As the eventing season begins, H&C's Jenny Rudall took a trip to Tweseldown to eye up the talent and see which riders look set for a great season. 

“With Badminton just a few weeks away I was keen to see what kind of form the top horses and riders were in so I headed to one of the first big events of the season at Tweseldown.

Ruth has the dressage Edge

As soon as I pulled into Tweseldown Racecourse on day one to watch the Intermediate and the Open Intermediate One Day Event. I immediately recognised Ruth Edge starting her dressage, and was sure that this would be one to watch.  Ruth is not only a top eventer, but competes in pure dressage too and she stood out as exceptional on the flat and moved with ease on her horse in a way not all event riders can manage. 

Toddy and his Vision 

I recommend to all riding fans that spending time watching the warm up arena at any competition will help your own riding, and at Tweseldown a plethora of top names were there to show you their warm up techniques. 

I was keen to watch Mark Todd on Land Vision after hearing his claims that this horse is one of the best on the circuit.  I was slightly disappointed at first, as from a distance the horse lacked presence. My disappointment ended when I saw him jump.  Usually Mark seems to be carrying less experienced horses round the course, but this horse jumped with ease and ability and I cannot wait to see how he gets on at Badminton when Mark actually pushes him.

A King with several horses and a princess without brakes

Over at the show jumping, I arrived in time to watch the lovely Jumbo mare and previous Badminton winner Headley Britannia put in a hoof perfect round.  She later proved that her owners were right to invest in embryo transfer and went on to win the class. 

With Mary King being a personal favourite and hero of mine, I was delighted to see her competing lots of horses and every time I turned around Oliver Townend and William Fox-Pitt seemed to be on a different mount. 

William Fox-Pitt's Macchiato surprisingly rolled one pole and I hope this won’t mean he'll leave him out of Badminton. He has five qualified horses to choose from so this horse needs to be on top form.

I'd not seen any of Zara Phillips' new horses, so I was keen to see her enter on Lord Lauries and surprised to see him wearing a bitless bridle. I stood next to Yogi Breisner, unashamedly eavesdropping, to hear if he has any comments on team selections.  Zara came out of the ring with eight faults and exclaimed to William Fox-Pitt that it was a bad idea to wear a hackamore - it seems she had left her breaks at home.

Big names even bigger fences cross country

The cross country course flowed and one steward delighted in telling me there hadn’t been a fall all day, but the time was tight with everyone picking up time penalties.

Pippa Funnell looked in good form on Billy Shannon and came in just behind Ruth Edge on Applejack, who caused me to dive into a hedge to avoid on the course as she came so fast around a corner - I guess I should watch where I stand next time!

Kitty King, Andrew Nicholson and Paul Tapner made the huge jumps look effortless but these top riders could get a donkey around this course. Inspiring stuff.

Eventing is a unique sport where you can end up competing against your heroes or even the odd princess. It's often free to go and watch which gives you an opprtunity to improve your riding by watching the best riders without spending a penny. Make a date to go to your local one day event and tell us who you spot there.

To see more results from the day visit the British Eventing website."