Headley Britannia is to retire, eventer Lucinda Fredericks has revealed to H&H in an exclusive interview in today’s magazine (15 March).
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Read today’s magazine for exclusive news of Brit’s retirement plan“Brit”, who is 19, will formally retire at Badminton Horse Trials (3-7 May) – the four-star event she won in 2007 – and not try for Olympic selection.
Team Fredericks decided to draw a line under Brit’s amazing career having felt the preparation runs required, in the lead up to a possible Olympic entry, would be too risky.
“She is so valuable to us that I could never forgive myself if I had asked her to compete one more time at this level and something had happened to her,” said Lucinda.
Brit was the first mare to win Burghley in 33 years when she took the four-star event in 2006 and the first mare in 53 years to win Badminton, in 2007.
When she won Kentucky in 2009, she became only the second horse ever to win three different four-stars (Pippa Funnell’s Primmore’s Pride was the first).
But because of hard ground she has not competed at advanced level since coming second at Chatsworth in 2010.
Her most recent outing was the open intermediate at Tweseldown last year, which she won.
In December Lucinda told H&H that she hoped to compete her for “one more season” at top level.
But she made the decision to retire Brit after a lot of soul searching.
“She has been a part of our family for 10 years and owes us nothing more,” she told H&H.
