AT the start of this year, Caroline Powell and owner Chris Mann played a game of “This or That”.
“You know, ‘Vegemite or Marmite’, ‘gin or vodka’, ‘Jelly Beans or Wine Gums’,” says the Kiwi rider. “And then Chris said, ‘Badminton or Olympics?’
“He said Olympics and I said, ‘Tough, we're going to Badminton.’ I knew what the right answer was, I just needed to get an idea of what and where he was thinking, but Badminton was always the first plan for her.”
“Her” is, of course, Greenacres Special Cavalier (Cav), the 11-year-old mare by Cavalier Royale who excelled throughout the three phases to swoop to victory on Badminton's final day. Caroline's plan came to perfect fruition – “I think it worked out quite well,” she says, deadpan – and with that success putting her right into the reckoning for the New Zealand team, it might just be a case of having both this and that.
But the Badminton plan was hatching long before the start of this season. Much has been made of Cav's debut there in the wet last year, when she had two stops en route to finishing last of the 30 combinations who completed. From last to
