HIGHWORTH-BASED Paul Tapner will lead the local charge at the 2012 Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials.

The Aussie returns with his 2010 winner Inonothing, back in action after over a year out through injury for the event on May 3-7.

The horse sustained a serious injury at the World Equestrian Games in the USA in October 2010 and finally looks back on song, finishing second at the Aldon one-day event on his most recent outing.

Tapner’s countryman Andrew Hoy, now riding from a yard in Badbury near Swindon and a Badminton winner in 2006 on Moonfleet, has entered four-star debutante Rutherglen.

However, the horse is also entered at Kentucky a week earlier and Hoy will have to decide between the two events.

Andrew Nicholson, the Marlborough-based New Zealander who has yet to win Badminton in an otherwise glittering career, will chose two rides from Avebury, 10th last year, Shady Grey and Mr Cruise Control.

Membury’s Laura Collett, 22, will again ride Rayef after an outstanding debut in 2011, where they finished eighth with just one show jump down keeping them out of third, and went on to represent Team GB at the European Championships.

Another good result could well put them in line for an Olympic place.

Collett is also currently 12th on the wait list - Badminton can only accept 85 entries - with Noble Bestman but the pair are likely to get a run as other entries drop out before the big day.

It will be the turn of Hodson’s Tom McEwen, who turns 21 on May 10, to make his Badminton debut this time. He has entered the ex-racehorse Dry Old Party, who he started riding on the recommendation of eventing star Pippa Funnell.

The pair made a great four star debut when they were 19th at Burghley last autumn.

Little Cheverell-based Clayton Fredericks, whose wife Lucinda won the title in 2007 on the now-retired Headley Britannia, has entered Dunge’s Laurent Rose and Be My Guest.

Both horses will be making their Badminton debut but both have already proved their four star capabilities, with “Rosie” finishing fifth and ninth at Luhmuhlen and Pau last year and Be My Guest 5th at Kentucky in 2011 and third at Burghley a year earlier.

Another locally-based Aussie is Wendy Schaeffer on Koyuna Sun Dancer, already a four star winner in his native land.

Lower Stanton St Quinton’s Kitty King, seventh at Badminton back in 2005 on Five Boys, has entered High Havoc this time, who will be having his first crack at the event.

Other local hopes include Pewsey’s Fiona Hobby on her grey Warmblood mare Roma ML, West Littleton’s Harry Meade on the 11-year-old Wild Lone, just outside the top 20 in 2011 after jumping a quick clear cross country, and Dauntsey’s Beanie Sturgis on Lebowski, who made a promising four star debut at Pau last autumn.