Zara Phillips on the injured High Kingdom: ‘Hopefully he’ll be back for the autumn’ [VIDEO]

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After High Kingdom’s injury at Rolex Kentucky last month (24 April, 2015), Land Rover caught up with Zara Phillips to find out how the gelding is recovering — as well as to get her thoughts on last week’s Royal Windsor Horse Show, held at her grandmother’s home.

Zara on… High Kingdom

“High Kingdom after Kentucky is good, he’s recovering,” says Zara.

“He managed to cut into his joint capsual on his hind leg about an hour before dressage and that means you have to flush the joint out — so that there’s no infection — under general anasthetic, but luckily he’s OK. It’s just going to take a bit of time and hopefully he’ll be back for the autumn — maybe the Europeans or Burghley, we’ll see what happens.

“It’s disappointing, it’s gutting. But unfortunately I’ve been there before so I think you get more used to it and you learn to deal with it in a better way. Having Mia, [you realise that] life is too short to dwell on the bad that’s going wrong and you look more at the positives, how you can fix [the problem] and on to the next competition.

“I think I’ve been in this sport long enough to realise that you have these times with bad bits going on with injury and then there are other people at the top riding high.

“But with horses everything can change very, very quickly.”

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Zara on.. Royal Windsor

“At Royal Windsor you have the dressage and the showjumping as well as all those other smaller disciplines that don’t really get noticed as much — like the driving or the showing. It’s a great [place] for them to showcase themselves,” says Zara.

“There’s great entertainment, obviously it’s a fantastic location and I get to come and play around in the Land Rover cars and do the off road course, which is pretty scary.

“My coach in the car was telling me I would do something like this on my horse, but I said, ‘Yes, but I’m totally in control of them!’. I felt much better when I got in the driving seat.”

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