Yvonne Goss has been team chasing for an impressive four decades. We’ve been to meet the 55-year-old adrenaline junky who has no plans to give up the high octane sport yet...
1. Yvonne Goss is the only dual winner of the Golden Button Challenge, a tough hunt ride covering three miles and over 22 natural obstacles. She won the inaugural hunt ride in 2006 aboard her horse Perry and she took the 2018 contest in February 2018, partnering her current superstar, the home-bred ex-racehorse, Untilla Legend (aka Jaffa).
2. She is a true adrenalin junkie who started team chasing aged just 16. She hasn’t stopped since and has become a stalwart of the fast and furious sport.
3. The 55-year-old is a mother of three sons, all in their 20s. “I won at my first national championships on Jamie’s first birthday, I was still team chasing when five months pregnant with Ben, and five weeks after having Matt I was back on board,” says Yvonne. She is also a proud grandmother to Isabelle, 3, who has also inherited the riding gene (and no doubt the family’s competitive streak).
4. Ten-year-old Jaffa was bred by Yvonne’s father, Aubrey, and broken in by her son Jamie, who now has his own pre-training business. Yvonne started riding him as a six-year-old.
5. Yvonne spent 30 years based at Bickmarsh Stud in Worcestershire, where her ex-husband was a stud groom, before a stint working for racehorse trainer Claire Dyson. She is now based at Jane and Stephen Lambert’s Gloucestershire yard, where she looks after the hunters alongside riding Jaffa.
6. She also owns another fluffy friend in the form of terrier Brooke.
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7. Yvonne has been a member of the Fox Grant Dot Com team chasing quartet for four years and was part of their winning team at the national championships in 2014. She has won eight championship titles with different teams — impressive!
8. Yvonne revealed to H&H that she takes daily painkillers to ease the aches and pains that come with four decades of team chasing. She lists broken collarbones, ribs and numerous concussions among her injuries while competing in the high tempo sport, which is not for the faint hearted.