Eventing legend Ginny Elliot shared memories of her Defender Burghley Horse Trials wins when she and Ros Canter met at the venue earlier this month. Ros was there to unveil her new plinth, for her win last year with Lordships Graffalo, on Winners’ Avenue.

Every winning horse and rider at Burghley since its inception in 1961 are commemorated along the famous avenue of lime trees, in a series of plinths that are the brainchild of former event director Bill Henson.

More recently, the event has started inviting the reigning champion to view their plinth and this year the Burghley team invited Lordships Graffalo’s owners, Michele and Archie Saul, to join Ros, along with five-time Burghley winner Ginny.

“When I was growing up, I was in awe of all these names,” said Ros, who was meeting Ginny properly for the first time and added she loved watching videos of the legend when she was growing up.

The sport was quite different when Ginny was in her heyday and she shared memories from the days when Saturday involved roads and tracks and steeplechase and horses had to carry a minimum weight.

“I think I had to carry two stones of lead,” she said.

Fan favourite names such as Night Cap and Master Craftsman were in the air. Ginny said Night Cap crammed a stride into a bounce of bullfinches en route to his 1984 win and discussed forgetting the showjumping course in 1986 on Master Craftsman.

“He was really difficult showjumping; I was concentrating so hard on all the bits I had to do to help the situation and I went completely blank. But a guardian angel tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Turn right, you fool!’” she said.

Ginny later passed the grey to Ian Stark as he was too strong for her.

“I literally had no control,” remembered Ginny. “I had to wrap the reins around my hand but he kept pulling and pulling. But had he not taken off, we’d never have got inside the time and won.

“I’ve had so many hiccups; you never seem to have a hiccup… you’re just a joy to watch.”

Ros said people don’t notice that there’s always a moment of panic during every competition.

“Last year’s Burghley came with extra pressures because I was nearly five months pregnant… there is always a story behind a win and that’s what makes each one very special. It is a constant juggling act but having the children and all those extra dimensions makes me a little bit more resilient,” said Ros, who had her baby, Seneh, with her on the day.

Ginny concluded: “Ros is an extraordinary competitor and rider – one of the best I’ve seen for a very long time. The fact she thinks I might have had an influence is very nice for me, but she is extraordinary, and she’ll be there for a long time to come.”

Event director Martyn Johnson added: “Winners’ Avenue is synonymous with Burghley’s history and unique within our sport. It was very special to bring together past and present Burghley champions to reflect on how becoming a Burghley champion changes your life, and to be joined by Lordships Graffalo’s owners Archie and Michele Saul, who, like Ros, are Lincolnshire-based.

“As Ginny said, the heart always beats a little faster when you arrive at Burghley. It’s truly a special place for any equestrian fan and particularly special for those who have won here.”

• To book Burghley Horse Trials tickets, visit burghley-horse.co.uk/tickets
• Read more about Ros’s competition mindset and how she overcame a confidence crisis in our upcoming exclusive interview in 16 July issue of Horse & Hound magazine. To stay up to date with all the breaking news from major shows throughout the year, subscribe to the Horse & Hound website

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The key to safe and effective cross-country riding is a secure lower leg and impeccable balance, so you can use your core and seat to influence the horse, rather than always going to the hand. In this exclusive article for H&H subscribers, Olympic event riders Ginny Elliot and Nicola Wilson to share their top tips to help you improve your position

Some riders have incredible balance and a lower leg that never moves across-country whatever the conditions and whatever they jump. How can you improve your eventing training to become one of them? We asked Olympic event riders Ginny Elliot and Nicola Wilson to share their top tips to improve your cross-country riding position so you can ride stronger, safer and smarter.

“I used to watch videos of top riders, particularly Lucinda Green, who had the most superb lower leg. I tried to analyse how her leg was so brilliant and copy it, although I don’t think I quite managed it,” says three-time European and double world eventing champion Ginny Elliot, who’s a big fan of self-analysis.

“In those days, we had a video camera and I would watch myself back and analyse it. I would go over it saying, ‘that wasn’t great. Why wasn’t that great?’ I think that was one of the reasons why we did quite well because I was never good enough, I had to be better.

“Today with mobile phones you have access to videos of yourself which you can watch instantly and that’s an incredibly important tool. Being critical on yourself isn’t a negative; it’s a positive because you’re going to get better from it.

“You have to accept your mistakes. If there had been a problem, I always asked myself, ‘what did I do wrong?’ and I tried to learn from it. I never said, ‘what did the horse do wrong?’”

Exercises to improve your cross-country riding position without a horse

Like self-analysis, several exercises to improve your cross-country position can be done from the comfort of your own home.

“Practise jumping off the last steps of your stairs, or any step, and landing on your feet elegantly, as light as a feather. Make sure you bend your knees and ankles and land in a crouch position so you absorb the weight but remain balanced and secure on your feet. Keep your upper body above your hips. This is how you should be landing after a fence,” explains former European eventing champion Nicola Wilson.

Ginny adds: “You can practise jumping a drop by sitting on a chair. Lean back and push your heels forward. I would also walk upstairs on the ball of my foot so I stretched the tendons at the back of my ankle. When my foot was in the stirrup, it was much more used to having my heel really down.”

These exercises are much easier to perform if you have a good level of fitness, balance and suppleness. Ginny reveals she used to swim and run to maintain her general fitness while Nicola is an advocate of Pilates and yoga.

“Working with horses, we can get a bit one sided from things like mucking out so we often shorten muscles and lose the elasticity and ignore the other important muscles. Doing Pilates or yoga and some strength work makes a massive difference and helps you to maintain good balance,” says Nicola.

Exercises to improve your cross-country riding position on the horse

As well as ensuring your fitness is up to speed, it’s important to have a horse who’s also fit and strong.

“Do exercises on your horse like stepping over raised poles, stretching and hill work so the horses are as strong as they can possibly be, which gives them reserves when they’re going cross-country,” says Nicola. “If the horses are always inverted, dropping their tummies, not engaging their core, being hollow through their back, then they’re going to find it very difficult to carry themselves as well and will pull you out of position.

“Practise bringing your shoulders up while you are galloping cross-country, engaging your core and supporting the horse through your lower leg as you bring them back to a coffin canter.

“Through training and repetition, you will be able to go through the gears so that you can efficiently go from a cross-country gallop to a coffin canter within a number of strides.”

Ginny would also use canter work to help improve obedience and the fluidity of speed control.

“As I was cantering the horses to get them fit, I would practise moving forward 10 strides, then shortening them and coming back before going forward again and then coming back. It’s a very good way of working yourself as well as the horse,” says Ginny.

“The other thing to remember is your head is the heaviest part of your body, and if you drop your head, the whole balance of your upper body goes so keep your body upright and your head still.”

If your horse is particularly strong cross-country and you find your shoulders being pulled forward out of the saddle, Nicola suggests riding with a longer rein.

“Strong horses have a habit of pulling on the rein then we get a little bit shorter in our rein which pulls our upper body forward and that puts the rider in their most inefficient and weakest position possible,” explains Nicola.

“It’s important to have a longer rein, keep your hands down so that your upper body can engage its core and be in its strongest position. Then with your lower leg, squeeze to say half halt with your hands low and just in front, engage your core, tuck your seat underneath, bring your shoulders and eyes up. Train your horses through these transitions – use technique and repetition of correct training to develop that ability to rebalance your horse.

“We must not have a lazy seat,” Nicola adds. “You need to be able to ride staying in balance with your horse.

“If you’re sitting heavy in the saddle, the horses are naturally going to hollow away from the seat, they’re not going to use their core and they’re going to be looking for the hand. You’ll have to use more hand to steady and balance them. They will run through the bridle more, so the stronger that you can become as a rider, in your core, in your ability to stay in tune and in balance with your horse, the more success you are going to have with your horse.”

Model position

In terms of riders to emulate to improve your cross-country riding position, both Ginny and Nicola are big fans of reigning Badminton and Burghley champion Ros Canter.

“Ros has the most fantastic position,” Ginny says. “She’s never in front of the movement and her leg is perfection. She’s tiny so it’s by no means anything to do with physical strength, but she trains those horses so brilliantly on the flat that they pull that through into the cross-country. It’s all to do with her upper body, her lower leg, and she’s got very soft hands. She’s always in the right position, sitting up and that’s to do with training and balance.”

Nicola adds: “Another excellent example at the other end of the scale would be William Fox-Pitt, who’s incredibly tall, and had to work very hard as a young rider to be strong in his position so he didn’t hinder his horses. He was very disciplined with his strength, his core strength and his balance.”

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What can you do if you have a horse who makes light work of jumping cross-country fences but is easily distracted and spooks at everything from crowds to trade stands and shadows to the tannoy? We speak to international event riders Ginny Elliot and Jeanette Brakewell to find out how to train focus and bravery outside the flagged fences

For some riders, it’s not the cavernous trakehners or ultra-skinny arrowheads that pose a problem out eventing. Instead, it’s the worry about their horse spooking on the cross-country course, not at the obstacles themselves, but other distractions, such as flags, noises, crowds – or even a different shade of grass colour.

Once you get within range of the fence, your horse might jump happily over, but it’s an issue you need to get to the bottom of. Spooking means time-faults, a less smooth round and sub-optimal preparation for the fences. This might be surmountable at the lower heights, but as you move up the levels, your horse needs all his focus on the job in hand.

How to stop your horse spooking on the cross-country course

“I would always try and figure out what is it that’s spooking the horse, is it noise? Is it sight? Is it both? Then I would try to find a way in which I could help the horse adjust to that environment,” says five-time Burghley winner, Ginny Elliot.

“You have to be sensible, if a plastic bag jumps across the road and they spook at it, well, who wouldn’t? So you have to figure out, is the horse being naughty or is it a genuine fright? Use your brain, try to look at it from their point of view and try and do everything you can to remove that problem.”

Ginny has first-hand experience of mastering a spooky horse as Night Cap II, her 1984 Burghley winning partner and the 1987 European champion, was initially reactive to noise, banners and any quick movement from somebody in a crowd.

“Night Cap II was such a fabulous horse, but he was not fabulous to start with,” says Ginny. “The first time he reacted was when he was at Blenheim, which was the first time he knew grandstands and that kind of thing. We had to figure out how we were going to help him with his issues.”

As best she could, Ginny replicated the sights and sounds Night Cap II was afraid of at home.

“We put some banners up in the arena and when I was schooling him, we played loud music or a football match on the radio,” reveals the former world and European champion.

“One day, we asked local people from the village to come up and clap while I did my dressage test in the arena. We called it ‘rent a crowd’ and we all enjoyed tea and biscuits. I think they quite enjoyed being involved and took a genuine interest in his improvement.

“I also remember taking Night Cap II to the Three Counties Show and spending three days there, just walking around. On the first day he was in a muck sweat because of all the noise and people but by the third day he was chilled and happy.”

Slowly, after months of meticulous planning, patience and determination, Ginny managed to overcome the fears and anxieties that Night Cap II had.

“At the European Championships in Luhmühlen I took him up to the main arena early in the morning and schooled him for a bit. Then I took his tack off and let him graze until the time I had to get back on him. That way the crowd came to him, as opposed to him going to the crowd.

“Gradually, he saw more people and heard all the clapping and the noise. He ended up doing the best test of his life and he won the competition,” says Ginny.

“It took about six months of pretty hard work. I thought about it all carefully but it worked as by the next spring he was at Badminton and was a different horse. All horses have their issues, it’s our job to find a way to help them overcome those issues.”

Jeanette Brakewell supports Ginny’s theory that exposure is the best medicine for a spooky horse.

“Spooky horses tend to get better as they do more,” says Jeanette, who won the individual silver medal at the 2002 World Equestrian Games. “I’ve got a very spooky horse who as a four- and five-year-old was very reactive to anything but then the more they saw things the less spooky they became.”

“Ros Canter’s horse Izilot DHI was very reactive but now he’s a bit older and he’s has seen and done a lot more and Ros has worked out a good routine for them he’s coming into his element.”

Jeanette stresses the importance of having a good relationship with your horse and training them to listen and respond to you and your aids.

3 practical steps for helping a horse spooking on cross-country

1. Connect and distract

“With spooky horses, it’s very important that you ride them with a good connection between leg and rein, because then you can feel if they’re about to spook or do something,” says Jeanette. “Ideally, you can then put the horse into leg yield or a shoulder in position, so that you are distracting the horse and putting their focus on you.

“Leg yield is a great exercise to practise at home. If your horse has spooked at something it’s not a case of making them approach it it’s a case of being able to move their bodies around it, so that they accept what it is, realise it’s not going to hurt them and they don’t need to be frightened of it.

‘Try to keep their legs moving. By getting them to cross their hindlegs over and move their body sideways then they don’t get stuck and go rigid.”

2. Course-walk and prepare

If you have a spooky horse you need to walk a cross-country course with that in mind. Be aware of the things that your horse might spook at so that you are prepared and ready for what might happen.

“Don’t forget that often when you walk the course the fence judges aren’t there yet, the fences may not have been dressed and there might not be any crowds. Think ahead and bear this in mind when you are thinking about what your horse may spook at,” adds Jeanette who also suggests hunting as a good way of training bravery.

3. Build confidence

“As a rider, don’t do anything stupid or over face them, not just hunting, but in anything. You should always be working on the horse’s confidence, because the more confident they are the less they question things.

“If you do have a blip in confidence, it’s important to go back a step and make things dead easy for them to help them overcome that confidence issue.”

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Skinnies are a common bogey fence in eventing, but what makes them so difficult? We ask Olympic medallist and five-time Burghley winner Ginny Elliot and BE UKCC level 3 accredited coach Cameron Beer for their help, advice and top tips on how to stop your horse running out at skinny jumps on a cross-country course so that you stay straight as a die between the flags.

“The ability to control the body of the horse with the lower leg is the most important part of being able to jump a skinny,” says Ginny, also a former world and European eventing champion.

“Your leg aids need to be really good and responded to by the horse – that’s the only way you can control the horse’s body.

“If I put my right leg on the horse should go left, if I put the left leg on the horse should go right, and it should happen instantly. If both your legs are together, the horse should stay straight.”

Cameron Beer agrees, stressing the importance of perfecting those aids.

“Before you attempt a skinny jump, it’s important you can leg-yield off both legs without the horse speeding up and you can do a calm but quick straight line, halt and – in a perfect world – a rein back,” says Cameron, who’s evented up to CCI4* level. “To be fair to the horse, you have to make sure those aids are concrete.

“Most problems at skinnies occur where horses don’t understand the question, run through the bridle and don’t allow the rider help them in that moment. You have to break down those simple communications for the horse.

“If you don’t have those communications, and then you come to a fence and your horse loses a bit of confidence and wobbles, the aids aren’t there to put it back, and that’s unfair on the horse.”

How to stop horse running out at skinny jumps – an exercise

A simple exercise to improve those skills involves placing a pair of jump wings narrowly together with nothing between them. Ride towards them and halt before them. Once your horse has halted gently put on a leg aid to go forwards and walk through the wings.

“This exercise trains the horse to come to the skinny, slow down in a straight way, pause, think and then go forward rather than getting to the narrow gap, panicking and rushing through, as most horses do,” continues Cameron.

“You can evolve this exercise to having something on the floor that the horse can walk over so you come in, either hold or slightly slow the pace, apply the leg, and over they go.”

If the horse wobbles as you approach the fence, straighten them with your leg before going forwards and over the object.

“The horse needs to learn that when it comes to a narrow fence and you apply a leg aid that they respond immediately,” says Cameron. “You need to be very systematic in your training so the horse feels so confident in those aids that they will never have a run out. Then you can build it up very simply.”

Once you have nailed these aids you can focus on controlling the horse’s body and achieving straightness as you approach the fence, which will help stop your horse from running out at skinny jumps.

Ginny Elliot’s approach for how to jump cross-country skinnies

Ginny explains her process: “Whenever I was approaching skinnies, my first thought once I got myself lined up was – is the body following what I can see in front of me, that is the head and the neck? I think that conscious thought’s really important to be successful at jumping skinnies.

“It’s like driving a car and trailer. Don’t forget what the trailer is doing versus the car. Straightness is everything.

“Come off a corner and then when you straighten up, think has the body followed? Is it in line with the head and neck? Once you’ve got control of the body, for me, there’s very little reason why you shouldn’t be jumping the accurate fences like skinnies, very successfully.

“There should be minimal interference with the horse’s mouth from three strides from the fence. You need to be totally organised with speed and balance to allow the horse to focus on his job. A sudden pull or straightening movement from the rider close to the fence can cause the horse to lose vision of the fence, balance and concentration,” says Ginny.

Troubleshooting: how to stop a horse running out at skinny jumps

Sophie Taylor went back to basics with her five-year-old New Forest pony Bramble after they had a run out at a skinny jump at two events.

“I couldn’t trust him to hold his line so we went back into the school and began working on our straightness and accuracy,” says Sophie, who works for British Riding Clubs.

“We started by riding through two parallel poles on the ground, making sure we could stay straight through the centre of them. Once we could do that confidently on both reins we added a small narrow fence with jump wings at one end, focusing on holding our line and jumping the middle of the fence.”

As Sophie and Bramble became proficient with that exercise, they gradually increased the height of the fence and moved the guide poles further away before removing them completely. All the time, the aim was to remain straight and jump the centre of the fence.

“It was something we worked on over several months for short periods of time,” explains Sophie. “As we became more confident and our accuracy improved, we increased the difficulty by taking the jump wings away and jumping two skinnies in a row.”

Sophie and Bramble, who’s now nine, are now confident in jumping skinnies and haven’t incurred any further penalties.

Another key to jumping skinnies successfully is to ensure you and your horse are confident riding through narrow spaces.

“It’s often the narrow gap people are nervous about, rather than the actual fence itself. Make sure you ride through narrow spaces regularly so that it’s not an issue,” says Cameron.

Ginny concludes: “Flatwork is, in a way, more important than anything for cross-country riding. If the flatwork is good, the cross-country and the showjumping will be good, it’s as simple as that.”

• To enjoy more expert advice on how to boost your training with your horse, subscribe to the Horse & Hound website

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There was a moment at the inaugural World Equestrian Games (WEG) in Stockholm in 1990 when the crowd held its breath for just a little longer than is usual, even for a championship. Ian Stark and Murphy Himself were approaching the Road Crossing – rails followed by a towering hedge with a drop – when it became clear that Murphy would be bouncing what others were riding as a long stride.

“As we came down the hill, I slowed him right down and he then launched into the middle of the road and I thought, ‘Yikes, we’re not going to fit in here.’ And then we were off again. I still remember the feeling. It was kind of thrilling, but it left you slightly speechless for a few seconds,” recalls Ian over 30 years on. “It was all so easy for him.”

It was this cavalier approach to fences – discarding extra strides or taking off when others might have floundered – that captivated the public’s imagination.

“Even at a one-day event when the commentator said, ‘Next to go is Murphy Himself,’ you saw people running to the nearest fence to get a close-up view of him jumping. He had a huge fanbase,” says Ian.

There was also his grey coat that helped secure his place in the consciousness of eventing fandom – as well as the fact that he’d started his career with another of Britain’s eventing icons, five-time Burghley winner Ginny Elliot.

“I go to America a lot for teaching and most people don’t remember any of my horses, except for Murphy,” Ian reflects fondly.

Finding Murphy Himself

It was 1982 when an advert in the pages of Horse & Hound caught the eye of Ginny’s mother Heather Holgate.

“He was allegedly broken in, but it was quite a tentative showing of him in the outdoor school,” remembers Ginny about her visit to see him at Ann Verdon-Jones’ yard on the Surrey-Sussex border, where she was not deterred by him running out of some cross-poles.

“He had really big paces, and we’d just sold something so I thought, ‘Oh well, he’s a four-year-old, he might be useful to buy, and I can always sell him on.’”

On getting him home, Murphy’s somewhat temperamental personality began to emerge.

“The grumpy side of him was pretty evident. I soon learnt that you absolutely couldn’t touch him with a schooling whip,” says Ginny, who had a 10-inch cross-country whip specially made to use on his shoulder. “We learnt in the early days that you asked him, you didn’t tell him.”

Ginny soon set about trying to teach him to shorten his stride.

“He’d bounce one-stride doubles and put one stride in two-stride doubles and so we spent a huge amount of time and patience doing little grid with him. There was a lot of cooing and encouragement that went on in his direction. But I think the experience of dealing with something super-talented, but difficult, was a great lesson.”

At the early novices, there were hairy moments. At one, Ginny found herself pulling with both hands on one side of the reins in an attempt to slow him down, as he made a beeline for the lorries halfway round the cross-country.

“I then realised that the bit had actually gone through his mouth, which of course made him go even faster. We luckily ended up at a 15ft-high hedge, so he stopped. I got off, rearranged the bridle and carried on.”

When he won his first three-day event at Avenches, Switzerland, in the spring of 1984 with seeming ease, his young talent was clear and by the summer of 1986, he’d clinched the three-star (now four-star) at Le Touquet in France.

“The dressage was getting better and better, and he began to enjoy it. And so, I just thought I might as well go to Burghley that autumn,” says Ginny, realising how ambitious that now sounds.

It was here that a vetting revealed that he was, in fact, a year younger than the eight-year-old Ginny thought he was, a revelation that’s since been confirmed by his breeder Jack Higgins in Co Down.

“I remember thinking, ‘Oh well, never mind,’” laughs Ginny.

But it is this twist that makes Murphy’s tale all the more remarkable – claiming the title at just seven years old. It was Ginny’s fourth consecutive win at Burghley, but this one felt different.

“It was, shall we say, a big surprise,” she says. “I went there thinking that it would be a great experience, but I didn’t expect him to win it.”

“Pressed” into a swap

Murphy Himself had cemented his place on the radar of the eventing fraternity, but at Badminton in the spring of 1988, it was clear his often-unpredictable boldness was showing no sign of waning. When he leapt off the Ski Jump, the slight Ginny was catapulted out of the saddle and left with a broken ankle.

There was a growing sentiment that he might be better suited to a stronger rider, but Ginny remembers feeling “rather pressed into that decision by my family. I was actually very against moving him on even though I think he was too strong for a woman.”

Despite a tempting offer from abroad, it was decided that Murphy should go to a British team rider and it was agreed that Ian would be the obvious choice, with Murphy being swapped for his 16hh Griffin.

“I definitely followed Murphy’s journey after he went to Ian, but it was with joy and sadness, a mixed bag in a way,” reflects Ginny. “I’m thrilled that Ian reaped the rewards with him, because he was an exceptional horse and I loved him to bits. He showed that no horse is perfect, but if you are patient, in the end you are rewarded.”

When Ian came to try Murphy at Ginny’s base, what he saw didn’t match the impressive gelding he’d followed since he was a novice.

“I was less than impressed,” admits Ian. “In the outdoor school, he was lazy and [Ginny’s trainer] Dot Willis asked if I wanted spurs. I remember thinking, ‘This isn’t the horse I’ve seen competing. What’s going on?’

“But he was a bit like that at home; he was laid-back and probably bored with dressage because he knew it all. He was beautifully schooled, though – Ginny had done an incredible job – and I couldn’t resist the temptation of the challenge.”

Ian’s instinct was rewarded when he clocked a victory at Boekelo that autumn and fifth at Badminton the following spring. At WEG in Stockholm, when Ian and Murphy rode alongside Ginny and Griffin on the British team, a last-minute request for Ian to lend his spurs to an Austrian rider and the subsequent delay to their test meant Murphy had lost his edge by the time they got into the arena. But the pair still came away with team and individual silver, with their cross-country round restoring Britain’s hopes of a medal after team-mates faltered.

When Murphy came to Ian, he was in a Citation bit (“Ginny had found that was about one of the only things she’d had a chance of stopping him in,” Ian says), but apart from on one occasion at Boekelo when he was “completely carted on the steeplechase phase” Ian was keen to ditch it.

“At whatever level we ride, we all want a different kind of contact and for me, the Citation didn’t give the kind of contact I liked. So I experimented and eventually ended up using a cherry roller American gag with a combination noseband.

“The strength of Murphy didn’t scare me but when he got into gear, he lent on you so badly, the steering often went out the window. On the steeplechase at Boekelo in October 1988, he wasn’t really listening to me, galloping with his head leaning on the bit and I do remember thinking, ‘Yikes, I don’t like that.’

“People always went on about me riding fast but I was never out of control, apart from with Murphy when there were definitely shades of that at the beginning.”

In contrast to his fierce competition persona, at home Murphy “was like a big lamb”, says Ian. He was turned out with fellow grey Glenburnie (“they got on so well, they almost ate off the same blade of grass”) and in the field through the winter “any other horse could make a face at him and he’d just give up his food”, Ian laughs.

“A sad old day”

It was at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 that time was called on his career when he was unsound on the final day, following a gruelling cross-country round in the heat.

“I had hoped he had become older and wiser, but as soon as he came out of the start box on the steeplechase, I knew he was his old self,” Ian said afterwards, later reflecting on Murphy’s insistence “to go like the clappers” and his resistance to spare himself.

But even before it was clear he couldn’t continue at the Games, he’d told Michael Calvin at the Daily Telegraph: “That’s the last time I’ll ride him across country. He doesn’t owe me anything. There’s not a human being who can match up to him. It’s a sad old day, isn’t it?”

Murphy had been a lesson in strong horses for Ian.

“He taught me that my job was to set a horse up for a combination on a cross-country course and then let the horse work out what it wanted to do with its feet,” he says.

And for all the unnerving moments that this soaring grey gave, rewatching footage of him at that Road Crossing in Stockholm is still a reminder for Ian that he was one of a kind.

The team-mate’s view

“When Ginny won Burghley in 1986 on him, it was probably the first time that I noticed Murphy,” says Karen Dixon, who rode on a team with the gelding at the 1990 Stockholm WEG, as well as the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

“He didn’t look like the athlete that he was – he seemed quite ordinary and plain, but my God that horse had an engine, athleticism and courage. It was second to none.

“And I think the reason he was so amazing with Scotty [Ian Stark] was that he just let him be himself and had the confidence to do that. They had that special bond and Scotty totally trusted him, which meant he could let him run and do those amazing jumps.

“Out of all my years of eventing, the one person jumping a fence that sticks in my mind is Scotty and Murphy at Stockholm bouncing the Road Crossing. When I stood on the landing side with my arms in the air, there was no way you could see any tips of any fingers – it was enormous.

“It’s all very well saying Murphy did it, but he then had the athleticism and belief in himself to stand on his feet, with Scotty pulling him round to the right through the trees. I’ll never forget that.

“Murphy was a quiet person, but underneath that sheep’s clothing he had an engine in there. He came across as a sweetie, but then turned into a roaring lion when he was out doing his stuff.”

Murphy in numbers

• 16.1hh grey gelding by Royal Renown, out of Carleen
• 1979 – the year he was foaled, a year after it was officially recorded on his passport
• £2,500 – the price that Ginny Elliot paid for him in 1982
• 5 years old – the age Murphy was at his first three-day-event at Avenches in Switzerland, which he won
• 1st – at Burghley in 1986 with Ginny Elliot
• 2 – silver medals at the Stockholm WEG in 1990
• 2nd – at Badminton in 1991 with Ian Stark
• 1 – Olympic performance, at the 1992 Barcelona Games
• To enjoy more long-form articles from the H&H archives about equine stars of our sport, subscribe to the Horse & Hound website

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Things have changed a lot in the horse world during the past 30 to 40 years. It’s not only internet shopping that didn’t exist back then, although that’s hard to imagine for those who have grown up with it. So join us for a trip back down memory lane to when equestrian life was a rather simpler affair…

Do you remember when…

1. Lucinda Green became the pin-up of the eventing world after winning Badminton for the sixth time, in 1984 on SR Direct Mail Ltd’s Beagle Bay.

2. Virginia Leng (now Ginny Elliot) took over as every pony-mad teenage girl’s heroine after becoming the first woman to win Burghley five times. Her fifth was in 1989 on Master Craftsman, when she was also crowned European champion.

3. Most turnout rugs were made of heavy green canvas – if you were lucky they had cross-surcingles rather than just rear leg straps to keep them in place, but either way it felt like a lifetime waiting for them to dry.

4. Jute rugs could be found in every tackroom — itchy-looking things made from a sack-like fabric, held on by a roller.

5. The only 4x4s you saw were Land Rovers, driven by actual farmers.

6. Only top professional riders owned (or had access to) a lorry.

7. You could ride down country lanes while rarely seeing a car.

8. There was no such thing as air jackets. Body protectors were typically a piece of foam held in place with an elasticated belt, which was then replaced by something that more closely resembled those we have today, but with a rather fetching ‘nappy’ attachment that went between your legs before fastening at the front.

9. The most popular colour for jodhpurs was beige or black. Anything else was viewed as dangerously exotic.

10. You bought your riding gear by sending off a form cut out of the back of a horse magazine/catalogue, with a postal order.

11. String or leather girths were the norm. If you turned up at your Pony Club rally with a soft padded cotton girth from Cottage Craft, you were definitely ahead of the curve.

12. Showjumping seemed as big as football or rugby, regularly shown on TV (when it only had three channels) and drew huge crowds – David Broome and Harvey Smith were national heroes.

13. Puffa jackets were the height of equestrian fashion – especially the ones with the candy cane stripes.

• To stay up to date with all the breaking news throughout Horse of the Year Show, London International and more, subscribe to the Horse & Hound website

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When everything goes right, when there is total harmony and a horse gives his all – those precious moments are what a partnership is all about. Eleanor Jones finds out about some unforgettable wins...

“Even though it was a very long time ago, those are memories that will last forever,” says Ginny Elliot, who considers herself lucky to have had, in her stellar career, two standout rides that she’ll never forget. One was on Priceless the year they won Badminton in 1985, the other with Master Craftsman at the Europeans at Burghley in 1989, when they won gold.

“It was rather like going along a railway track,” she says. “They were both so smooth and focused. Nothing went wrong; they did their job and all I had to do was point and go. It was quite extraordinary; they were so zoned in. If you look at the relationship that’s built up over the years, and the huge trust you have in each other; they were amazing. Never to be forgotten.”

At the time, Ginny knows she may not have appreciated the magic of each round.

“There’s so much going on, and so much to think about, and every time you landed over a fence, you were thinking about the next one but it would creep into my mind, ‘That felt amazing’. Then you finish the round and play it back to your team. As you close your eyes to sleep, you run over it again and again. I can still do that now.”

Ginny always felt that the onus was on her to make the right choices.

“I guess on those two occasions, I did and they rewarded me for it,” she says. “At the Europeans on ‘Crafty’, there was added pressure because we were last to go for the team, and for him to go like he did was the icing on the cake.”

One more unforgettable moment was on Priceless, at Burghley, where there was a new fence: the Brandy Glass. Then chef d’équipe Malcolm Wallace told her not to take the direct route if she was on time, and even if she wasn’t, she didn’t have to risk it.

“But my blinking watch had stopped halfway round!” she says. “I had no idea what the time was but he’d jumped so well, I thought, ‘I’m going the direct route.’ I can still see it. It was angle, angle, angle, super-difficult, and dear Priceless was perfection; he didn’t go an inch right or left.”

“It comes from years and years of practice and training and trust and it’s very special. I’m privileged to have experienced those rides, with those horses in particular. I’ll never forget them, that’s for sure.”

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Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Heather Holgate, the stalwart of the eventing community and mother of event rider Ginny Elliot, died at home on 1 May, aged 97.

Mrs Holgate was born in Devon into a farming background. She adored hunting and showing and spent hours rounding up sheep on Dartmoor.

When she left school, she trained in the Women’s Royal Air Force for two years and was a skilled engineer for Spitfires and Hurricanes during the Second World War. She married Ronald Holgate, a Royal Marine officer, and the couple had two children, Michael and Ginny. Mr Holgate’s postings included Malta, Canada, Cyprus, Singapore and the Philippines. While in Singapore, Mrs Holgate and her close friend Moisey Barton started the Pony Club there, and she then formed a Pony Club at the Manila Polo Club in the Philippines, where she also took up polo and created her own ladies’ team.

The family later settled in Devon. Heather’s father Ewart bought Ginny a foal, Dubonnet, from a cattle market for £35. When “Dubby” was five, Ginny started eventing, working up through the Pony Club to junior European teams, after which, with Heather’s unfailing support, she went on to success at the top of the sport, with team medals; they also won three individual European medals, four Olympic medals, two World Championships, five Burghleys and three Badmintons.

Mrs Holgate was known to be the driving force behind Ginny and, with help from her co-pilot Dot Willis, they made a dream team. She worked with the mindset of two minds and six legs – the people on the ground were as important as the rider on top. No stone left unturned, it was all done with massive attention to detail and military precision.

A wonderful horsewoman in her own right, everything she did was for the good of the horses foremost; whether it was halting correctly at a stop sign or balancing themselves on uneven terrain, nothing missed her keen eye.

Aged 92, Mrs Holgate agreed to meet Ginny at a garage to trade in her last car. Ahead of the scheduled meeting, she phoned Ginny to say she was at the garage and had already done the exchange and would meet for coffee instead. Ginny, slightly taken aback, drove to Woodstock and waited. She suddenly saw her mother driving a convertible Audi, roof down, dark glasses on, looking decidedly like Joan Collins, and she only stopped driving it last year.

Her great loves were horses, dogs, cricket and rugby, in that order.

She was a force of nature and will be sorely missed.

Mrs Holgate was predeceased by Ronald. She is survived by Michael, Ginny, and grandson Adam.

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Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday, is packed with all the latest news and reports, as well as interviews, specials, nostalgia, vet and training advice. Find how you can enjoy the magazine delivered to your door every week, plus options to upgrade your subscription to access our online service that brings you breaking news and reports as well as other benefits.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Anyone who enjoyed a pony-mad childhood probably has fond memories of soaring over makeshift fences – either with or without a horse – pretending to be your childhood hero, and, it turns out, our Olympic riders are no exception.

As leading British showjumper Holly Smith reveals to H&H showjumping editor Jennifer Donald on this week’s episode of The Horse & Hound Podcast, she spent many happy days building obstacle courses and watching videos of her heroes on repeat.

“I followed all these riders like John Whitaker,” she says. “My mum always laughs now because I used to have the ‘Thrills And Spills’ video, the ‘Milton – Simply The Best’ video, then some Ginny Leng training videos – it was just videos back then!

“My mum used to work nights as a midwife so I would ride my ponies all day then watch these videos over and over and over again. Then I’d build an obstacle course and jump it in the style of the horses on the Thrills And Spills video – that’s what my holidays between the ages of five and 15 consisted of!

“But joking aside, just being able to watch people like that and have the opportunity to practise on my own, riding and copying them, was brilliant – I used to try to get my ponies to go like the horses in the videos. Everybody has their own style don’t they? So I just used to play around doing that all day. But I was lucky to be able to do that – just hours and hours of practice after watching the best riders on TV.”

In “real life” Holly took part in all Pony Club activities, hunter trials, eventing, hunting – “a bit of everything”.

“My mum and I used to buy ponies and break them in and when I was around 13 we had a few that jumped well enough to take the British Showjumping seriously, so for a few years we did that before I started doing my GCSEs,” says Holly.

“I had a pony qualified for the Foxhunter final but that was as far as I took it – I never jumped above 1.20m, I never did any of the JA classes or anything like that. Then for the next few years I focussed on my education and playing other sports as well, such as county hockey and I like playing netball, just any sports really.”

Holly’s showjumping career didn’t develop until she purchased a young Dougie Douglas – who turned out to be a life-changing acquisition and became a world class showjumper.

“I was 21 or 22 when I got Dougie Douglas. He turned up just at the right time really,” says Holly.

• Hear more from Holly Smith as she talks about what she’s learned about producing world class horses and how it felt to compete in the legendary Golden Button Challenge on episode 99 of The Horse & Hound Podcast – listen here or search “The Horse & Hound Podcast” in your favourite podcast app.

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Subscribe to Horse & Hound magazine today – and enjoy unlimited website access all year round

Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday, is packed with all the latest news and reports, as well as interviews, specials, nostalgia, vet and training advice. Find how you can enjoy the magazine delivered to your door every week, plus options to upgrade your subscription to access our online service that brings you breaking news and reports as well as other benefits.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

An Olympic eventer and a rider who was paralysed in a fall are raising funds for research that in trials has enabled those with spinal cord injuries to regain movement.

Former world champion Ginny Elliot is a patron of Spinal Research, for which trustee Tara Stewart has been raising money since she was paralysed from the neck down in 2014. Tara told H&H the research into neuromodulation, electrical stimulation treatment through the skin or via implants, is the subject of a number of clinical trials worldwide, in which participants have noticed various improvements.

“I’m on a trial involving stimulation through the skin and we’ve had remarkable results,” she said. “I’ve become stronger, recovered some sensation and have been able to activate my legs a bit. When I had my fall, I was told there was no hope; I’d never walk again. A couple of years ago, in Switzerland, a man who’d almost severed his spinal cord was able to walk with an implant.”

Tara was 43 when she had her fall in 2014, while hacking a horse who’d had kissing-spine surgery, the day before she moved him to a yard to progress his rehab.

“I got off his back and asked him to canter and he just exploded bucking,” she said. “Because I was in two-point position, I came straight off. I tucked my head to roll, but didn’t have enough distance and I hit the ground head-first. I heard my neck snap, so I knew exactly what had happened and I was on the ground for five and a half hours. Part of your brain thinks, ‘You know what’s happened, you’re paralysed now,’ but part is in total disbelief.”

Tara’s horse stayed with her, alerting a passer-by to her presence – “so he did save my life, bless him” – and she was taken to hospital, where her survival hung in the balance. She spent months in hospital and rehab.

“Then I got home and thought, ‘What do I do now?’” she said. “I’m a C6/7 tetraplegic, so all four limbs are affected, but I do have some use of my arms and one hand and am not on a ventilator, so I’m better than I could be.”

Tara chose to raise money for the air ambulance and Spinal Research, a charity actively working towards treatment for spinal cord injuries and paralysis.

The current fundraising drive is based around Badminton Horse Trials, this year and next, and an online prize draw. Prizes include a VIP lunch and course-walk with Ginny at Badminton 2023, a craft gin hamper and a Fairfax & Favor bag. Influencer Megan Elphick, who has qualified for the BE90 final at Badminton, is involved, so Ginny will do a course-walk of her course this year, which will be shared on Megan’s Instagram with the prize-draw details.

Enter the draw online by 20 May

Ginny told H&H the research and its implications are “incredibly important”. She started working with the Riding for the Disabled Association in the 1980s and has been a patron of Spinal Research since 1993.

“I’ve had more falls than I can shake a stick at and it’s a bit ‘there but for the grace of God’,” she said, adding that her fundraising efforts so far have included many course-walks, dinners and a four-day ride from Wiltshire to Stoke Mandeville.

“People got sponsorship and joined us because their friend or family member had had an accident and was in a wheelchair, and their stories are heart-rending,” she said. “Tara got hold of me and we hatched this plan, and what better person to work with than Tara? Her enthusiasm, her work ethic – she’s an extraordinary human being.”

Ginny said breaking her leg very badly in a fall in 1997, and the resulting lack of mobility, gave her a hint of what people with spinal cord injuries experience and made her even more keen to help.

“This fundraising is a real push to change people’s lives,” she said. “This neuromodulation is something that can do that.”

Some people in the trials have regained torso function or use of their legs; others have regained bladder and bowel control.

“We’ve got something that’s working and very promising,” Tara said. “We need more trials but the wonderful thing is there’s hope; we believe we can restore function. Everyone’s looking for the ultimate cure but any restoration of function, of control and dignity, would be life-transforming.

“There could also be implications for people who have motor neurone disease or strokes. And as we saw during Covid, amazing things can happen if the money’s there; with the right funding, you can do almost anything.

“It’s a feeling like the sun coming out after a long, long winter. I understand why doctors have to be brutal and tell you there’s no hope, but to have hope now that you might improve — even if I could improve the 10% function of my right hand, to write and type and dress myself, it would be transformational and that’s now within our grasp.”

Spinal Research CEO Harvey Sihota said: “Scientists are making remarkable progress in understanding the spinal cord and what it may take to restore vital functions after injury.

“We currently support a portfolio of 20 research projects, crucially eight of which are being trialled in humans. Funding is now critical to see these important discoveries translated to patients. Your support will help transform the lives of 60,000 people in the UK and more than 2.5 million people living with paralysis worldwide.”

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Subscribe to Horse & Hound magazine today – and enjoy unlimited website access all year round

Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday, is packed with all the latest news and reports, as well as interviews, specials, nostalgia, vet and training advice. Find how you can enjoy the magazine delivered to your door every week, plus options to upgrade your subscription to access our online service that brings you breaking news and reports as well as other benefits.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Anyone who would like to jump from a plane this summer — or sponsor others who do — could help bring home British medals and support equestrians in Ukraine.

The Horse Trials Support Group (HTSG) is organising a skydive on 26 June, in Wiltshire, to raise funds for the British team for the World Eventing Championships in September.

Eventer, commentator and HTSG committee member Spencer Sturmey told H&H the aim had been to do the jump to raise funds for the Tokyo Olympics, but Covid put paid to that plan. Given the situation created by the Russian invasion, the money will be split between the team and the Ukrainian equestrian federation.

Spencer said 10 jumpers have already confirmed, including British Equestrian eventing performance manager Dickie Waygood, and Gemma Tattersall’s mother Marcelle Tattersall, but he joked that trying to find other participants has been “like herding cats”.

Holly Farr of HPower, former Barbury International organiser, is signed up, and although eventer Tina Cook has had to pull out, her young daughter Isabel may step in.

“It’s open to everyone, and by doing it, you’ll support Equestrian Team GBR and Ukraine,” Spencer said.

“This could help win medals. The money the HTSG gives the team goes into the sport; we gave them about £20,000 for Tokyo and they brought back team gold and individual silver, and that’s what we’re trying to do for the World Championships too. We’re the reigning Olympic and European champions and we want to add the world title.”

The jump will be a tandem skydive, so strapped to a professional — “We could say a ‘hunky’ professional if that might attract more people,” Spencer joked — and anyone is welcome to apply.

“I did one in aid of Willberry Wonder Pony and was scared s**tless but I loved it, and if I can do it, anyone can,” Spencer said.

Former world champion eventer Ginny Elliott, who is also part of the HTSG, told H&H: “The more money we can raise, the more we can help Ukraine, as well as our riders.”

Ginny added that it may not be a good idea for her to do the jump herself, owing to the fact she badly broke a leg in a fall some years ago, but “I said I’d never run a marathon and I did, and that wasn’t fun!”

To apply, email spencer_sturmey@outlook.com or contact Spencer via social media.

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Subscribe to Horse & Hound magazine today – and enjoy unlimited website access all year round

Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday, is packed with all the latest news and reports, as well as interviews, specials, nostalgia, vet and training advice. Find how you can enjoy the magazine delivered to your door every week, plus options to upgrade your subscription to access our online service that brings you breaking news and reports as well as other benefits.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Despite being described as an “awkward chap”, the quirky Ben Faerie son went on to have an extraordinary eventing record, notching up six gold medals with Ginny Holgate. Kate Green delves deeper into his story

NEVER was a horse more aptly named. Priceless, who cost £1,000 as a four-year-old in 1977, evented for nine seasons with Ginny Holgate (now Elliot) without a single cross-country fault, nor a championship pole down. He was world and European champion, he won Badminton and Burghley and six of his eight medals were gold.

“Mr P” was brainy, awkward and a law unto himself, “an unpredictable little beastie”, as Ginny puts it. You couldn’t use a whip on him or he would buck like mad, he snapped like a crocodile in the stable, he didn’t enjoy schooling and, to the end of his days, refused to be caught.

“If you told him, he would say ‘why?’, so the secret was to ask, to cajole. He was quite an awkward chap,” explains Ginny.

Standing 16.1hh “in his stilettos”, Priceless was three-quarter-bred, by Diana Scott’s thoroughbred stallion Ben Faerie out of the half-bred Reckless, and he looked more like his dam. Ginny went to try him at the Scotts’ Brendon Hill Stud in west Somerset; she felt that he might be too small, but also that he looked “cute”.

“I decided that if he jumped a ditch bravely, I would buy him, and he did,” she says.

They won their first big competition, Bramham in 1979, and never finished lower than 12th at an international event.

“Whatever was built, he jumped,” says Ginny. Her team-mate Ian Stark once described Priceless as having the versatility of a motorbike across country; he went in a D-ring snaffle and no “gadgets”.

They won double gold at the Burghley Europeans of 1985, where there was a bullfinch at the bottom of the hill, on an angle, a massive ditch toward.

“I was absolutely terrified of it,” recalls Ginny. “I tapped P with the stick and he fitted in three bucks, but still managed to jump it.”

At the Gawler World Championships in 1986 – another double gold performance – Priceless was “bored out of his brains” after 10 weeks of quarantine and training, as Ginny hadn’t wanted to risk competing him on hard Australian ground.

“He galloped at the first fence, missed his jerk, walked all over it, bucked and then carried on,” she says.

“Then there was a water complex where I thought the striding just wasn’t possible and I angled him so as to fit a stride into a bounce distance; he did it easily,” Ginny continues. His brilliance was his brain; he could assess things at high speed and had an incredible ability to adjust himself.”

At Burghley in 1983, Ginny told British chef d’equipe Malcolm Wallace and her friend Louise Bates that if she was short on time, she would go straight at the notorious brandy-glass fence, a route no one had tackled. As she approached, her supporters relaxed, because they knew she was in plenty of time; what they didn’t realise was that her stopwatch had failed and they had to cover their eyes as Ginny boldly kicked on, the only rider of the competition to take the direct route.

Priceless was team trailblazer at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984, winning team silver and making Ginny the first British woman to win an individual Olympic eventing medal (bronze).

“The cross-country course was in Santiago and we got horribly stuck in traffic – it was nip and tuck,” she recalls. “I had no information about the course, but that was probably best.”

Here, they were the first pair to take the straight route at the Crescent Oxer, a spectacular massive parallel and drop. The photographer Kit Houghton asked trainer Dot Willis if she thought Ginny would go direct.

“Dot said, ‘Don’t worry, she will,’ so Kit got in a complete muck sweat running over to the fence,” Ginny says. “Sure enough, P did it. I was more than terrified, but he was unbelievable. We finished with only 0.4 of a time-fault and I was so thrilled. It was my most proud moment.”

IT had taken meticulous planning to get to this stage. In 1980, Priceless was sixth at Burghley with 22 time-faults; in 1981, he was eighth at Badminton with 34, and sixth and a team gold medallist with 16 at the Horsens Europeans in Denmark, by which time there was much muttering that he was “too common”.

Novel ways had to be found to manage him. Remember that, in those days, championships were “real” long format (incorporating roads and tracks and steeplechases) and the cross-country at five-star level; most horses ridden by women had to carry dead weight to reach the requisite 11st 7lbs.

Ginny sought help from the Yorkshire-based racehorse trainer Michael Dickinson, famous for producing fit horses – and the first five home in the 1983 Cheltenham Gold Cup. She volunteered to help him with gridwork if he would show her how to get Priceless as fit as a racehorse.

Michael advocated swapping interval training (which was then – and still is – the accepted wisdom, pioneered by the likes of Sheila Willcox) for hill work at different speeds every four days on the gallops.

Priceless hated being lunged and had to be kept occupied, so Ginny’s mother Heather would hack him out – on the route of his choice – and Mr P, as he was nicknamed by team trainer Lady Hugh Russell, was put on a diet: every four hours he would be given a tiny haynet and at night a 6lb one. He was fed four times a day, everything carefully weighed, and turned out in a bare paddock.

Fortunately, Priceless was “as sound as a pound”, only missing part of the 1983 season due to the blood poisoning disease leptospirosis.

“It was a team effort. Dot was a brilliant eyes-on-the-ground, and there was Mummy, Pat Manning [dressage trainer], Pat Burgess [jumping], Lady Hugh [cross-country] – all amazing people who chose to understand him.”

WITH horses such as Night Cap (also by Ben Faerie), Murphy Himself, Master Craftsman, Griffin and Welton Houdini, Ginny won two more European titles, two more Badmintons and medals galore. Altogether, she won at Burghley five times, four of them in succession and two of them on Priceless, of whom she says: “He mapped out my life.

“I would never have evented at that level without him or gone on to buy other horses. It was his brain, his attitude, his wilfulness and his guts that did it. He did what he did against all the odds. The long format was against him – in fact, it was against most horses – he was just a trooper.”

The breeder on Priceless

PRICELESS undoubtedly put Diana Scott’s prolific eventing sire Ben Faerie, a 15.3hh thoroughbred bought from Ascot for 240gns, on the map, but Priceless was “a funny little foal”. Born on Kings Brompton Common, he earned his name when Diana’s sister said: “Oh, isn’t he priceless!” And a farm worker said: “He’ll be no good – his ears turn in!”

Diana observes that Ben Faerie was “a pattern of a horse, full of quality. It didn’t matter what you crossed him with, he would put speed onto a non-thoroughbred.”

The dam, Reckless, came off the boat from Ireland and was bought from an Exeter sale for 120gns.

“She carried my father-in-law staghunting and he told me that she jumped all the gates,” recalls Diana. “I took him at his word and jumped all the farm gates on her. My husband, Maurice, was horrified as she hadn’t actually ever jumped anything before.”

Diana visited Priceless in his retirement: “He heard my voice and trotted over before shying, bucking and galloping off.”

Another of Ben Faerie’s legacies was a long life; Priceless was put down aged 28.

Priceless as hunter

HUNTING bookended Priceless’s career: he was a “mannerly” four-year-old out staghunting on Exmoor with the Devon and Somerset Staghounds joint-master Diana Scott, who led her small daughter from him, and Pytchley joint-master Louise Bates (pictured) enjoyed his superb jumping post-eventing.

“He was the most intelligent horse I’ve ridden – he knew where the fox was before the huntsman and would change direction even before hounds,” remembers Louise.

She recalls a “vintage” half-hour over huge Meynell fences.

“Another visitor, Bruce Hodges, later said to his brother: ‘My God, that Louise Bates goes well; I nearly killed myself following her! She was only riding a stocky little bay horse…’”

Louise took Priceless to Olympia for a parade of horse personalities. “Every time we came through the curtain, Raymond Brooks-Ward would holloa and I nearly fell off,” Louise says. “We also gave Mark Pitman and Corbiere [Grand National winner] a lead over a 2ft practice fence!”

You can also read this feature in the 20 May issue of Horse & Hound magazine.

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With five Burghley and three Badminton titles under her belt, Olympic medallist Ginny Elliot has had her fair share of talented horses, and the one who kick-started her career — Priceless — is arguably one of her most memorable rides.

“My mum and I managed to survive by buying and selling young horses,” said Ginny when she talked to H&H editor Pippa Roome on episode 51 of The Horse & Hound Podcast.

“After Dubonnet — who cost £35 and scraped around Badminton — I had got the bug, so we went off and searched the papers and found an advert for two four-year-olds in Devon.

“We went down and there was Priceless. He was £900. I rode him and he seemed very nice. He did have a false curb so we were a little unsure, but I said that if he jumped the ditch straight away, we’ll buy him and if he doesn’t, we won’t. He jumped it and the false curb ended up never being a problem.”

When Ginny got him home, Priceless certainly made his character known to all.

“He wouldn’t have a stick,” said Ginny. “If you tapped him behind the girth he would buck. Once, I remember coming down a hill to a very big bullfinch with a huge ditch, and by mistake I gave him a light tap behind the saddle and he did about four or five bucks. Thank god he decided he needed to pay attention just before the fence.”

Priceless first moved up to top level as a six-year-old when he ran at Bramham, which he proceeded to win.

“It was bizarre,” said Ginny, who rode him into sixth place at Burghley the following year. “Here, and at Badminton the next year, we had quite a few time faults and the view from a lot of people was that he was a bit common so he’d never do the time.

“I knew he had the ability so I rang up Michael Dickinson and asked him to help me get him fitter. We had a deal; I helped Michael with some grid work, and he gave me his secret fitness regime. I changed Priceless’ fitness from interval training to using the gallops twice a week and incorporating hill work. 

“The next time he went to a competition he only had 16 time faults and from then on he was pretty much inside the time at all of his championships.”

Article continues below…

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You can listen to more from the legendary Ginny Elliott and Priceless here on episode 51 of The Horse & Hound Podcast or search “The Horse & Hound Podcast” in your favourite podcast app.

Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday, is packed with all the latest news and reports, as well as interviews, specials, nostalgia, vet and training advice. Find how you can enjoy the magazine delivered to your door every week, plus options to upgrade to access our H&H Plus online service which brings you breaking news as it happens as well as other benefits.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

In our 51st weekly episode of the first series of The Horse & Hound Podcast, currently supported by Frosti-Tap, prolific event rider Ginny Elliot talks to H&H editor Pippa Roome about her memories of her time with World and European Champion, Priceless, and more. Moving on to the week’s top news stories, Horse & Hound news editor Eleanor Jones, senior news writer Lucy Elder and dressage editor Polly Bryan join showing editor Alex Robinson to discuss the top class dressage action from Wellington CDI and more. We also welcome back the Royal Veterinary College’s Andy Fiske-Jackson and equine vet Ricky Farr, who give an insight into bone scans. We hope you will find it useful.

Episode 51 of The Horse & Hound Podcast, our popular audio service available exclusively every Thursday morning for our H&H Plus subscribers, currently supported by Frosti-Tap, is now live.

Each episode is available for all H&H fans to listen to 24hrs after its early release to our H&H Plus members. Search for “The Horse & Hound Podcast” in your preferred podcast app and click subscribe to be notified about each new episode. This will allow more listeners to make The Horse & Hound Podcast an essential part of their week on Friday morning.

• View all episodes of The Horse & Hound Podcast

In episode 51, prolific event rider Ginny Elliot talks to H&H editor Pippa Roome about her memories of her time with World and European Champion, Priceless, and more.

Moving on to the week’s top news stories, Horse & Hound news editor Eleanor Jones, senior news writer Lucy Elder and dressage editor Polly Bryan join showing editor Alex Robinson to discuss the top class dressage action from Wellington CDI and more.

In this week’s advice section, the Royal Veterinary College’s Andy Fiske-Jackson and equine vet Rick Farr who give an insight into bone scans.

We hope you will enjoy our latest episode and would love to hear your feedback, so please do send your thoughts to pippa.roome@futurenet.com

H&H Plus podcast: episode 51

Listen now to other popular episodes of the H&H podcast…

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The Horse & Hound Podcast 47: Anneli Drummond-Hay | CT scans | News round-up

The Horse & Hound Podcast 46: US Olympic eventer Boyd Martin | Emergency vet referrals | News round-up

Male and female riders may now compete as equals, but a few skilled horsewomen paved the way in a historically masculine sport, finds Jennifer Donald

Since a lady first chose to ride astride instead of side-saddle, female riders have been breaking the glass ceiling in the equestrian world. Equestrianism is the only Olympic sport other than sailing in which men and women can compete on equal terms, but the playing field hasn’t always been level and we are still waiting for a female showjumper or eventer to win individual gold at the Games.

In 1984, the all-conquering Ginny Elliot, then Holgate, and Karen Stives of the USA became the first female eventers to win individual medals at the Los Angeles Olympics. Despite it not being recorded in the record books, Torrance Watkins had won an individual bronze four years previously at the alternative Olympics in Fontainebleau, but it would be Ginny and Priceless who made official history when they won bronze in the year Mark Todd took gold on Charisma, with Karen in silver on Ben Arthur.

“I’m not sure a big deal was made of it at the time and I suppose the fact I won a medal, and a team one as well, was so overwhelming that you didn’t really think about being the first woman,” says Ginny. “It wasn’t until someone mentioned it not long after that I realised no woman had won an individual medal until I rocked up. So that was a great thrill.

“I suppose, having been brought up from the get-go that you are competing on level terms with men, it just seems normal, but there’s always competitive banter when the girls win and the boys don’t! But it is surprising that a woman has yet to win the Olympics.”

Ginny followed in the wake of some trailblazing horsewomen. Due to the military history behind Olympic equestrian events, women were not allowed to ride at the Games until 1964 in Tokyo, when US rider Lana Du Pont was the first woman on an eventing team, helping her team to clinch silver in the process.

Margaret Hough is remembered as the first woman to triumph at Badminton, taking the title in 1954 with Bambi V (pictured).

“It was ground-breaking for a woman to win it,” says her son Peter Gleave. “Especially as one or two of the men at the time looked down at women having a go and doing well. But although she knew what she’d achieved, she never made a big deal out of it. My father was always dead proud of her; he’d always be telling people about it and she’d look at him almost as though she was telling him off!”

Later that decade, the supremely gifted Sheila Willcox became the first rider to win the event three times in succession, from 1957 to 1959, an achievement yet to be matched. Her first victory came at the age of just 21, at a time when women were still prohibited from competing in the Olympics, meaning her first team call-up came in the 1957 European Championships when she rode High And Mighty to become the first female champion.

As Mary King says, she was “one of the first really successful female riders in a male-dominated sport”.

In a golden era for the fairer sex, while Sheila was soaring round Badminton, Pat Smythe was carving a name for herself in showjumping. She became the first British female showjumper to ride at, let alone win a medal from, the Olympics, in 1956, helping the team win bronze. In a career full of fine accolades, Pat was also the first woman to win the Hickstead Derby, in 1962 on Flanagan.

It would be Marion Coakes who became the first female showjumper to win an individual medal at the Olympics, riding the great Stroller to silver in Mexico City in 1968, while the pioneering Liz Edgar finally beat her male rivals to take the title at the world-famous Aachen grand prix in 1980.

On home soil, the historic King George V Gold Cup at the Royal International dates back to 1911, but was men-only until being opened up to women – somewhat controversially at the time – in 2009. Five years later, US rider Beezie Madden lifted the solid gold trophy for the first time, returning for a second successive victory on the flying Cortes C.

“We girls were always a bit jealous we didn’t get to jump in this class, so it was a great feeling to win it,” says Beezie.

Behind the scenes, too, women have been paving their way. Di Lampard, a hugely successful international showjumper in her own right, became the first female chef d’equipe in British equestrian sport when appointed to the role in 2015.

“I wasn’t aware of that when I took the role but when it was brought to my attention, I did think, ‘Gosh, yes, that’s pretty special,’” says Di. “It just felt normal for me, having competed so much against the men – equestrianism is very much a sport where men and women go toe to toe. But you do see a bit more balance behind the scenes in other sports now, with more female referees and so on.”

Di has been credited for championing female talent on her teams but, she says, that’s more about how the sport has evolved.

“You take the best partnerships available at the time, but it has slowly changed,” she says. “But we’ve had some great role models over the years – I certainly followed Caroline Bradley, Liz Edgar and had many pictures of Pat Smythe in scrap books.”

Canada’s Gail Greenough became the first world champion in 1986 but it was only as recently as 2018 that Germany’s Simone Blum riding DSP Alice equalled her feat, herself becoming the first woman to win a title at a World Equestrian Games (WEG). Then, 16 years ago, Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum earned the number one spot in the world rankings, the first woman to do so; no woman had ever ridden on the German team before the US-born rider earnt her place, either.

Dressage is one discipline in which women have often reached the top. Germany’s Isabell Werth holds the record for the most Olympic medals won by any rider, while among Charlotte Dujardin’s astounding list of achievements is to have been the first British woman to retain an individual Olympic title.

But it was 20 years after women were admitted to the Olympic dressage competition – previously it had been open only to commissioned military officers – that Liselott Linsenhoff became the first lady to win gold, with the team medal in 1968 and the individual crown in 1972.

The remarkable dressage rider Lis Hartel, from Denmark, was one of the first women to compete head-to-head with men in an equestrian sport at the Olympics in 1952, and her ground-breaking silver medal was even more remarkable as in 1944, at the age of 23, she had contracted polio and was left paralysed below the knees and with limited mobility in her arms. Seeing her struggle to dismount, the gold medallist, Henri Saint Cyr from Sweden, helped her to the podium to stand side-by-side with her male counterparts. Her success was a defining moment for equality in our sports.

On the racecourse, Meriel Tufnell paved the way as the first female jockey to win a race under Jockey Club rules in 1972. But it is only very recently that the voices have finally been heard calling for all jockeys to be classed as such, rather than defining the accomplishments of women on the racetrack by their gender. This change has been driven in part by Great British Racing’s #JustJockeys initiative. Since 2015, the number of winners from female jockeys has risen by a huge 76% thanks to skilled riders such as 24-year-old Hollie Doyle, who broke her own record for Flat winners in a season (116) last year.

“I have made the point many times that I think gender is irrelevant when it comes to jockeys,” says ITV Racing presenter Francesca Cumani. “For too long, female riders have not had the same opportunities as their male counterparts and have not had the chance to show the extent of their skills. “Hollie has proved that, when given an opening, she is just as capable, if not more so, as any of her colleagues.”

Charlotte Brew was the first woman to ride in the Grand National, in 1977, raising the tape on the race to find a female winner of Aintree’s legendary steeplechase. The strike rate has been much higher at the Cheltenham Festival, both in the saddle and from the training ranks. In March 1987, 21-year-old Gee Armytage became the first female jockey to win against the professionals, when landing the Kim Muir Challenge Cup, doubling up in the Mildmay of Flete Challenge Cup the next day on a horse aptly named Gee-A.

“I actually had five rides at Cheltenham that year and that in itself was a big story at the time,” says Gee. “My first ride in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle didn’t go to plan though, and I was carried out by a loose horse at the second obstacle. As I cantered back up the straight, people were throwing plastic bottles at me and shouting, ‘Useless girl.’ I just had to keep my head held high. But of course after I’d ridden those two winners, I was the hero again.

“I do look back and think how lucky I was, but it all happened so easily for me then; I was riding lots of big winners. I was so confident in those days and would push trainers to be allowed to come and ride out. If I hadn’t done that, undoubtedly I wouldn’t have had nearly as many opportunities.

“Being singled out as a woman jockey actually helped me, because people were so anti them then that you got a lot of attention when you did well. Some trainers would never have put a girl up, but almost in desperation I did get the ride on horses that weren’t going well.”

Three years earlier, Jenny Pitman, a phenomenal trailblazer for women, sent out Burrough Hill Lad and became the first woman to train the winner of the Gold Cup – a year after she trained her first Grand National winner, Corbiere.

These days, the likes of Bryony Frost, the first female to win a Grade One at the Festival, Hayley Turner, Bridget Andrews and Rachael Blackmore have made finishing first past the post a far more frequent occurrence. We also saw Khadijah Mellah hit the headlines last year as the first hijab-wearing jockey, winning the Magnolia Cup at Goodwood.

Success and opportunity have not always come easily for women. Fortunately, long gone are the days when US polo player Sue Sally Hale had to disguise herself as a man when she first rode in the 1950s. There is still work to do, but let’s celebrate these pioneers who paved the way for the next generation to enjoy this wonderful sport on their terms.

Ref: 7 January 2021

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BBC Radio 4’s programme Desert Island Discs is something of a national treasure, where ‘castaways’ are asked which eight records they would take with them to a desert island.

The brainchild of broadcaster Roy Plomley, the first programme was broadcast on 29 January 1942 — and during the past 78 years it has given us an addictive insight into the lives of a number of horsemen and horse-lovers.

What inspires them? What gives them their drive? What makes them laugh? And how have horses helped them during their lives?

Here’s our pick of the equestrian Desert Island Discs since the show’s inception…

Mark Johnston, recrod-breaking Flat trainer, on getting into trouble for riding

Broadcast in 2020

“Dad bought my sister a pony when we were younger, but I didn’t get one and I think that was probably a sexism thing in that he thought girls should be more into ponies than boys. I wasn’t allowed to ride my sister’s pony, so I used to climb through a window with a bridle — the window was too small to get the saddle through — and take the pony for a ride. All hell broke loose if I got caught, but that’s how I learnt to ride.”

Listen here

Jilly Cooper, author of equestrian ‘bonkbusters’, on her first pony Rufus

Broadcast in 2016

“Daddy went to get him from Cornwall and so I came back from school terribly excited — I must have been about eight — and I rushed into the field and said ‘Rufus, Rufus’ and he promptly bit me. He was a monster. He was also still a stallion and so every time I went out for a walk with him he would rush up to a mare and mount it. So sadly Rufus was sold…”

Listen here

Comedian Lee Mack on his foray into the world of racing

Broadcast in 2013

“I was thrown out of college at 16 because I’d failed all my O-Levels and I went home thinking, what am I going to do with the rest of my life? I put the telly on and horseracing was on. I’d had a mild interest in racing because my granddad had liked to bet and I used to watch the Grand National, but that was it. I’d never had any horse experience in my life. But by coincidence in my home town they trained Red Rum. So I thought, I’ll do that then. So having turned the telly on to phoning up the stables it was probably about 60 seconds. And the first horse I ever rode was Red Rum. He was retired and my mate who was working at the yard said ‘right, it’s about time you sat on a horse,’ and so I jumped on a horse. And he said: ‘You know who that is don’t you?’ They all looked the same to me but he said: “That’s Red Rum’.”

Listen here

Broadcaster Clare Balding on showing off her Shetland to The Queen

Broadcast in 2013

“My father trained racehorses for The Queen for his whole career, and my grandfather had done and my brother does now, and the Queen Mother had horses with us too. And as owners want to do, they wanted to see the horses and talk to the people who look after them. Everything would be spotless, and the horses would be gleaming and they would be all ready for morning gallops or evening stables. And [when The Queen came] I used to go and get the Shetland pony Valkyrie that we used to ride, that had been a present from The Queen, and bring her down from her yard to line up with the racehorses for The Queen to look at.”

Listen here

Jockey Frankie Dettori on the day in September 1996 when he rode all seven winners at Ascot

Broadcast in 2006

“That day the Queen Elizabeth Stakes was the big race and basically I was focusing on trying to win that, and I knew I had another couple of chances on the card. But never in a million years did I think I was going to win the seventh race. I was actually so relaxed about it, I was joking about it — I could not see the horse winning. Crossing the line with Fujiyama Crest I remember being exhausted, because of the mental pressure of a day like that. By the time I’d won the seventh, I didn’t even remember the first three.”

Listen here

Three-time champion jump jockey Ricard Dunwoody on one of his first ever rides on a donkey called Seamus

Broadcast in 1999

“My father put me on a donkey one day and we were walking through some fields. He went to shut a gate and let me go and the donkey bolted — I hung on for sa long as I could, but eventually fell off. My father came up to me, expecting me to be in floods of tears, but I had a big smile on my face and got up and said ‘daddy, I fall off like a jockey’, and I think I’ve been doing it ever since!”

Listen here

Fifteen time National Hunt champion trainer Martin Pipe on his late start to riding

Broadcast in 1999

“I was very mollycoddled as a child — I wasn’t even allowed to ride a bike to school and I wasn’t allowed to ride a horse. The first time I got on a horse, I was 17 and was put on a racehorse, with no clue what I was meant to be doing — I used to fall off every day.”

Listen here

Former jockey and best-selling author Dick Francis on hand delivering his work to royalty

Broadcast in 1998

“I hand deliver each new novel I have written to the Queen Mother each year. I have it ready in time for when we go to Royal Ascot, and my wife Mary and I are invited up to the royal box so that I can hand over the new copy. The next time I see the Queen Mother she remarks about it, so I know she has read it.”

Listen here

The late racing commentator Peter O’Sullevan on the pressure of the Grand National

Broadcast in 1997

“The Grand National isn’t necessarily the hardest race to commentate on, but it’s the most fraught. It’s the one that one is most anxious about. [After the first one I ever did back in 1947 when there were 57 runners, and I just had a basic pair of binoculars], I promised myself, and it’s a promise I broke, that if I got through the next year’s National I wouldn’t subject myself to this ordeal again. I found it so devastatingly inhibiting and frightening, that one could get it wrong, and that it would be the most appalling thing to misinterpret the race.”

Listen here

Former top National Hunt trainer Jenny Pitman on riding as a child

Broadcast in 1995

“People would send us ponies to break, handle or ride when we were growing up. Occasionally dad would be driving along and see a camp of travellers on the side of the road and he’d stop and do a deal with them, buy a pony and we’d take it home.”

Listen here

Jockey and eight-time National Hunt champion Peter Scudamore on his mother’s will for him to have an alternative career

Broadcast in 1994

“If my mother had had her way, I would have ended up as an estate agent. Even when I was going well as a jockey, if I went round for Sunday lunch with her, she’d still ask when I was going to get a proper job. She wanted me to be an estate agent so much that she used to feed me plenty so that I would be too heavy to be a jockey, but by the time I was a teenager, I’d cottoned on to what was happening.”

Listen here

Eventer Ginny Elliot on how riding helped her overcome an eating disorder

Broadcast 1986

“When I was at boarding school I went on a diet and just didn’t stop. I used to put bricks in my pocket when I was weighed and take doggy bags into school meals and drop the food in them. I did everything not to eat anything. It wasn’t until my mother came back on leave that she discovered what had happened because I’d obviously got very thin, but with the school uniform it was difficult to actually notice. And she took me home and she said either you eat or you don’t ride, and it was the fact that I wanted to ride that made me eat again.”

Listen here

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Former showjumper David Broome (pictured, top) on how he started out in the sport

Broadcast 1981

“I remember going to my first hunter trials when I was about nine — and my one memory of that was that the following day, the local daily rag showed a picture of a Mr D Broome riding Coffee, but unfortunately the caption carried on to say that on landing he departed from his pony. And I’ve never been allowed to forget that.”

Listen here

Continued below…

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Showjumper Harvey Smith on never having had a riding lesson

Broadcast in 1971

“A riding lesson is one thing I’ve never done. With riding lessons you would have been riding somebody else’s style, whereas when you’re self-taught you’re riding your own style. You’ve got to work together with the horse, to get both your minds together. I’d say it’s 60-70% the rider and 30-40% the horse. But a good horse will make up for a lot.”

Listen here

All of the episodes above can be downloaded from the BBC’s Desert Island Discs archive. Visit www.bbc.co.uk

Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday, is packed with all the latest news and reports, as well as interviews, specials, nostalgia, vet and training advice. Find how you can enjoy the magazine delivered to your door every week, plus options to upgrade to access our H&H Plus online service which brings you breaking news as it happens as well as other benefits.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

One of the first female Olympic medallists in eventing, Ginny Elliot also claimed three consecutive European titles and multiple wins at Badminton and Burghley to earn her place among the sport’s greats, discovers Andrea Oakes

Few have ridden across country with the panache of Ginny Elliot, the petite eventer whose distinctive purple colours blazed a trail around the sport’s toughest tracks. Yet Ginny delivered not just style, but substance.

During an astonishing decade, she dominated the international scene – claiming multiple Olympic, World and European Championship medals alongside a Badminton hat-trick and five Burghley wins. “We hit a real purple patch in the 1980s,” she recalls. “I’d had a tough time but, thankfully, everything suddenly clicked.”

She certainly made it look effortless. Fellow eventers admired her, spectators adored her and no pony-mad youngster’s bedroom was complete without posters of Priceless, Night Cap and Master Craftsman on the walls. But the polished performances came after an arduous climb to the top.

Ginny, whose maiden name was Holgate and first married name was Leng, was born in Malta, in 1955. Her father was a Royal Marine so she spent much of her childhood abroad, with spells at school in the UK.

“My interest in horses grew from my mother [Heather]’s side, as she and my grandfather [Ewart Rice] had always been into showing and polo,” explains Ginny, who started riding at three and whose first proper pony was a Welsh Mountain mare called Misty. “Grandpa had a passion for buying horses. One day he arrived with a foal he had bought for me, for £35, from Five Lanes Cattle Market in Cornwall.”

The colt, christened Dubonnet, would play a pivotal role in Ginny’s success.

“When ‘Dubby’ was five, I would hack him over for lessons with Sally Strachan [elder sister of eventer Clarissa],” recalls Ginny. “He was only 15.2hh, but we were excited to discover that he was by the same sire as Mary Gordon-Watson’s great Cornishman V. I just imagined that Dubby would be the same.”

Despite early eliminations and many rookie mistakes, she and Dubby progressed from Pony Club teams to become junior European champions – even taking a tilt at their first Badminton, in 1974. Ginny developed a small string and was long-listed for the Montreal Olympics with a promising youngster called Jason.

But her plans came to a shuddering halt soon after her 21st birthday, when she broke her left arm in 23 places in a fall with Jason at a one-day event. Thanks to the skill of a talented surgeon, the jigsaw of bone fragments was pieced back together and Ginny’s arm was saved from amputation.

‘We had no money’

Ginny was back in action at Burghley later that year with up-and-coming star Tio Pepe, but faced bigger hurdles on the path to success.

“My poor dad had developed multiple sclerosis and we had no money,” she says. “Mum said we would have to find a way, so we bought and sold horses to make ends meet. Every week, we bagged up sacks of shavings at a sawmill, because they were free. We had to scrimp and save.

“Mum sent me to Pat Manning for lessons and I would live in a caravan, mucking out 22 boxes in return for a one-hour lesson,” Ginny recalls. “It gave me the opportunity to decide whether I really wanted to do this or not.”

Disappointments came thick and fast, however, as all three of her advanced horses were forced into early retirement with health issues. Ginny admits that she was close to giving up when she started schooling Priceless and Night Cap, two five-year-old Ben Faerie sons bought locally in Devon. As they started to make their mark, she set about securing financial support.

“I would go up to London on the train once a week to try to find a sponsor,” says Ginny, whose efforts eventually paid off with backing from British National Life Assurance. “I’m not particularly competitive, but I am determined.”

And so began that extraordinary run of results, when, as Ginny explains, “everything went right”. Priceless led the charge, defying the critics who claimed he was too common by backing up world and European team golds with a win at Burghley in 1983.

Ginny became European champion three times in a row – in 1985 with Priceless, in 1987 with Night Cap and in 1989 with Master Craftsman. She clinched World Championship gold in Gawler in 1986, with Priceless, before riding Night Cap to victory at the alternative worlds later that year (laid on at Bialy Bor, Poland, because many nations couldn’t travel to Australia).

Ginny also claimed individual bronze and team silver Olympic medals with Priceless in Los Angeles in 1984, achieving the same with Master Craftsman in Seoul in 1988. Slotted between were additional Badminton and Burghley wins – Master Craftsman took both titles in 1989, four years after Priceless had achieved the same feat.

“I really respected how wonderful the horses were in those years,” says Ginny. “I like to think they trusted us. I used a training ethic taught to me by Lady Hugh Russell and Pat Manning, and we went to some lengths to prepare them – turning them out every day, incorporating roadwork, hillwork and gallops into their routine, but never using gadgets.

“I begged racehorse trainer Michael Dickinson to show me how to get them really fit, helping him in return with some gridwork for his racehorses.

“I was incredibly fortunate with my team,” adds Ginny, who had built a formidable back-up crew that included Heather and Dot Willis (Pat Manning’s former head girl), with showjumping input from trainer Pat Burgess. “Everyone paid attention to detail. It’s like a Formula One driver with the mechanics – you can’t win without them.”

Ginny is quick to credit the likes of Mark Todd and Lucinda Green for the help she received on the way, saying: “I love asking questions. I asked lots of those at the top of their game and they all managed to put up with me.”

The world stage

Just as she had studied her heroes, all eyes were on Ginny as she established herself on the world stage. Her preparation was second to none.

“I like doing things properly and hate making mistakes, so I would double-check everything,” she says. “I used to get pretty nervous. Everyone else was as cool as a cucumber; Mary King always seemed so calm. I was envious!

“The worst thing was waking up on cross-country day to the sound of rain falling on the caravan roof, and thinking, ‘I wish I wasn’t here,’” she adds. “But, as soon as the starter said, ‘Go,’ I was fine. All those horrible feelings just disappeared.”

Ginny remembers coming to terms with her fame with a smile. “At Badminton, in 1985, it was announced on the tannoy that I’d finished the cross-country in the lead. We packed the 10-minute halt stuff [long-format eventing] into the car and I was sitting in the back with my great friend Louise Bates while mum drove.

“As we fought through the crowds, I noticed that everyone was waving at me. ‘Amazing,’ I thought, ‘We’ve really made it!’ Then a man tapped on the window and said ‘We’re not waving at you, you prat – you’ve left a bucket on the roof’. Talk about coming down to earth with a bump.”

Horses being horses, there were inevitably ups and downs. Murphy Himself proved one of the tougher nuts to crack.

“He was the sort of child you wouldn’t want at school,” says Ginny, who bought the gung-ho gelding when he was advertised as a four-year-old in Horse & Hound. “We were told he’d been backed, but we later heard they’d tied a sack of nuts on his back and he’d jumped out of the arena. If he was fed up, he’d rear. It took so much patience to try to understand his personality and his brain. He was a monster, but in a charming way.”

After winning Burghley in 1986, aged just eight, Murphy took it into his head to leap from the top of Badminton’s notorious “ski jump” to the bottom.

“I fell off, fracturing my ankle,” explains Ginny, who still managed to finish third on Master Craftsman. “My family said Murphy was just too strong. I was determined to find a way, but they put pressure on me and I bent. I passed him to Ian Stark, who did a great job with him, but to this day I regret moving Murphy on.”

Welton Houdini proved a different challenge. Described by Ginny as “talented but timid”, he took a crashing fall in the quagmire that was Badminton 1992.

“He liked to carry his head quite high into the jumps, so one day I lengthened his martingale,” she says. “Along with some hunting, to build his confidence in the mud, it transformed him. He won Badminton the next year and never went better.”

Hanging up her boots

“I didn’t go out with fireworks,” says Ginny, who explains that her international career “petered out” after her last team appearance at the 1993 European Championships at Achselschwang.

She had just married, for the second time, and was settling down in her new Oxfordshire home with farmer Mike Elliot. Her sponsorship had ended, Houdini had a soundness issue and Ginny was “tinkering” with two intermediate horses. When she broke her leg in an accident on the gallops, the decision was made for her.

“It was the right moment to stop,” she says. “I did wonder whether to announce it, but decided to disappear quietly. Mikey and I tried for a family and after that I thought, ‘Why go back? Remember the good times and appreciate them.’”

Now an MBE, Ginny has written autobiographies and children’s fiction and devotes time to charities such as Spinal Research and the Horse Trials Support Group, of which she is the current chair. She also coaches, has trained point-to-point horses, and, as performance manager, steered the Irish eventing team to a fifth place at London 2012 – a role she describes as “eye opening”.

“I had no idea how much people had done for me when I was on teams; I now appreciate the enormity of their efforts.”

In Ginny’s day, eventers completed the long format – which included roads, tracks and steeplechase – and fans wrote letters to their idols to ask for autographs. What does she make of the modern scene? “The sport is changing, but that’s very healthy,” she says. “I would have loved to be eventing now, as I hated the steeplechase.

“It’s easier these days to get your profile out there, with social media, but back then we became icons,” adds Ginny, whose TV and radio appearances included A Question of Sport, This Is Your Life and Desert Island Discs. “It was so much fun.”

While she has a few hunters, Ginny reveals that there are no special horses in her life. “I’ve always fancied a crack at pure dressage, so you never know,” she laughs. “But the love in my heart goes to all those boys in the ’80s – my heroes.”

Starring roles

“It was a hoot,” says former eventer and Badminton media director Julian Seaman, who, along with Ginny and other eventers including Jane Holderness-Roddam and Richard Meade, secured a riding part in the film International Velvet. “Ginny was a good friend of mine and had one of the lead roles, doubling for Tatum O’Neal. It was filmed at Burghley right after the 1977 Europeans, and it was just like grown-up Pony Club camp; we would play chase-me-Charlie over the fences every morning.”

Ginny on her top trio…

Priceless – “‘P’ was like an army sergeant: forthright, well-built and bossy, but a real soldier. He was just 16hh and 3/4-bred, and in those days I had to carry a lot of lead. He put up with me and my mistakes and never had a fault across country. He was genuine and incredibly intelligent – I adored him.”

Night Cap – “Night Cap was far more polite – a real gent. He was not overly brave, but very talented. With what P taught me, I could give him confidence.”

Master Craftsman – “The George Clooney of the horse world, Crafty was good-looking, charming and courageous. He didn’t really have a flaw. While he hit a few fences as a youngster, when he reached four-star [now five-star] he turned into a machine. He was the perfect event horse.”

Ian Stark on Ginny…

“What we all admired about Ginny was her set-up,” says Ian Stark. “Ginny was obviously brilliant, but Heather Holgate, Dot Willis and the team were meticulous about detail. They were out-and-out winners.

“We travelled together a lot and they were good fun to be with,” he adds. “They seemed to have a great system for producing horses, and Ginny rode them in such a stylish way. The whole team worked as one, which played a big part in her success.”

Ginny on Lucinda Green…

“I watched endless videos of Lucinda in action and tried to emulate her amazing lower leg position and upper body balance. When I ended up riding on a team with her, it was awe-inspiring. We formed a lifelong friendship and even now will walk a course together, as we did at Burghley last year. She’s a special girl.”

Ginny’s career in numbers

5 Burghley wins

3 Badminton victories

8 European medals overall

2 Individual World golds (Gawler and Bialy Bor 1986)

3 consecutive individual and team golds at European Championships

4 Olympic medals

2.5 stone: the lead weight Ginny had to carry (around 15kg)

Ref Horse & Hound; 14 May 2020

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Nick Turner has been named as the new high performance manager for Irish eventing, replacing Ginny Elliot.

Mr Turner, a former event rider and showjumper, managed the Brazilian eventing team from 2008, to 2012.

He is also a Fellow of the British Horse Society and qualified neuro linguistic planning practitioner (NLP), a technique used in sports psychology.

Ginny, who had held the position since 2008, steered the Irish team to fifth place at London 2012. Aoife Clark was seventh individually. Ginny reapplied for the role, but withdrew from the race (news, 24 January), citing new projects.

Mr Turner said he was “delighted” with the appointment.

He added: “I am looking forward to working with the riders to build on their performances to date and on the work done over the past four years.”

Horse Sport Ireland chairman, Joe Walsh, said there had been “many excellent candidates for the role” and that “Nick’s experience and plans for the Irish team really made a big impression”.

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Ginny Elliot has withdrawn from the selection process to appoint the next performance manager for Ireland’s senior eventing team, a position she has held since 2008.

Horse Sport Ireland (HSI) announced in November that it was holding an open recruitment competition for the job. H&H understands that nine people have applied.

Ginny told H&H: “I had reapplied, but I’ve decided over the past few days to withdraw my application.

“I have spent four years there and feel as though I’ve helped a lot, but am looking for new projects.”

Ireland finished fifth as a team at London 2012, with Aoife Clark seventh individually; results that Ginny said had “exceeded all all targets that were set”.

She added: “I wish eventing in Ireland all the best for the future and I congratulate everyone involved in the huge progress we have made together over the last four years.”

Ginny dominated eventing in the mid-late 1980s, winning a world championships, three European Championships, three Badmintons and five Burghleys — she shared the record for most Burghley wins with Mark Todd and then William Fox-Pitt, until William went on to win the event for a sixth time in 2011.

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Two of the top jobs in Irish horse sport are up for grabs.

Horse Sport Ireland (HSI) has announced that the positions of team manager for Ireland’s senior showjumping and eventing teams will be advertised shortly.

Robert Splaine has been showjumping manager since 2005 and Ginny Elliot has been eventing coach since 2008.

Chairman of HSI, Joe Walsh, said: “Showjumping manager Robert Splaine and eventing manager Ginny Elliot have both achieved excellent results for Irish equestrian sport.

“However, in the interest of transparency and fairness the board is of the view that an open recruitment competition should be held for these important positions.”

Ginny told H&H: “A huge amount of progress has been made in the last four years and I am very grateful for all the support and commitment given by the riders and owners to achieve the improvements to date.

“The team finished fifth at the London Games with three riders in the individual final, a fantastic result exceeding all targets that were set.

“I have no doubt further progress can be made and I look forward to setting out my plans for the future.”

Both coaches’ contracts expire on 31 December.

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Following impressive performances from the Irish Olympic eventing candidates at Tattersalls last weekend, Ireland’s high performance manager Ginny Elliot has named a shortlist of 10 riders and 11 horses for the London Olympics this summer.

The shortlisted combinations are:

• Aoife Clark/Master Crusoe
• Capt Geoff Curran/Shanaclough Crecora and The Jump Jet
• Jayne Doherty/Ravenstar
• Sarah Ennis/Sugar Brown Babe
• Mark Kyle/Coolio
• Joseph Murphy/Electric Cruise
• Elizabeth Power/September Bliss
• Michael Ryan/Ballylynch Adventure
• Camilla Speirs/Portersize Just A Jiff (pictured)
• Sam Watson/Horseware Bushman

Ireland is assured of a team of three riders at the Games, but this could increase to four or five on 17 June, depending on whether other countries who secured places have sufficient eligible combinations to take up the spots.

Ginny will choose her final team on 2 July following Barbury Castle.

She said that the decision to reduce the list to 10 riders had been difficult after the riders’ strong performances at Tattersalls, where Camilla Speirs secured her place in the shortlist with a win and several other combinations showed good form.

“The reality is that all of the riders performed very well at the weekend, under real pressure, as they knew places were on the line,” she said

“The combinations I have named have all done very well and the final selection looks like it will cause me several sleepless nights, but it is brilliant to have real choices.

“Now that we have a team the key issue will be to select the appropriate mix of combinations to maximise our chances of winning a medal at the Games.

“Obviously the number of places we end up with will be influential in devising this strategy and it will be crucial to get at least one more place and it would be great to get a full five.”

Full report of Tattersalls in H&H this week (7 June).

Ginny Elliot is recovering from a fall in which she fractured

two vertebrae.

The former world and European eventing champion – who trains the Irish squad – was injured while out with the Heythrop on 28 December.

Ginny’s husband, Heythrop chairman Mikey Elliot, told H&H that her horse caught its feet in a hole, “catapulting” her into the ground.

“She is much better, though not riding yet because she is wearing a neck brace,” he said.

This news story was first published in the current issue of H&H (26 January 2012)

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Despite previous announcements that only five Irish eventing combinations would be flying out to Kentucky to contest the FEI Alltech World Equestrian Games, Irish equestrian performance manager Ginny Elliot has confirmed that a sixth team member will go.

According to Horse Sport Ireland, originally there was only room for five horses to be flown to America as all of the horses were to travel in wide stalls on the flight.

But after discussions between the equestrian management team and riders, the space on the plane has been re-configured to allow three horses to travel in single stalls with three in wide stalls.

“I am delighted that we can bring six riders,” said Ginny Elliot.

“While flying the horses to the USA is hugely expensive, and bringing five horses did provide one team reserve, it was still a concern as it is so easy for horses to pick up an injury or be unwell on the day of the competition.

“Taking six gives us that bit more breathing space. It also means that six riders will gain the experience of competing at World Championships which is invaluable.”

The six eventing combinations that will represent Ireland at the World Equestrian Games are:

• Mark Kyle with Step in Time
• Liz Power on Kilpatrick River
• Michael Ryan riding Ballylynch Adventure
• Patricia Ryan and Fernhill Clover Mist
• Camilla Speirs with Portersize Just a Jiff
• Sam Watson on Horseware Bushman

The non-travelling reserves are Jayne Doherty with The Only One and Capt. Geoff Curran on The Jump Jet.

The squad will now undertake a further three days of team training, starting on 13 September, after which the horses will leave for Liege in Belguim to board the plane for Kentucky on 17 September.

Qualification for the London Olympics will be at the forefront of the Irish team’s plans in Kentucky.

“While the World Equestrian Games are hugely important in their own right, they also represent the first chance to secure Olympic qualification and it would be great if we could achieve this,” explains Ginny. “London 2012 represents a huge opportunity for Ireland with no travel burden on our horses and climatic conditions in our favour.”

• Read the latest World Equestrian Games news

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Ireland is likely to only field five eventers, rather than the permitted six, at the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games (WEG) in Kentucky in the autumn.

High performance manager Ginny Elliot said: “It looks like we will only be able to take five combinations rather than six to the games due to the prohibitive cost of flying horses to the USA.

“This is not ideal, but if we want to be able to fund an effective training and preparation programme we have to make compromises.”

Teams at WEG consist of four riders — unlike the Olympics where there are five in a team — but nations can also take two competitors to ride as individuals. Ginny is expected to announce the Irish longlist for WEG at the end of this week.

The Irish combinations who have completed four-stars this spring are:

• Geoff Curran and The Jump Jet (37th at Kentucky)
• Sam Watson and Horseware Bushman (13th at Badminton)
• Camilla Speirs and Portersize Just A Jiff (14th at Badminton)
• Mark Kyle and Step In Time II (20th at Badminton)
• Elizabeth Power and Kilpatrick River (31st at Badminton)
• Austin O’Connor and Pocket Rocket (42nd at Badminton)
• Michael Ryan and Old Road (43rd at Badminton)
• Patricia Ryan and Fernhill Clover Mist (14th at Luhmühlen)
• Michael Ryan and Ballylynch Adventure (17th at Luhmühlen)
• Melanie Ashe and Rathmolyon Flight (25th at Luhmühlen)

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Horse Sport Ireland has now secured the services of all three high performance managers — for dressage, showjumping and eventing — in the run up to the London 2012 Olympics.

Eventing legend Ginny Elliot is the latest to agree her contract, HSI announced yesterday.

She joins dressage coach Ferdi Eilberg and showjumping coach Michael Quirke, to complete the Olympic training team.

“I am delighted that Ferdi and Michael have also committed themselves, and with Marcus Swail as team vet, I believe we have a very strong backroom team in place,” said Ginny.

“It would be great if we could secure Olympic qualification at WEG [the World Equestrian games in Kentucky] this year so that we could use the Europeans next year with the Olympics in mind.”

An eventing training squad has been in action since January with three two-day pre-season training camps already having taken place.

Invitees consisted of experienced horses that are being prepared for WEG and younger horses who have been identified as having Olympic potential.

“The three camps have gone well and the riders have done very well in their warm-up events. There are some really nice horses for the future and we were anxious to get these onto the programme as soon as possible,” added Ginny.

Ginny has an outstanding competition record in the sport, having won four Olympic medals, three European Championships, a World Championship, five Burghleys and three Badminton Horse Trials.

She took over as Ireland’s eventing high performance manager in February 2008.

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Ferdi Eilberg will train Ireland’s three-day eventing team in dressage in the new year.

Ferdi is a former World Class Performance Director of coaching to the British dressage team, and dressage trainer to the British eventing team.

As dressage trainer to the Irish three-day eventing team, he replaces Sandy Phillips, wife of H&H columnist Captain Mark Phillips.

Horse Sport Ireland’s eventing high performance manager Ginny Elliot said: “I worked with Ferdi when he was coach for the British eventing team. He is a gifted trainer and I believe the squad will benefit greatly from his expertise.”

Ferdi Eilberg was born in Germany but has been a UK resident for more than 20 years. He has represented Britain at two European championships (1993 and 1995) and two World Equestrian Games (1994 and 1998).

He said: “I’m looking forward to working with Ireland’s eventers and I think Ginny and I can make a considerable difference [to their performance]. I am very excited.”

Ginny Elliot added that Michael Quirke will continue to train the eventers at show jumping.

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Horse Sport Ireland’s high performance manager Ginny Elliot has named her 18-strong senior eventing squad for 2009.

Ireland’s Hong Kong Olympic team of Geoff Curran, Niall Griffin, Louise Lyons, Austin O’Connor and Patricia Ryan have all been re-selected. Geoff and Austin each have three horses on the squad.

The list is provisional pending a veterinary and farriery assessment.

Four-time Olympic medallist Ginny Elliot is looking forward to her second year in the role.

“Having started only last March and then qualifying for the Olympics, things were quite rushed,” she said. “This year we have more time to plan and our main goal will be the European Championships at Fontainebleau in France next September.”

Ginny also plans to introduce a development squad of promising riders and horses. She said: “We have written to all Ireland’s international riders seeking expressions of interest and have received a huge response. This squad will be announced shortly.”

Senior Irish eventing squad 2009

Geoff Curran (Balladeer Alfred, Kilkishen, The Jump Jet)

Brian Curran Cournane (The Sally Rod)

Sally Corscadden (Millridge Kalmar)

Ciaran Glynn (GFG Killossery Kruisita)

Niall Griffin (Lorgaine)

Mark Kyle (Step In Time)

Louise Lyons (Watership Down, Murphy’s Miracle)

Joseph Murphy (Master Boy)

Jim Newsam (Lara’s Song)

Austin O’Connor (Hobby Du Mee, Pocket Rocket, Lily Of The West)

Michael Owen (King Bob)

Sasha Pemble (I’ve Been Dun, Hyanie D’Aubrie)

Elizabeth Power (Kilpatrick River)

Patricia Ryan (Fernhill Clover Mist)

Michael Ryan (Master Mexico)

George Russell (Young Man, Super Seal)

Steven Smith (Castlehill, Fernando)

Sam Watson (Ballybolger Bushman)

Former Olympic event rider Ginny Elliot and racehorse trainer Charlie Edgerton head the line up for the Flora London Marathon this Sunday (13 April) on behalf of CLIC Sargent’s “Billy’s Appeal”.

They join 18 others running in a bid to raise £2million for Billy’s Appeal. Billy Greenall, son of Johnny, former amateur champion jockey and current amateur huntsman of the Meynell and South Staffordshire, was diagnosed with Wilms Tumour aged three. With the support of leading cancer charity CLIC Sargent, Billy is now in remission at the age of six.

Billy’s Mother, Laura Greenall has dedicated her time to improving the resources available to the families of other cancer sufferers.

“Time away from the hospital was crucial to have fun and re-gather the strength to provide Billy with the will to live,” said Laura.

Money raised from the Flora London Marathon will be spent on a “home from home” near the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottinghamshire, providing free accommodation and essential escape for families from the clinical environment.

To support Billy’s Appeal and help Ginny and her team reach their goal please call: 020 8752 2895 or visit www.bmycharity.com/billysappeal

Meanwhile Horse magazine’s deputy editor Victoria Gray is also looking forward to taking part on Sunday. She is running to raise funds for the International League for the Protection of Horses (ILPH).

“I’ve never been much of a runner, but I’ve been in training for months and I’m looking forward to the challenge,” says Victoria. “We live quite near the start of the marathon, and last year I took my Jack Russell puppy, Dilly, along to watch the runners set off. In between trying to stop her barking at every single runner that went past, I decided that 2008 was the year I was going to go for it myself.”

Victoria aims to raise £1,500 for the ILPH. If you would like to make a donation, visit www.justgiving.com/victorialondonmarathon08

www.london-marathon.co.uk

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Ginny Elliot has been appointed high performance manager for the Irish eventing team.

“I’m absolutely delighted and really looking forward to it,” Ginny told H&H. “I very much enjoy working with up-and-coming riders, and like to do anything I can to help the sport in general.”

Ginny added: “I’m very pleased to be giving something back to the sport.”

Former British event rider Ginny Elliot (formerly Leng) won four Olympic medals, three European Championships, a World Championship, five Burghleys and three Badminton Horse Trials.

Ginny has been training young and up-and-coming British riders in Britain, and has experience of coaching the Italian and Portugese eventing teams.

Ginny takes up the role of high performance manager following the resignation last August of Sweden’s Lars Christensson.

Mr Christensson cited “personal reasons” to H&H at the time of his resignation, which coincided with the decision not to take a full eventing team to last autumn’s European Championships, and a yet another turbulent patch for Ireland’s equestrian teams.

Preparing to start her new role on 7 March, Ginny told H&H today that she hasn’t yet had a chance to talk about Olympic plans and qualifications or to speak to any of the riders individually.

“I was only told about this yesterday [Monday 11 February] — so I can’t talk about details,” said Ginny, who has signed a two-year contract with the sport’s governing body, Horse Sport Ireland (HSI).

HSI chief executive Damian McDonald said he was delighted Ginny was taking up the role.

He added: “Ginny Elliot has an outstanding record in the sport, and will be provided with strong administrative back-up from within HIS to allow her to focus on working directly with Ireland’s senior and developmental level eventing squads.”

For more information about Irish team plans and prospects see Horse & Hound on 21 February.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Former World and European eventing champion Ginny Elliot argues that cross-country fences of the past and present pose completely different problems.

In the past the influential fences were enormous “rider frighteners” where horses were often expected to jump into space. Today the key test is how well one rides accuracy fences known as “skinnies” or “pimples”.

“It’s the difference between yelling: Aaaarrrrrgh! And exclaiming Oops!” according to Ginny.

Fences past

• Water jumps which could be as deep as a horse’s withers
• Fences without groundlines and poor take-off and landings which may disintegrate as the day went on
• Flimsy fences which would look at home at a hunter trial

Fences present

• Maximum permitted depth of water is 1ft 2in for internationals
• Accuracy fences which are easy to “glance off”
• Incredibly beautiful designs eg: Greek urns and fishing boats at the Athens Olympics

Ginny’s riders to emulate cross-country are:

• Lucinda Green — “stood out for making a horse feel positive at the moment of take off”
• Andrew Nicholson — “won’t allow his horse to contemplate stopping”
• Pippa Funnell — “key to her success was learning to ride the last stride”

Don’t miss Ginny Elliot’s full feature in Horse & Hound, which is packed with fantastic photographs of fences past and present, on sale Thursday 18 October

• Do you share Ginny’s views on the development of cross-country courses? Share your views in the H&H forum

If you liked this post why not read:

Lucinda’s guide to safer cross-country

Engine, line and balance plus the constant “channel” which comes from the rider keeping their leg on and riding forward into the hand, are vital for successful cross-country riding according to top event trainer Lucinda Green.

Perfecting the cross-country seat

Event riders come in all shapes and sizes — the trick is to find a way of making your shape work for you. Eventing legend Ginny Elliot explains how your body shape will influence your cross-country seat.

Top international riders such as Mary King and Ginny Elliot will be hosting a series of training demonstration evenings in aid of Spinal Research. The demonstrations are part of the Saddle Up 7 campaign which aims to alert the equestrian community of the risks of spinal cord injury.

Active people between 18 and 35 years-old are the typical victims of spinal cord injury, often sustained in sporting accident – principally horse riding, diving and rugby. More than 40,000 people in the UK are paralysed as a result of damage to the spinal cord, and around 700 more are added to this list every year. Each accident represents a sudden and devastating change to quality of life and expectations for the injured person as well as their friends and family. Saddle Up 7 aims to increase awareness of the risks of spinal cord injuries and raise funds for Spinal Research.

Ginny Elliot will be commencing the programme with an evening training demonstration at Hartpury College, Gloucestershire (11 April). Spectators will be able to watch and learn from Ginny as she works with her horse. The next demonstration will be by Andrew Gould at Plumpton College, East Sussex (4 May), followed by Mary King at Bicton College, Devon (1 June), Francis Whittington at Hadlow College (5 June), Jeanette Brakewell at Rodbaston College, Staffordshire (2 November) and Laura Fortune (date and venue to be confirmed).

Tickets cost £20 are limited so book early to avoid disappointment. Refreshments will be available on the night. For further information or to book tickets please download a ticket booking form from www.spinal-research.org (click on the Saddle Up logo) or telephone Isabel Robinson (Spinal Research) on 01483 898786.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Eventing legend Ginny Elliot explains how your body shape will influence your cross-country seat

Event riders come in all shapes and sizes — the trick is to find a way of making your shape work for you.

Tall riders such as Mark Todd (pictured) and William Fox-Pitt have more weight to keep in balance but the advantage of long legs to anchor that weight in the correct place. Shorter people, like Pippa Funnell and me, have worked for years to find enough strength in our hips to keep ourselves behind the movement.

The essence of cross-country riding is to find your centre of balance, whatever your height, weight, strength or shape. Weight distribution is one of the most important factors because it either goes for the horse or against.

Most cross-country faults are caused by the weight from hip to head being in the wrong place, particularly on the last stride prior to take-off.

If you are fairly short, the considered advice is to keep your upper body vertical on the approach to the fence so that you don’t get in front of the movement. That’s fine in theory, but the reality is that it’s hard to maintain that vertical position and some riders flop forward, sending the principle out of the window. But many riders adopt this style, as I did, disciplining themselves not to shift their weight forward.

The other camp, mostly the tall lot, will approach with the upper body slightly forward and, at the last minute, straighten so that they are almost leaning back.

Both methods work, as long as at the last stride the rider sits up and away from the horse’s shoulder, so that their body weight doesn’t interfere with the horse’s jumping technique.

The demands of position and balance, and ability to achieve the right canter at the right speed, have remained the same throughout cross-country history, despite developments in course-design.

Now, though, the extra demands in accuracy of approach has meant that today’s riders have become tecnicians, a factor that has forced many to adopt a tidier, more organised and less instinctive style.

Praise for Pippa

Perhaps the most dramatically changed rider I’ve seen, through an amazing example of guts and hard work, is Pippa Funnell. Pippa is tiny and had to learn to drive the horse from the hip as she doesn’t have the long legs to get around the horse.

In the early days, Pippa rode a mixture of very big and small, ponyish horses. This in itself make for a difficult adjustment — to different speeds, type of jump, stide and so on. Like myself in the early days, Pippa’s lower leg was too far back. This causes the rider to grip with the knee so that it acts like a pivot, loosening the upper body and causing a “clothes peg” action that tips the rider forwards.

Curing this leg/balance problem can only be done through hard work and discipline. I’ve never seen anyone work so hard at control of the lower leg, making sure she didn’t get in front of the horse on the last strides of the approach.

You never see Pippa in the wrong place now; she has achieved perfection in her cross-country seat.

As told to Kate Green

This feature was first published in 11 November ’04 issue of Horse & Hound. To purchase a back issue (tel: 01733 385170)

Competing young horses

“When introducing a young horse to eventing, do you feel it is beneficial for the horse to compete initially in quick succession and hence learn from his mistakes or does this put too much strain on them too early?

“I own a four-year-old 16hh Polish Warmblood/Thoroughbred, who is very laid back and easy going. He is happy hacking out alone, is schooling nicely and has started jumping including water, banks, drops and ditches.

“I am planning to do some unaffiliated dressage and show jumping through the winter and spring, with some hunter trials in spring and summer with the intention of doing a few intros in late 2004 and be ready to pre-novice in 2005.

“Does this sound like a reasonable schedule? Any help or advice would be welcome as this is my first experience of bringing on a baby.”

Ginny answers . . .

“Bringing on a young horse is a massive subject and simply too large to cover in detail here, however, the rate at which a horse will progress is related to many things including its rider’s experience.

“During the winter I would do as many indoor show jumping and dressage competitions as possible. If the horse’s canter is not particularly well developed even jumping around a clear round class at trot will do wonders for his mental capacity for coping at parties.

“If you are a member of your local hunt it is possible to take him gently hunting to get him used to the terrain and conditions. It is perfectly possible to go hunting without jumping anything.

“Introduce everything gradually and listen to your horse. He will let you know if you are doing too much or if he’s not coping in any way.”

Best wishes and good luck

Ginny

Don’t miss more of Ginny’s top tips to help combat common problems, which will be published on the site during the next few weeks.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Preventing run outs

“I bought a five-year-old TB/Warmblood mare a couple of months ago, with a view to ultimately compete in pre-novice and novice competitions. She is very green and had only jumped colour fences before I got her.

“On the couple of occasions that I have taken her cross-country schooling, she has been quite positive. However, she has a habit of running out and I can’t work out why she is doing it, as the fences she takes a dislike to appear to be the easiest fences. Once she has decided she doesn’t like a fence, she is stubborn and won’t jump it, even if she has a lead from another more experienced horse.

“What is the best way of correcting this habit? Should I stop her straight after the jump and turn her back round to it on the other rein?

“Should I be worried that she is showing a reluctance to do what is being asked of her? I am concerned that this stubborn nature could be a problem in the future. Or should be more forgiving of her, bearing in mind her age and experience, and the fact that our relationship is so still so new?”

Ginny says . . .

My first question is does the mare always run out the same way? If she does then it is likely to be that she isn’t straight in her flatwork and so on the approach to a fence she is not straight which gives her an easy way out to the side.

If she runs out to the left, always bring her back to the right and vice versa – never turn a circle as this means success to the horse.

It is unusual that the horse will jump more difficult fences successfully, but this could be because a large fence demands more respect from the rider and therefore better preparation. Maybe a lack of preparation at the easier fences is a contributing factor to the run outs.

I would suggest you aim to jump all fences, regardless of height, with the same degree on accuracy and see how you progress.

Best wishes and good luck

Ginny

Don’t miss more of Ginny’s top tips to help combat common problems, which will be published on the site during the next few weeks.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Solving spooky problems

“I currently have the long-term loan of a 10-year-old 16hh Trakehner x Thoroughbred, who won 11 BE points with his owner, before she decided to focused on dressage. I would really like to try and do some unaffil/Intro eventing on him as he has a good jump, as well as lovely paces.

“He is quite a spooky type and will whip round if he encounters something scary out hacking, especially when he is on his own. We have made good progress in this regard over recent months by being firm without getting cross and he is gradually gaining confidence. Interestingly, he is not generally spooky when jumping.

“I have taken him cross-country schooling twice over fences up to about 2’9” and on both occasions we had no problems with the fences themselves but he was extremely spooky in between and whipped round on more than one occasion.

“Do you have any advice on how I should proceed to achieve my goal of competing in Intro classes by the end of next season?”

Ginny says . . .

Well done for being so positive about correcting his behaviour out hacking. Regarding his behaviour on the cross-country course, you need to find out is if he did the same with his previous owners and if so, what did they do to overcome it?

If it’s not an old habit, I feel he may be testing your sense of humour, so this needs tackling firmly and decisively.

You need to go XC schooling with someone on the ground, who can help you by putting a hand on the rein to stop him from turning around or to turn him back in the right direction. If he turns to the left, always bring him back to the right and vice versa – never turn a circle as this means success to the horse.

If he threatens to rear, take the pressure off and just wait and be patient, until he decides that there is no alternative but to do what you want him to do. You may have to wait for 20mins or even longer, but, once he has moved in the direction you are asking for, he will eventually realise that he should really do it on the first time of asking!

Best wishes and good luck,

Ginny

Don’t miss Ginny’s top tips to help combat other problems sent in by HHO users, which will be published on the site during the next few weeks.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now