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HISTORY was made at the Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials when Nicolas Touzaint became the first French rider ever to win the most prestigious four-day event in the world.

Having been only ninth after the dressage phase, he stormed around Hugh Thomas's tricky and demanding cross country course, which caught out many top riders and Olympic hopefuls, to finish on a score of 44.4.

In high spirits after his brilliant ride on Saturday, Touzaint was confident that he could maintain the lead even though the top four competitors had little margin for error going into the final show jumping section.

Touzaint's chance was undoubtedly helped by third-placed Polly Stockton, on Tom Quigley, lowering three poles and dropping to sixth place.

William Fox-Pitt and Ballincoola had just one fence down, moving them up the pecking order to third.

Cornwall's Lucy Wiegersma and Shaabrak needed a clear round to really put the pressure on the Frenchman, but they too had four faults.

So Nicolas, 27, with his eight year-old bay gelding, Hildago de l'Ile, entered the tense arena as the last competitor knowing he could afford no more than one mistake. He duly had just one fence down, before doing several laps of the arena to huge cheers from the crowd.

His Badminton success was no great surprise for Nicolas is the current European eventing champion and a member of the French gold medal team at the Athens Olympics.

At Badminton 2007, he and Hildago de l'Ile retired on cross country day, although they went on to win the four star event at Pau last October.

"To win Badminton has always been my dream - even more than my Olympic medal and the European title," said a delighted and emotional Touzaint, who paid tribute to his father Jean-Yves and uncle Thierry, who both rode at the Olympics for France.

9:48pm Tuesday 6th May 2008

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