Pippa Funnell’s groom Emily Gibson has worked for three five-star event riders over the course of her career, and has groomed at some of the biggest events in the world – but she admits she still watches through her fingers as the horses in her care set off across country.
“I get very, very nervous when they go cross-country, and I don’t really enjoy watching it, although I always do,” she says.
The cross-country track at Badminton Horse Trials, presented by Mars Equestrian, is especially nerve-wracking, but Emily says she loves being back here, with Pippa’s two rides for 2023: Majas Hope and Billy Walk On.
“It’s such a beautiful place and the stables here are like nothing else,” she says. “I always feel very privileged to be here.
“With two horses it is quite busy, although luckily they’re both lovely boys. Hope is a bit older and has done more so he knows the score, although he can get very shy in the dressage. He doesn’t really like being made pretty – he’d like to be hairy if he could.
“But Billy Walk On loves being made pretty. He also gets quite lit up with the crowds and quite spooky. He’s got very long legs and he is big anyway, so when there are crowds he can get very big. But away from all of that he is such a gentleman.”
Pippa Funnell’s groom Emily Gibson explains that she works hard to keep the horses’ routines as normal as possible while at Badminton, and to treat it like any other competition – but that the ability to flex and adapt to whatever is thrown at them is essential to success.
“Everything depends on how they are feeling, how they are responding to the atmosphere; sometimes we have to adjust the warm-up time for example. We have to always play it by ear but now they’ve done this a few times, we know what works and we try to stick to that. But I am always prepared for something else to happen.”
Emily cut her teeth in the world of grooming working for William Fox-Pitt, and she came to Pippa’s five years ago from Nana Dalton’s.
“I’ve always had ponies and when I was younger I always wanted to ride at Badminton,” she says. “As you grow up you realise that it’s not really an option, so I just wanted to do anything with horses and it just evolved into grooming. I love being a part of it all.”
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