three fences with 45 jumping efforts over a distance of about 6,500 metres (just over four miles), which will give an optimum time to be achieved to avoid time penalties of around 11 minutes 30 seconds.

Then it is to the show jumping element in the main arena at Badminton where the title will be decided.

This year, sponsors Mitsubishi have established the Mitsubishi Motors Cup, which gives amateur riders the opportunity to compete over the same famous ground as the professional riders, replacing the competition that was previously known as the Grassroots Championship.

The Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse trials takes place at the Duke of Beaufort’s Badminton Estate from Wednesday May 4 o Sunday May 8.