The pace has quickened yet again, and I cannot believe it is a month ago I put pen to paper.The Park is full of white tentage, the grandstands have their familiar red & white awnings in place and tracking is down. The toilets are arriving daily, more this year which I hope will help all! Holly Hopkins and Matt Whittle (who has arrived to assist) are having to keep their eyes skinned for contractors who perhaps are not in quite the right place!The Contractors site meeting took place at the beginning of April. Another part of the Badminton family all getting together again. The weather was kind and we enjoyed an outdoor meeting under the part built infamous scoreboard.A nice interlude was my birthday and thank you to all those who sent me good wishes, I was quite overwhelmed, be it rather embarrassed it hit our social media! The team gifted me a flying lesson and I was thrilled to be able to fly over the park and see the build taking place. This month, the real hit on social media has been the photoshoot at The Manor House Hotel, Castle Coombe (our Official Hotel) which included amazing photos of Susie Berry, Caroline Harris and Harry Meade.As well as welcoming back MARS Equestrian and many of our regular sponsors, we also welcome Rathbones, Ramsbury Gin and Knight Frank alongside Manor House as mentioned above.The LeMieux Grassroot Championship entries closed on the same day as they held their Media Day at Badminton and a fun and interesting day was had by all, which included James Willis (Course Designer) leading a course walk and explaining his ideas behind some of the fences. There is a wonderful course awaiting those that will compete in this competition.The International course is looking in good shape. Thanks to the weather pattern this spring, no watering has been required to date but the system is in place to start immediately should all start to change.We also welcomed our Veterinary team for their annual pre-meeting Celia Marr (from Newmarket) and Ollie Crowe were both kind enough to give interesting talks, although I have to admit quite a lot of what was said went over my head veterinary words being used that I have never heard of! It is a useful day for exchanges of thoughts, and I am very grateful to all who were able to give up their time to come to Badminton. We also recognised Paul Farrington, who has retired from the veterinary team, having been with us since 1993.Our technology team has been very busy over the winter and spring. Along with our continued success of Badminton TV (where, as usual, all the action will be shown), our new app has been a real hit with everyone, particularly the Score My Test feature providing a little armchair judging fun, I know Andrew Tuckers a big fan! New for this year, were introducing Badminton Plus, a new membership that provides access to the live broadcast of Radio Badminton, plus if youre joining us at the event youll benefit from some exclusive bargains in the shopping village too. Click here if you would like to find out more.Lastly, I was very privileged over the weekend to attend The Flowers Band final rehearsal before they set off this week to represent England in the European Brass Band Championships. We wish them all the luck in Austria and hope we will be celebrating a win when they are playing at Badminton on the Sunday of the event!So, we are nearly there not long now until the competitors will be competing for the largest horse trials prize fund in the world with a minimum total fund of 427,450.00 and the winner taking home 125,000.00, alongside the stunning Badminton trophy.I much look forward to seeing all those of you that will be attending the MARS Equestrian Badminton Horse Trials. Lets have fun!