The 26-year-old Yorkshireman is in line for a £233,000 ($358,000) jackpot if he can become only the second rider in history to win consecutive titles at the Badminton, Burghley and Kentucky horse trials.

But after being stranded by the closure of Britain’s airports he is now enduring the most testing three-day event of his life as he struggles to get to Lexington in time for the competition which starts on Thursday (April 22).

The only available flight Townend could find to get the United States was a charter plane taking children to Disneyland from Madrid.

And Townend will be even more eager to get his hands on the jackpot now having spent £1,600 on a 14-hours night taxi ride from the French to the Spanish capital which took him across the Pyrenees.

As he waited for his flight, Townend said: "Like everyone else, I’m here waiting for a plane out of Europe.

"This has to have been the most bizarre 24 hours of my sporting life.

"It’s like a movie script, which is ironic because the only flight I can get out of here is a Spanish charter to Miami and Disneyland.

"I’ve got to find a way to get from Miami to Lexington, Kentucky and that’s where the story really begins."

As he was making his dash across the border, Townend reflected: "I got to Paris and I knew that I had to persuade someone to drive me to Madrid.

"I just thought ‘Yorkshire’s not that different to French’ so I grabbed a bloke and explained that I had to get to Madrid.

"I am sitting in the back of a cab, trying to keep the drivers awake. It’s costing me £1,600 and its going to take 14 hours but I’m determined to get to Kentucky.

"My entire career has been building up to a moment like this and I’m not going to let it slip away just because of a volcano in Iceland.

"I want to be there to represent Britain and this is the biggest moment of my career so far and the biggest event of the year.

"To be honest, I’m trying to see it as an adventure.

"It was pretty funny to see a Yorkshireman grabbing hold of a Parisian taxi driver and saying, ‘Take me to Madrid’.

"This is where the Yorkshire grit kicks in.

"A lot of other people are going through far worse because of this situation but my attitude is ‘I have a job to do and I’m going to do my best to make sure that I’m there when the competition starts.’

"This has to be one of the most surreal situations I’ve ever found myself in.

"I’m in the back of a taxi speeding across the Pyrenees and on Thursday, I’ll be on my horse in Kentucky.

"It doesn’t get much more exciting than this."

Townend’s incredible journey had begun on Sunday morning with a 30-miles car journey from his stables in Shropshire to Crewe, where he caught the train to London.

From there he took the Eurostar to Paris.

He is due to arrive in Miami later today and will stay overnight before flying to Atlanta, and then on to Lexington, where he is due to join his two horses, Ashdale Cruise Master and ODT Master Rose, who travelled last week.

Earlier this month, Townend said it would be "almost a miracle" if he could emulate the only other rider to have won the Grand Prix, Britain’s Pippa Funnell, who managed the feat seven years ago.

That is looking more and more like a conservative estimation.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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