Whether schooling racehorses, winning Olympic gold or going about her daily routine, there’s never a dull moment on Laura Collett’s yard. Martha Terry went behind the scenes in March as the Badminton winner geared up to defend her title, although she recently announced that London 52 will not be at Badminton owing to him picking up a small injury
It’s 6.30am on a dank grey morning and Laura Collett is already aboard her first horse of the day. There will be 14 more. This one, a smart bay three-year-old, is one of a trio of William Haggas’s Flat horses Laura has in for schooling at Penhill Farm near Cheltenham. Already a winner, he has recently been gelded and is learning how to behave. He’s trotting smartly in circles, on a contact, looking more like a young event horse than a potential star of the Turf.
A thick drizzle has set in, but Laura is on a roll. The bay goes on the walker, and Laura hops aboard another Flat racer, a dark bay with a stripe.
“I like riding the Flat horses, they’re easy to mould as they’re so young – they haven’t had years of going the wrong way,” Laura says.
This one is less amenable. Few birds are hardy enough to brave this wintry dawn, but their sporadic chirrups set off the three-year-old. Any little noise propels him into orbit, but Laura waits for the antics to stop and resumes trot. Once he’s settled, she swaps onto an elegant filly here for rehabbing and heads out for a hack round the hills on the Salperton Park estate, where the yard is based. Next up is Creggan Quality, a novice eventer who needs a jump before a prospective buyer comes to look at him the next day.
Laura Collett gives Creggan Quality a jump.
This is the reality of life as a five-star event rider. Laura, 33, may look to have the world at her feet with an Olympic gold medal and Badminton trophy in her cabinet, but it’s the daily grind that got her to this point, and she’s not stopping now.
“People ask how my life has changed since winning Badminton, and I find it hard to answer because it hasn’t changed at all,” she says. “I’m still here riding horses all day, just as I was before.”
Laura’s always admitted she’s the first to pile pressure on herself, because she knows just what she and her brilliant partner London 52 are capable of.
“It’s all downhill from here, isn’t it?” she jokes. “You can look at the pressure either way. Yes, I’ve ticked that box and won Badminton, but also there is more expectation.”
Laura’s first ride of the day is one of William Haggas’ three-year-old Flat horses.
Laura Collett’s yard
Meanwhile, groom Hannah Norvill has been doling out feed buckets around the 18 boxes. There are four girls working on the yard and feeding starts at 6.45am. At this time of the year, the horses have two meals, the second at 4.45pm. They are on sponsors Dodson & Horrell’s feed and everyone, young or old, has the supplement NAF Superflex. Most have NAF Magic, a calmer, as Laura admits she favours sharp horses.
The yard is split in two, with Laura’s eventers stabled in a barn, and her staff’s horses and visiting racehorses in an L-shaped block outside. Most are on thick beds of straw with appealingly high banks, unless they need to be on shavings.
The team (L-R): Hannah Norvill and dog Tui, head girl Tilly Hughes, Laura and Coco, Elsa Ireland and Polly Holbrook.
Laura’s current stars, Badminton champion London 52 and Millstreet CCI4*-L winner Dacapo, have prime spots. Dacapo (Cal) is by the entrance to the barn and is playing with his food, dropping it into his water to make a green sludge.
“He always does it – we call it Cal soup,” laughs head girl Tilly Hughes, whom Laura describes as having a “special relationship” with this enigmatic character. “Cal is really nice, but he can go from cuddly to raging bull in a moment.”
London 52 (Dan) has a huge stable, with shavings, next to the tack room. Like all of Laura’s horses, he’s friendly but extremely polite.
“He’s always been quite shy, but when he sees a camera now, he’s like, ‘Oh, more people to take my picture, get in line!’” Tilly says. “But he’s happy to chill out.”
Laura laughs: “He’s like a donkey most of the time. He saves up all his energy for when you get on him. He just loves work, any work.”
Dan will get his fix later in the day, when he’s due at Jackdaws Castle for a gallop. In the meantime, he’ll go on the walker, wear his magnetic rug and continue chilling in his palatial stable.
For Laura Collett is now jumping in her Mercedes to drive 30 miles north to school trainer Olly Murphy’s jumpers.
Laura with her terrier Coco.
Schooling for racehorse trainer Olly Murphy
Olly’s yard is buzzing with pre-Cheltenham tension. The head lad briefs Laura, who has seven to jump today. The horses have already cantered and are tacked up and on the walker waiting for their turn with Laura. Despite their varying degrees of age, experience and ability, Laura follows the same routine with each one. She sets up a cross-pole to an upright with V-poles to teach them to lift the shoulder, on a three-stride distance.
“Satisfying work” – at trainer Olly Murphy’s yard, Laura schools seven horses, honing their jumping technique.
She starts trotting into the cross-pole on its own. If all is going well, she’ll add the upright, then make it an oxer. Finally, she’ll remove the cross-pole and canter strongly out of the saddle into the oxer a few times until she’s happy, letting the horse pick his own stride at speed. This might make for a 15-minute session or 40 minutes, as in the case of a six-year-old hurdler who takes one look at the wings in the arena, spins and hurtles back to the stables.
Just as she did with the fresh three-year-old in the early morning at home, Laura sits calmly, soothes the horse and carries on. He starts out gingerly over a single ground pole and is eventually jumping a small parallel, visibly growing in confidence and enjoyment.
“I’ve never ridden him before and a lot of them are so green the first time, but the next time they’re fine,” Laura says. “When I’ve been riding them a while, it’s so satisfying to feel the difference. Sometimes they’ll even improve during a session and that’s why I get such enjoyment out of it.
“I usually ride those that struggle with the jumping and the young ones or those that need a sweetener.”
Laura relishes this work and one horse that puts a smile on her face is a Kayf Tara six-year-old, Butch. The bay moves beautifully, has a natural jump and tries hard. It doesn’t take much imagination to see him muscled up as an event horse.
“Butch is the opposite to the others in that he almost jumps too well,” she says. “When I first started riding him, I said, ‘He could be an event horse, are you sure he needs to race?’ He moves so well and wants to come in nicely and pop over a fence, but I have to try to make him jump faster and flatter, which I don’t want to do! He doesn’t need help with his technique, but he has sessions with me because he enjoys them so much.”
As riders continually debate the necessity of thoroughbred blood in top-level event horses, I wonder if Laura might favour the breed, due to her passion for racing. But her own “type” seems to be the quality warmblood, with outstanding scope and movement.
“I love doing the thoroughbreds, but I love them for their job not my job,” she says. “Nowadays, the sport has changed; our horses have to move and jump. None of the thoroughbreds I know can move and jump like a warmblood.”
We’re halfway through the day and Laura has ridden 10, only one of which was an eventer. The racehorses are a major part of her bread and butter. Event riders rarely make a living through competing alone and though Laura teaches, racehorse schooling brings in extra benefits besides cash.
“It’s so good for my riding, because unless things are really going wrong, you can never usually practise reactions the way I do here,” she explains. “It’s great for my security and balance.”
Off to the gallops
It’s mid-afternoon and we’re off to the gallops next. Laura has had just an iced bun all day and admits she won’t eat properly until dinner time. Trying to keep up with her hectic schedule, it’s obvious there’s no time for three square meals. She uses driving time to make her phone calls and eats on the hoof.
“Mum does make me soup, which I have when I can, but mostly I survive on snacking,” she admits. “Mum also makes a legendary Saturday breakfast for the girls – which started as a bacon and egg roll, but has become a full-on breakfast with baguette and halloumi – but I’m usually out competing.”
We meet Tilly, Dan and Cal at the top of Jonjo O’Neill’s gallops at Jackdaws Castle. Tilly always gallops Cal, and the pair hack through the woods to the bottom of the gallops. They first canter up a five-furlong hill, walk down then finish with an eight-furlong climb. Two weeks before Badminton, they’ll canter up four times, before easing off for the final fortnight.
London 52 (left) and Dacapo, ridden by Tilly, warm down after galloping at Jackdaws Castle.
Laura explains this gallop has been the making of Dacapo, who used to struggle for fitness. In 2021, the prolific winner made his five-star debut at Pau, but “pulled himself up on the cross-country”. Laura has made some changes and believes this has put him right for a tilt at Badminton.
“Cal’s been a reformed character since we started using Jonjo’s gallops,” says Laura. “What I like about it is that instead of stopping at the top of the hill, it flattens out and you have to keep going for another two furlongs rather than pulling up when it’s hard work. We’ve trained Cal to gallop by letting him go in front and ‘win’, because he gives up if you overtake him. Now he’s learnt to enjoy it and he’s physically stronger and he’s become quite angelic.”
Has Laura Collett’s life changed since winning Olympic gold?
And then it’s back to the yard, where Laura still has two more to hack out. I grab a lift back in her sporty car, the only time she’s sitting still long enough for me to ask about the season ahead. Badminton looms large and despite her extraordinary achievements, it’s almost like Laura feels she has a point to prove. Every time she lines up for an event on London 52, she knows he should win.
“It’s always the plan to win, so I feel the same this season as any other year, but I suppose I am going with confidence,” she says. “I find it weird that people come up to me and say, ‘You’re my hero!’ It’s just me. And actually after the Olympics, although it was incredible to bring home team gold, it was tough. I was so disappointed inside as I knew that horse should have won an individual medal. I underperformed in the dressage and showjumping.”
Laura hacks with groom Polly Holbrook.
Besides Dan and Cal, two mares look set to join the five-star string either this season or next. The chestnut Bling and grey Hester will be campaigned for Bramham and Blenheim respectively, and Laura believes they could be ones to aim for Burghley eventually.
“I’ve been round twice, clear, on two horses that weren’t suited to Burghley at all – Ginger May Killinghurst and Noble Bestman, who was bred to show,” she says. “I’m looking forward to going round Burghley on a serious galloper.
“But Badminton – that’s the pinnacle. It’s spine-tingling going through the gates – there’s no place like it.”
And with that adrenaline spurring on her exceptional work ethic, Laura Collett hops onto horse number 13 and heads off into the gathering gloom.
Could Dacapo follow in London 52’s footsteps at Badminton?
Tilly Hughes with Dacapo (Cal) on the gallops at Jonjo O’Neill’s yard
Could Laura have another world-beater on her yard? Dacapo, a 14-year-old by Diarado, is “as talented as London and could win Badminton if he wanted to”, says Laura. “But he’s so opinionated, you have to make him think it’s his idea.”
“You can’t tie him up in the cross-ties like everyone else, he bursts out,” she says. “And you have to get on him while he is moving. He needs a Polo to get on at events or he bolts. I’m a stickler for horses standing still, but once at Burnham Market, I wanted him to stand and ended up on the floor, so I said, ‘Fine, have the Polo.’”
Laura hopes she’s found the key to unlocking his talent and says it’s “now or never” for him to run at Badminton.
“We ran him differently last year, just in OIs [open intermediates] before his four-stars, and he was phenomenal,” she says. “He’s super-confident, with plenty of scope, so he’ll either pull himself up or he’ll go for it.”
You might also be interested in:
‘I owe it to him to make the right decision’: defending champion withdrawn from Badminton
Laura Collett hails ‘absolute legend’ groom after trot-up accident
Which stable did she request? And why was Sunday like a Bushtucker Trial? Nine things you didn’t know about winner Laura Collett’s week at Badminton
The Horse & Hound Podcast 103: Laura Collett on winning Badminton | Royal Windsor review | Life as a vet | News round-up
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