SAM Griffiths will be out to ruin an attempt for equestrian’s biggest prize and deny Olympic Games champion Michael Jung a cash bonanza at the Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials this week.

Australian Griffiths won the three-day event in 2014 and is back as one of the favourites to take the title on mount Paulank Brockagh.

But he will be up against a fired-up Jung, who will be looking to defend his individual eventing Olympic title in Rio later this year, when the action begins today.

Jung will be on La Biosthetique - Sam FBW as he bids to add the Badminton crown to other four-star eventing titles won in the past year, the 2015 Burghley Horse Trials and the 2016 Kentucky.

And, if he completes the treble, Jung will secure US350,000 dollars and the Rolex Grand Slam of Eventing prize.

Gloucestershire will have London Olympic Games team silver medallist Zara Tindall in the mix for the crown as well.

But Jung knows this is his big chance of a truly global achievement. He said: “It is a hard challenge as you can see, just one person has won it so far and so it is very special on a very high level. Badminton is a tough competition, it is a hard competition, but I will go there to try to win it!”

It is the second time that German Jung has competed at Badminton and he could have won it on his first attempt back in 2013 when he lead throughout the competition only to knock a pole off at the very last fence of the showjumping contest and hand the victory to New Zealander Jock Paget.

Other major names looking to steal Badminton from Jung’s grasp include New Zealand star Mark Todd, an Olympic medallist and four-times winner of Badminton, plus Britain’s Oliver Townend.

However, there have been a number of high-profile withdrawals from this year’s Badminton which include last year’s winner William Fox-Pitt and another big favourite for the title, Andrew Nicholson.