There had been mutterings all week during Badminton that this could be William’s last. But with such a glorious round putting him second before showjumping with Amanda Gould’s Grafennacht, and a runner-up prize at Maryland on their previous CCI5* run, the 55-year-old seemed to be back to the peaks he had arguably not reached since his head injury from a fall at Le Lion in 2015. Could a last Olympic hurrah in Paris even be on the agenda?
In fact, that 180,000-strong Badminton crowd were lucky to see him back on home soil at all, as William reveals he had nearly called it a day after Maryland the previous October, when he was denied victory by just 0.4 of a penalty.
“I thought, ‘That should be it. It’s not going to get better than that’,” he says. “But then Dickie Waygood rang me and put me back on the Olympic pathway. I never thought I’d actually make it to Paris – I’m not that dreamy – but I wanted to enjoy one last push, it’s exciting to be part of it.”
A handful of fences down on Badminton’s final day drew a line abruptly under the last chapter of what has been a fairy-tale career. William said retirement had been “on my mind ever since my head injury”, but in a magical way, continuing in the sport that nearly claimed his life had been integral to his recovery.
“I love the challenge, the get-up-and-go, the goals have always been my driving force,” said William when we met at his Dorset yard in June 2024, still humming with activity; horses, riders, kids, dogs – and rare-breed chickens – bustling to and fro.
“I’ve always had Badminton or Burghley or championships creating a rhythm to my season. It seems bonkers, but after the head injury, it was thanks to the Rio Olympics that I got better. It squared me up so much, because I’d lost all my drive, I was just glad to be alive. I was so floppy and uncaring but I cared about Rio, so it got me physically fit again and gave me a focus.
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“And then after Rio, I had good horses in Little Fire and Oratorio, and Grafennacht coming up. Was I ready to watch someone else ride them? No! So I carried on.”
Between that injury and Badminton 2024, William completed six Badmintons and won his fifth Armada dish for 25 completions. Back on the podium at five-star, there was a sense that his journey back to his full self is complete. Following that Badminton swansong, Grafennacht (Lillie) is heading to Harry Meade’s – and William is content.
William Fox-Pitt: “I will not miss that”
Why then did he deem this the right moment to retire from top level?
“The time has come when I can watch someone else ride Grafennacht,” he said. “I can’t wait to wake up on the first Saturday in May before the Badminton cross-country and not think, ‘What on earth am I doing?’ Being in the warm-up field when everyone’s feeling absolutely sick, you’ve forgotten to have a drink, your mouth is bone dry. I will not miss that.
“I will enjoy being involved, and watching Lillie. She needs to have some younger bones on her back.”
William Fox-Pitt is acutely frank about the limitations of age in a sport where athletes can persist.
“I walk courses with a different mindset now, worrying about seeing a good stride or slipping on a turn rather than assuming it’ll go well. If I make a mistake, I worry about people saying, ‘Stupid old man, gone a bit crazy, he should stop!’ instead of accepting that cock-ups happen.
“Badminton was good,” he concedes, “but it’s only 32 jumps and I don’t think I’m riding as well as I was. I’m conscious of not looking like an idiot, and it has been niggling at me for a few years now not to go on for too long.
“I never want pity. I was always fit as you like, could compete six advanced horses in a day easily; now I’m feeling five is too much.”
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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.
