Meet the 67-year-old groom working at Burghley – why Mags Hill loves going to events, the time she met the Queen Mother and more
After 50 years’ experience working with horses, Mags Hill – groom to Simon Grieve – reveals her favourite memories
We’re probably all guilty of carrying a stereotypical image of a groom as a young person – it’s a tough physical job, requiring plenty of energy, and in many cases, national and international travel. Mags Hill, groom to Simon Grieve at this week’s Defender Burghley Horse Trials defies that stereotype.
Mags is 67 years old and she’s worked with horses for 50 years.
“I was born into the hunting fraternity, because my dad was a huntsman in Devon. So we were brought up with horses and hounds. I used to ride my dad’s hunter when when I was a little nipper and play cowboys and Indians with my brother,” says Mags.
Mags was a serious runner in her teenage years.
“I used to run for the county. I was an 800m runner and I could do that in under two minutes,” she says.
“I quite enjoyed that until I damaged my knee when I was 16 and that put an end to that career. They said I could have surgery, but I thought, ‘Well, what’s the point? It’ll only give me another six months and then it’s going to be back to where it was.’ So I picked horses back up and came back into this world.”
Mags started helping with the hunt at weekends and then was employed there full-time when she left school.
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Over her five decades working with horses, she’s covered a huge range of areas – thoroughbred studs, racing, hunt groom (“I worked at one of the famous hunts of the world for 17 seasons, under my sister, who was head groom, but perhaps I shouldn’t say which pack”), point-to-pointing and showing.
“I used to ride, but I don’t ride any more because I broke my leg quite badly in two places in two separate incidents,” she says. “I’ve got a metal plate with screws in and screws in my foot attached to the plate. The surgeon said, ‘If you have another fall Mags, you will lose your foot.’ So the decision’s made for you. But I’ve got my foot and I’m here. I can still work, I can still run around after Simon.”
Mags Hill, groom to Simon Grieve: ‘Going to events is like a mini holiday’
Working for Simon is Mags’ first job in eventing and she has been with him for 14 years. She works in a team of three on the yard, with her daughter Amanda Singer and Brooke Rodwell. Amanda has two children, six-month-old Matilda and three-year-old Stanley.
Mags has already hit the shops at Burghley: “Amanda says, ‘Mum, don’t buy anything’, but you can’t come to these places and not buy something for the grandkids. They’ve got loads of toys, so I bought them a sweatshirt each.”
Brooke and Amanda go to the one-day events with Simon, while Mags’ role is to look after the yard on those days – plaiting, bathing and preparing horses for the next day’s competition – and then to travel to stay-away fixtures.
She says: “It gets me away from the yard, because I’m there all the time and I live there too. Coming away is like having a little mini holiday, isn’t it? That’s what we say when Simon and I get in the lorry, ‘Oh we’re off on a mini holiday again.’
“I’ve been around quite a lot of places with Simon. Ballindenisk, Pau and my favourite is Le Lion, for the young horse championships – it’s lovely there and everything is so relaxed.”
Mags says she has always been competitive, whether in running, racing or now in eventing. She doesn’t get nervous.
“I love to watch – I’ll watch on the screen for cross-country,” she says. “In racing, you go to the paddock with the horse. You lead it up. You put the jockey on. You let it go, and it comes back, and it’s more or less the same here. You put him on, you send him off, he comes back. It’s not that much more difficult.
“I don’t walk the course any more. I used to, when I was younger, but I’m getting older now, it’s a long way round and it’s quite hilly. My little legs get tired.”
Mags with Autograf in his stable at Burghley: “Sometimes he just marches off with me, but he does listen”
Mags says Simon’s ride Autograf (Buster) can be a bit more grumpy when he’s fit and knows where he is, but it’s clear he has plenty of respect for his tiny groom.
“We were going back down the ski run here earlier in the week,” she says, indicating the slope out of the collecting ring, “and I said to Buster, ‘I don’t want to be going down here on my bottom, Buster’ because it was slippery, and Buster really slowed down and was very good. Sometimes he just marches off with me, but he does listen.”
Mags and I are speaking on Friday evening at Burghley. Her plan for today, cross-country day, was to feed Buster at 7am, muck out, take him for a walk, give him a few hours to chill out and then start to get him ready for his 1.05pm start time.
After cross-country, Brooke and Amanda will be there to help Mags and they’ll stick to the same routine as last year, when Simon had a great round to finish 18th. Mags will lead Buster for the critical post cross-country minutes and the others will be in charge of washing off.
“Everybody knows what job they’re doing tomorrow and if they don’t I’ll shout at them,” she says.
Mags emphasises that increasing recognition for grooms in the industry is a positive move, recognising the long hours they put in to support riders and owners.
“Sometimes you just need a little bit of love yourself, if that’s what you can call it – Simon does that. He brings breakfast in most mornings and when we go away, I don’t have to buy anything, he buys it all,” she says.
Mags’ favourite memories
Mags picks out three favourite memories from her many years’ experience.
“We were doing a hound parade at the Royal Show and Concorde flew over. We had a picture of the hounds and hunt staff in the middle of the arena and Concorde above them. I think the picture made the front cover of the Horse & Hound,” she says (we’re working on the fact checking here…).
“And then we went to Chatsworth to parade there and we had seven packs of foxhounds, four packs of beagles, three sets of basset hounds, all in the arena at the same time. We were trying to keep that lot all separate to do each parade, then at the end they all went in the middle and we put them in one lorry.
“Then we had to sort them all out and that was quite funny. We still ended up with some of somebody else’s hounds and the huntsman had to ring up the neighbouring packs to come and pick up their hounds.”
Finally, Mags talks about the fact Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother’s successful National Hunt horses Colonius and Isle Of Man retired to go hunting with the pack she worked for.
“We were very privileged that she sent them to us, privileged to look after and ride them,” she says.
“And she came to see us all – she took the time to talk to every single one of us on the establishment and she even shook hands with the children, which they thought was lovely. How many people have that privilege to meet the Queen Mum?”
After all Mags’ experience, she surely knows how to manage riders as well as horses. Her top tip if Simon’s ever in a bad mood? Give him an hour to calm down “and then I’ll take him a biscuit”.
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Pippa is a true eventing geek and has been H&H’s eventing editor since 2005. She has first-hand experience of competing up to British Eventing intermediate and international CCI2*-L level, and has worked in the industry on a top event yard. Pippa enjoys nothing more than immersing herself in the sport at the highest level, reporting from the five-stars and international championships, including the Olympics.