From riding school to the podium: how eventing silver medallist worked her way from a city childhood to the under-25 World Championships

If you were to design an elite event horse, Kananaskis probably wouldn’t be the prototype. Now 18 years old, he stands just 15.1hh, with legs made of proverbial glass and is – according to his rider Cerys Macaulay – only “18% thoroughbred”. He’s had the best part of three years out of the game, due to Covid and injuries, and requires an unconventional work routine.

Yet, this brilliant little horse has jumped clear round two junior and a young rider Europeans, several Nations Cups and a five-star. This year, well into veteran status, he was crowned runner-up at the under-25 World Championships at Millstreet and the equivalent national class at Bramham.

“The horse’s record is ridiculous,” says Cerys. “He’s been abroad more times than most people have been on holiday.”

Cerys started riding “Ru” only two years ago, when he was rehabbing from an operation. Up until then he’d been campaigned by her boyfriend Richard Coney. But he was in the last-chance saloon in terms of his competitive future.

“He had an injury to his right leg in 2021; the following spring he did his left leg – then had surgery on the right one,” Cerys explains.

“Richard said, ‘I’m a bit big for him anyway – why don’t you rehab him and see if you can keep him in any sort of work?’ I’m so grateful to Richard and his mother Wendy for giving me this opportunity.”

Cerys spent the winter hacking, “mooching about” (though he’s cheeky to hack), played around at a few novices and by the end of the season they finished fourth at Cornbury three-star.

Cerys, who runs a rehab business, Honington Grange Equine Rehabilitation, manages Ru very carefully. Most of his daily work is on the water treadmill and trotting up hills. He rarely goes in the school, and has regular Hofmag sessions (pulsed electromagnetic therapy) plus time in the salt and oxygen room to boost his respiration and coat.

Cerys says it’s a combination of this nurture and his zest for the game that makes him so successful.

“He tries very hard and he’s also really athletic in his body,” she adds. “He doesn’t do any galloping and we hardly jump him; he just does as much low-intensity work as he needs. He’s probably not as fast or fit as he could be, but he’s sound and in one piece.

“At Millstreet, he was jumping to the top of the wings. He loves going to a party. He shouts his head off when he arrives at a show and then drags my groom Liv Smith around like he’s saying, ‘I’m the man, look at me!’ You can tell it’s his thing.”

Cerys doesn’t seem one to shout about her ambitions, but this year’s were very modest when you consider what she’s achieved.

“I thought we might as well give the under-25 trials a crack seeing as he’s such a good horse and it’s my last year,” she says. “And he ended up at the World Championships.”

The pair stole through the field from their 12th-placed dressage mark – then after a fast cross-country round leapfrogged from seventh to silver with a clear showjumping.

“I didn’t think I could ride well under pressure but when you have to get it done, I seem to be able to think, ‘Come on, let’s do it,’” she says. “I was surprised by how well I rode in the showjumping because I was really nervous. My team was winding me up because my heart rate was over 200 beats per minute during my round!

“And then, when everyone was waiting to go into prize-giving, they all had to wait while Ru decided he needed to wee,” she laughs. “Every time he goes into an arena, whether it’s at home or a show, he’ll pretend he needs to wee, standing with his legs really far apart for ages.”

While Kananaskis is a gloriously eccentric star of eventing, Cerys has taken an equally unconventional route into the sport. Her professionalism is impressive by any stretch, even more when you consider how relatively new she is to the sport.

She grew up in the suburbs of Manchester in a non-equestrian family, and got her horsey fix in a riding school until the age of 14. Call it chance or destiny, but the fork in her life that led down the eventing path has a serendipitous ring to it.

“My stepdad sold a car to a man whose daughter did a bit of eventing,” she explains. “He said, ‘My daughter would like to get into eventing but we don’t have a clue what we’re doing.’

Cerys ended up moving her ex-riding school pony to the daughter of the buyer’s yard and entering the eventing world.

“I only did a couple of events – it was my birthday treat – and got eliminated,” Cerys smiles.

Her first two ponies were both riding school rejects.

“The first one was a four-year-old that a lot of people fell off and the riding school was closing down,” says Cerys. “The manager asked mum if we’d have him and although she said no, they persuaded us it wouldn’t be that expensive on working livery. That was my mum’s worst financial mistake ever!”

During Covid, Cerys found she had extra time on her hands while studying for a degree in rehab and exercise science, and started working for Tyler Cassells, where her horse was on livery. She had a four-year-old she couldn’t get on with; Tyler had a novice schoolmaster, Dooney Rock, he was happy to let her ride – and so they swapped.

“I loved Dooney Rock,” Cerys says. “He was fantastic across country and took me to intermediate, but not in a particularly stylish fashion. I was always last.”

By now she was going out with Richard, who let her compete his 17.1hh three-star horse Drumconnick Cavalier (George), “the one that set me up”.

“George was my first proper horse; he made me think I could do this seriously,” she says. “We didn’t think he’d do as well as he did but in less than 18 months we went from novice to four-star. It wasn’t really planned, but he was a kind horse who didn’t mind if I got it wrong.”

She’s now based at Richard’s yard in Lincolnshire, renting a barn from the Coneys alongside fellow eventers Holly Woodhead and James Avery. It looks like a typical eventing set-up – a mix of competition horses, schooling liveries and breakers – but Cerys’ grind behind the scenes is extraordinary.

She also runs her rehab barn with the water treadmill, salt room, combi floor and Hofmag machine. In her dwindling spare time, she’s also a professional equestrian and pet photographer. In Covid she even worked as an HGV driver.

Her family has instilled a serious work ethic. As we speak on a Friday lunchtime, she’s already ridden 10 horses and an afternoon of admin lies ahead before another day on the road visiting yards with the Hofmag machine.

“My grandparents and my mum were always really supportive, but they said ‘Riding’s not a career, you can’t play ponies all day – you need a job and then you can play ponies,’” Cerys says. “The rehab barn pays the bills, that’s what funds the eventing yard. It’s that age-old thing of trying to get more owners.

“I can’t have a day off because I’m always on my phone – booking the farrier or organising water treadmill sessions. If not I’ll miss out on business opportunities.”

The work is endless, but the results are coming. She ticked off this year’s goals by the summer, yet there’s no sense of complacency or assumption that she’s made it. Kananaskis will be 19 next year, and Cerys is building from the bottom up.

“With Ru, my goal is just to keep him sound and happy,” she says. “If he looks like he wants to keep going, great, but he doesn’t have to do four-star. He needs a job, but he could also do prix st georges dressage or jumping, and just have a nice time.

“My ultimate aim is to do a five-star, particularly Badminton as I grew up going there every year. To do that well would give me a lot of satisfaction.”

Next season she’ll be out of the under-25 category, and finds the idea of “aiming for senior teams, being British, quite scary”.

“If I had a horse that was good enough, of course I’d think about that, but for now I want to keep producing nice young horses well and maybe doing some Nations Cups – that’s a great way of getting team experience without so much pressure.”

The wonderful Ru may be coming to the end of his remarkable story, but for Cerys, this is just the beginning.

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