The Olympic and World champion hopes to break his Badminton duck at last.

BLYTH TAIT would add an extra dimension to next month's Mitsubishi Badminton Horse Trials if he were to win the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event on Aspyring this weekend. The New Zealander won Burghley last year which, together with Kentucky and Badminton, offers a grand slam prize of nearly pounds 160,000 to any rider who wins all three contests.

ANDREW HOY and Bettina Overesch, who are based together at Gatcombe, completely dominated yesterday's PERA Pre-Badminton Dressage and Show Jumping Challenge by filling the top three places at the Grange Farm Equestrian Centre here.

WORLD NO one Peter Gade Christensen won his first All England title yesterday with a hard-fought 15-11, 7-15, 15-10 victory over the Indonesian teenager Taufik Hidayat.

Peter Gade Christensen of Denmark (foreground) takes control against Indonesia's Johan Hadikusuma during his straight-sets 17-15 15-8 quarter- final victory at the

MALAYSIA'S WOES deepened at the All England Championships at the National Indoor Arena, Birmingham, yesterday when their leading player, Rashid Sidek, limped out of the second round.

COLIN HAUGHTON, of Manchester, led the way at the Coventry Yonex All England Championships in Birmingham yesterday with a 12-15, 15-3, 15-4 win over a qualifier, Shyam Gupta of India. The 26-year-old England No 2 and standard-bearer in the absence of the men's and women's No 1s, Darren Hall and Julia Mann, overcame a shaky start to go through in 74 minutes, the longest match of the opening session.

Eventing, dressage and training are all the same to Harrogate's all-round success story.

FIFTY YEARS of three-day eventing in Britain, starting with the Olympic Games of 1948 and the inaugural event at Badminton the following year, are celebrated with a wonderful selection of photographs in Riding for Gold (Compass Equestrian, pounds 29.95).

Badminton: Steve Baddeley must develop a fresh image for the sport if England is to challenge the world's best

Backstage, technical problems slow things down.

OWEN MOORE'S pleasure in a highly successful season was severely dented when he had to miss the World Equestrian Games earlier this month.

A DECORATIVE woodcarving widely considered to be the finest work of art of its type has returned to Britain after an absence of more than 300 years.

Oh how we laughed (in the second half anyway). Steve Coogan's new stand-up show, "The Man Who Thinks He's It", created quite a stir this week when it opened in the West End. Yours truly did her duty and went along for the opening night, along with a celebrity audience whose collective cashflow could sort out the entire Russian deficit. Plus change for bortsch all round.