When Laura Collett won gold at the 2025 European Eventing Championships, she credited her partner London 52 as her “horse of a lifetime”, one who has far exceeded anything she ever dreamed he would achieve. But while the multi-garlanded “Dan” rules the roost, Laura Collett’s top horses and ponies from throughout her career have shaped her into the rider she now is, from a feral Welsh section A to her treble five-star winner.
In the issue of Horse & Hound magazine that Laura guest-edited (3 July, 2025), she picked out six of the horses in her life that have had the biggest influence on her career.
Laura Collett’s top horses
Penwayn Ryan – “Win or bust”
Penwayn Ryan standing supreme at Horse of the Year Show 2003.
(Image credit: Trevor Meeks)
Tubby, as we called him, was an 11.2hh Welsh section A that we got off the Welsh mountains as a feral, unbroken pony. I backed him and he ended up going supreme at Horse of the Year Show (HOYS) when I was 13. That was really my farewell to showing, which I’d been doing since I was six.
I remember thinking that he might just bolt back to the lorry. He did it once at Royal Three Counties, turned round and bolted out of the arena midway through!
Tubby was the first to teach me about the highs and lows of the sport – it was win or bust. It felt pretty epic just to get to HOYS; going supreme was a final hurrah.
Noble Springbok – “He set me up for life”
Noble Springbok, en route to individual bronze at the pony Europeans in Pratoni, 2005
(Image credit: creditUnknown)
My pony of a lifetime. He had a one-line advert in Horse & Hound in a job lot from the Noble working hunter yard, saying: “Five-year-old, 14.2hh potential showjumper/event pony.” He’d grown too big to be a 14hh working hunter, so he was a chuck-out.
“Spring” was the first pony I went to see when I decided I wanted to do something more exciting than showing. I fell in love with him, as any 13-year-old kid would on a cool pony, but Mum was adamant we weren’t buying the first pony we saw. But as I’d always had one of my own to buy and sell, and I’d just sold a Welsh section B, it was technically my money.
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Mum said, “Well if you want to buy him, you phone up and do the deal yourself.” So I did.
We did the Pony Club championships the following year, then pony trials. At our first Europeans we won team gold and individual bronze – it was mad!
Selling him was the hardest thing. He would have jumped round Badminton. He was like a horse on short legs, an absolute jumping machine, and though he hated dressage I was quite good at covering things up!
Yogi Breisner originally advised me to keep him for juniors until he found out how much he could be worth. He said, “You’ve got to sell him as he’ll set you up for life,” which is exactly what he did. We bought four horses, a horse walker and a horsebox, and put a lot of money in the bank.
Walnut – “The one that stopped me giving up”
Laura’s first horse, Walnut, second from left.
(Image credit: creditUnknown)
Walnut was my first horse – and the only one that I hadn’t produced from the beginning. He was a schoolmaster who’d been there, done it and got the T-shirt. We had him on loan and he was a legend in the Heythrop branch of the Pony Club.
He was 15.2hh but rode more like a pony than Spring – you just had to keep kicking. We did two years of Pony Club and JRN (junior regional novice) championships. He scored my first three-day win, which was the last three-day with roads, tracks and steeplechase.
Spring was injured the second year I had him, and I was heartbroken. “Wally” was the only horse I had at that level and had it not been for him I probably wouldn’t have carried on eventing.
Rayef – “He taught me the highs and lows”
“A cute horse with a pretty face” – Rayef.
(Image credit: Trevor Meeks)
Rayef (Henry) was one of the four I bought from selling Spring. I was flicking absent-mindedly through a magazine, and saw an advert for a cute horse with a pretty face.
He was with a 69-year-old man who’d done 90cm showjumping with him. He was advertised as a 16.1hh potential eventer, and was miles away in Cumbria. When we arrived he was closer to 17hh and bronced and bucked after fences. Mum said, “No way,” but after driving all that way I said, “I’m at least sitting on him!”
Again, because it was technically my money and he had a pretty face, I said, “You made me sell Spring, I’m buying him”.
But he did junior and young rider Europeans, winning team and individual gold at both, then I naively went to Badminton in my first year in seniors and finished in the top 10.
It all seemed so easy – until it wasn’t! We had a disaster at my first senior Europeans, so it went from the best to the worst year, and he was rather injury-prone after that. He really taught me the highs and lows as he’d either win or I’d fall off.
Fernhill Sox – “Heart is more important than talent”
Fernhill Sox, the hunter-turned-winner.
(Image credit: H&H Archives)
Sox was the first owner’s horse I rode. Mary Hambro wanted me to event him to make him into a nicer hunter for her, but I quickly realised he was a real winner, found her another nice hunter and kept the ride.
He was an absolute saint, who taught me that heart and attitude are more important than natural ability. He didn’t move well and jumped in an unorthodox way, but all he wanted to do was leave the jumps up and put his best foot forward in the dressage.
I remember having a lesson with Tim Stockdale and he said, “This horse has to make a shape. It’s ridiculous he doesn’t bend his legs,” but he’d just go higher and higher with his straight legs – you couldn’t change him.
I won my first advanced and did my first four-star on him – and won the under-21 national championship at Weston Park. He won individual junior European gold and every three-day he did.
He showed me that it doesn’t really matter how they do it, as long as they want to.
London 52 – “My horse of a lifetime”
London 52 gilds an already brilliant career with individual gold at the Blenheim Europeans 2025.
(Image credit: Peter Nixon)
I was in Peter Thomsen’s yard in Germany looking for a cheap four-year-old to produce and sell, when I saw London 52 (Dan) trotting around. I said, “I want that one.” Peter said he was seven and out of my £10,000 budget, but I said, “I’ll find a way.” I’m so lucky Keith Scott and Karen Bartlett could come on board to help me buy him.
Dan didn’t do a three-day until he was eight, then won Blenheim at nine – he went up the levels quickly. Everything was very easy for him, although he didn’t like water or ditches to start with.
By the time he was 10, there was a lot of chat about him being “the next big thing”. Somehow he was selected for the 2019 Europeans – he’d won a lot but also had plenty of mishaps – but then came disaster. I fell in the final water.
We went to Boekelo – after crying in Pippa Funnell’s kitchen and she told me to get on with it – where he won and it literally changed him. At the start of the week he was still terrified of the flags and people. By the prize-giving, he stood there like he owned it, as if he suddenly realised how good he was.
I always knew he was a superstar but we both needed the belief in each other to click. We’ve achieved things I could never have dreamed of. I never believed I’d win a five-star, he’s won three. The thought of going to an Olympics was beyond my dreams, let alone to come back with two golds and a bronze.
But he’s also taught me a lot: not to be afraid to take a step back and shut out the outside noise, focusing on our partnership and not worrying about other people’s opinions.
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Martha is an experienced journalist who is mad-keen on horses and dogs. Her reporting CV includes the Paris Olympics, European championships, Aachen World Equestrian Festival and World Cup finals. After growing up with assorted liver and white springer spaniels, she enjoyed 14 years with two rescue dogs. Now, her constant companion is Fidget, an extremely energetic and habitually muddy black and white springer. Martha has written on topics as diverse as a top horse’s clone to the best GPS trackers for dogs, as well as equestrian and rural matters for Country Life, The Field, The Times, The Spectator and The Telegraph alongside Horse & Hound.
