Just 12 days before her dressage test at the Mars Badminton Horse Trials, Ros Canter was pounding London’s roads in the TCS marathon. She managed to combine training Lordships Graffalo up from his fluffy winter self to his five-star prime with preparing her own body and mind for the 26-mile challenge in the capital.
The horses have clearly taken priority.
“I wouldn’t train a horse like I trained myself,” she said after posting one of the leading dressage tests at Badminton. “I struggled to fit in the training. I could only run once a week, and never ran more than 15 miles. I had pain in my IT band [a long, fibrous band of flexible fascia that runs from the hip to just below the outside of the knee] from upping the miles so quickly.”
While she’s not planning any more long-distance challenges on her own feet, Ros thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
“What was really great was that we come to these places [like Badminton] and the crowds are amazing, but we’re on the job and we can’t really celebrate, enjoy it and soak it in,” she said.
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“But when I was in the marathon, I didn’t have that pressure as I was just trundling along. I could soak in the atmosphere more than I would at a place like this.”
She clocked a decent time of 4hr 15min.
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“I did cross-country at school, but I hadn’t run further than 10k until January,” she said. “I don’t run at all normally – I go to the gym for fitness. So I thought I’d be nearer to five or five and a half hours.”
Ros Canter’s marathon plans
Ros Canter’s decision to run the marathon has a poignant aspect. She was fundraising for the charity Spinal Research to support her friend Saffron Cresswell, who was paralysed in a cross-country fall last summer.
“It was all through Saffron,” she said. “She was training with me the previous winter, and we got chatting about all sorts of things – we’re like minded people. We both wanted to run a marathon, so we said, ‘let’s enter the ballot together’.”
Three weeks after Saffron’s life-changing accident, they got an email to say they hadn’t been successful in the ballot. But within 10 minutes of applying for a charity place with Spinal Research, Ros was in the line-up.
“Saffron was still in hospital so I contacted her and said, ‘it’s entirely your call whether I do it’, and she said, ‘don’t even think about it, please run it’,” Ros said. “Then I shoved it to the back of my mind until December.”
Ros performed her dressage test on Friday morning (9 May), scoring 25.3 to go into second place behind Tom McEwen and JL Dublin.
How to watch Badminton Horse Trials
If you want to watch the live action from Badminton Horse Trials from the comfort of your home, wherever you are in the world, you will need to subscribe to Badminton TV. This year, Badminton TV has teamed up with ClipMyHorse.TV, but you do not need a full ClipMyHorse.TV subscription to watch Badminton – you can just subscribe to Badminton TV for £21.99. Go to clipmyhorse.tv/en_GB/badminton to subscribe or to activate your account as an existing Badminton TV subscriber. If you are already a ClipMyHorse.TV premium member, Badminton TV is included in your subscription. As part of Badminton TV, you can enjoy the documentary programme Legends and Legacy, a fly-on-the-wall insight into the 2024 event and preview of 2025.
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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.
