Dressage lessons at 6am, schooling on grass and drilling over Vicarage Vee lookalikes: working rider Libby Seed on preparing for her Badminton debut

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Published In Features
Libby Seed and Heartbreaker Star Quality
Libby Seed riding Heartbreaker Star Quality in the dressage phase at Badminton
(Image credit: Peter Nixon)

Libby Seed is fulfilling a lifetime’s dream by competing at Badminton Horse Trials, presented by Mars Equestrian. The 24-year-old has been visiting as a spectator since she was a child. On the second day of dressage, she made her debut to score 33.4 on her parents’ and her own grey mare Heartbreaker Star Quality, which puts her mid-division.

“My aim was to get below 35,” said Libby, who works five days a week in the medical devices industry. “She’s built for galloping and jumping not dressage, so to get that score I’m really pleased. I don’t have an arena, so I do all my schooling on grass – I think the mare thought, ‘oh, someone’s put some white boards in my field’; she was so calm.”

Martha Terry
Martha Terry
Features editor

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.