A transatlantic move, a base with certified eventing royalty, a double top-10 finish at Luhmühlen, a strong Badminton performance and plenty of top-flight horsepower; if you don’t yet know Cosby Green, prepare to be impressed.

Based in Dorset with Tim and Jonelle Price, Cosby was born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky. Spending the first chapters of her life in the shadow of Kentucky Horse Park, where eventing’s American spring classic is held, Cosby’s love affair with horses was a foregone conclusion.

Although her sister didn’t take to riding, for Cosby it was akin to breathing.

“When we first started riding, it was a pretty funny comparison,” she recalls. “My sister was terrified and quit instantly. I would fall off and ask for more.”

Although within touching distance of the sport horse industry – and soon swept irrevocably into it – Cosby’s parents were “super-unhorsey”. “They were terrified watching me jump cross-poles,” she laughs.

All the same, Cosby’s personal history is indistinguishable from horses, eventing and the Kentucky Three-Day Event.

“I went there before I knew what was happening; I grew up going to that event. I genuinely didn’t know there were any other horse sports than eventing; I developed this tunnel vision. I would tell everyone that I was going to be an eventer and I was going to be the best at it.”

As Cosby attests, it’s easy to dream big when you’re young. She kept a tight hold of that dream through high school and on to university.

“I am really happy and thankful that my parents encouraged me to have a normal American life,” Cosby says. “I went to school full-time and balanced the horses around it – that’s a helpful skill. I was even a part of a sorority at university, which was fun.”

When Cosby was in her mid-teens, her family acquired Highly Suspicious, known as Puff at home, then a tricky but talented four-year-old by Russel and out of a mare by Cruising.

“Back then, I was working for Clark Montgomery; he’d just moved to Kentucky,” Cosby recounts. “He and his wife found Puff. I tried him but didn’t think too much of him, if I’m honest. I was pretty naive!

“They kept telling me, ‘This is going to be an amazing horse.’

“So I was like, ‘Really? If you say so!’ They kept reassuring me, although I didn’t really know what I was looking at or feeling.”

The Montgomerys were right – Cosby has had her best results so far with this sensitive grey. However, she had to work for them and make the horse herself.

“At the start, he was pretty green and very weak, and had a lot of developing to do,” she says. “Moving up the levels was hard work. We had a lot of highs and lows, and mistakes and successes.”

As an American high schooler, university student and eventer with mammoth aspirations, Cosby was a youngster with a lot on her plate. Happily, she also had drive, horsepower and was, by her own admission, fortunate in many ways.

“I was lucky enough to grow up in the US Equestrian Federation Pathway Programs and trained with incredible people like Allie Knowles and Buck Davidson,” she says.

But the sport tested her resolve.

“I failed way more times than I ever did well,” she admits, adding that this was especially true in the age range of teenager to early 20s.

“I wasn’t really producing any results, just kind of getting by and I questioned the certainty that I once had: is riding really what I want to do?”

A business and communications graduate, perhaps it was Cosby’s entrepreneurial spirit that shaped her next move – a plunge into the unknown to train with her idols.

“I decided just before I graduated that if I was going to give the sport a go, it only made sense to try to position myself to be with the best.”

The best in question? Jonelle Price.

“Ever since I was young, I’ve been a Jonelle fangirl,” says Cosby. “She has this fearlessness about her. I’m reserved and was refreshed to see a bold, admirable female athlete, so I was drawn to her.”

With no prior connection, Cosby sent an email that landed at the perfect time.

“They had space for me at Chedington, where they were moving. Before I could even really second-guess myself, I sprang things into action.

“Of course, I made sacrifices leaving home. I have such an amazing life in America, so that’s something I occasionally question. But it’s all in the pursuit of excellence.”

Such a pursuit presents itself in Britain by sheer volume of opportunities, says Cosby.

“Once the season’s going, it’s going. You don’t stop and you can do a few different shows in the span of one week.

“After Badminton, there was Aston-le-Walls Wednesday to Friday. That wouldn’t really happen in the US and it’s so beneficial for bringing horses up the grades.”

On the flip side, competing on grass has been something of an adjustment.

“Riding on grass is such a skill and it took me a good year to figure out,” Cosby laughs. “In America, every event has a championship feel, which is amazing to experience. And it would all be on a surface; I never rode on grass in dressage or showjumping until I came to England.”

Cosby landed in the UK in 2023, planning loosely to stay for eight months, although she’s still here and making her mark on the European circuit.

Among her breakthrough moments is her step up to five-star with schoolmaster Copper Beach (Sean), whom Cosby’s family acquired from Buck Davidson.

“Producing younger horses is not always the easiest. Sean was the horse that picked me up and showed me the world.”

Sean took Cosby to her first four-star long and her first five-stars.

“He held my hand during the whole thing,” Cosby recalls. “It felt like he was telling me, ‘Come on, kid, you can do this yourself as well.’”

Cosby says that Sean being her family’s horse took the pressure off – and they’ve never missed one of her five-stars.

“I’m beyond spoilt with my parents. They’re the sweetest and most supportive – there’s no one else I’d rather have around me at a five-star.”

That said, it doesn’t hurt to have Team Price in your corner, either.

“Jonelle really has instilled in me to be completely professional; not to let anything affect you except the task at hand. She’s very much ‘be an ice maiden, stay fierce’.

“The Prices’ whole mindset is amazing and I’ve tried to use it as much as I can. And I really am thankful for the added confidence that comes with their influence.”

After shepherding Cosby through her first Pau, Badminton and Burghley, Sean – now 20 – has returned to the Cosby farm for an idyllic retirement.

“He’s as fat as a house and the happiest horse you’ll see,” laughs Cosby. “My dad visits him every day after work to give him treats.”

Two years after Cosby and Sean’s Badminton debut, it was Jos Ufo De Quidam’s turn at the Gloucestershire five-star. They bettered the 2024 result by nine places to finish 22nd with a dressage score of 34.9 and a double clear, just adding time-faults.

“He was unreal,” says Cosby of Ufo. “To be second out in the cross-country was tough, but there was no better horse to do it on than him. He gave me such an amazing ride.

“I wish I’d been quicker and had a little bit more confidence, but that’s how it goes being so early on.”

Cosby says 18-year-old Ufo finished the cross-country phase as fit and well as ever he had.

“Jonelle and I were talking about how these older horses can just keep improving. Ufo’s not built conventionally for the sport, but this year he’s come out jumping on another level. He really throws his heart out there.”

Finishing on a clear showjumping round fractionally over the time was the cherry on top.

“Two years ago with Sean, the showjumping was catastrophic,” recalls Cosby – the pair had 28 jumping faults. “This time, I was very determined. It was some track. For Ufo to go clear was unbelievably special.”

Cosby is exceedingly likeable with an infectious passion for her home, her sport and her horses. There’s still one five-star she’d like to tick off: the one in her backyard.

“I’m desperate to do Kentucky,” she says, “Considering I grew up on the doorstep, it’s pretty funny that it’s the only five-star in the northern hemisphere I haven’t done.

“I grew up dreaming of riding around there, so I hope to one day make that dream come true.”

Cosby has Kentucky and much more in mind for the future.

“Around the beginning of 2025, I became focused on LA 2028,” she says. “I’m sure it’s on everyone’s mind, but it’s something that I’m really dedicated to. I want to give it my 110% best.”

There’s something of a fairytale in the notion of Cosby and the tricky youngster she got as a teen completing the world’s toughest five-stars – and even having an eye on riding for the USA on the world’s biggest sporting stage.

As her voice wavers just a little, it is obvious that this ambitious young rider’s heart swells with gratitude every time she talks about Puff.

“I have grown up with him,” she says. “I probably had no business riding him when I was 16. But ever since I decided to fly over here, we’ve grown together. Not everyone gets a horse at that age and is still running them, getting to the highest level of eventing and doing really well today. That’s something I do not take for granted and will always be grateful for.”

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Discover how Katy Marriott-Payne started out at the bottom – finishing last two years on the trot in London – before becoming one of the country’s most successful showing riders and producers, how she’s worked at her craft and built up her team, in this exclusive article for H&H subscribers

With 20 ponies to produce, showing producer Katy Marriott-Payne looks set to pick up last season’s winning thread. Katy entered the London International’s prestigious heritage championship in 2025 as one of just three riders to have won the title three times. She left the arena as the first to have won it four times.

A few months later, she says the win remains “a bit surreal. It’s something that I’d really wanted to do for a long time.”

Still, she wasn’t convinced that it would happen despite knowing that her reigning champion, Felicity Thompson’s Dartmoor Salcombe Starehole Bay “had it in him”.

“He was special from the day he arrived and he’d already come so close to winning it being reserve in 2022,” Katy says. “But things didn’t go to plan there on his last visit, and at that time, there was a lot of talk about adults riding the small breeds, which really affected me. I thought maybe there was a certain amount of prejudice against adult riders and judges were being forced to favour the children. I started to question whether I should be riding a small breed.

“Luckily, I pulled myself together. I’m happy riding him and he’s happy with me. The people around me told me to stick at it and I’m glad I did.”

“Cecil’s” win at London was especially sweet. Just a few weeks before his triumph at Horse of the Year Show (HOYS) in 2022, Felicity suffered a near-fatal kick to the head.

“It was still so raw at HOYS,” recalls Katy. “We still didn’t know if she was going to survive. He’d already been champion at Royal International [RIHS], but knowing a HOYS win was something Felicity really wanted to achieve with a home-bred meant that as great as it was, it was also really sad for us. Having her at London made it all the more special.”

Katy’s team fielded five in the championship, with three taking top 10 places. Kimberly Bates finished seventh on Garthfach Classic Addition (Daffodil) – already HOYS and Hickstead-bound again – and Maisie Kerry-Oates punctuated a stellar year finishing fourth and highest-placed junior with reigning RIHS junior champion, Cadlanvalley Royal Bronze (Ozzie).

“They’re both ponies who have had real highs and lows and that I’ve had from breaking in,” she says, adding, “That’s something I’m proud of actually – all four of my London winners all started their careers with me.”

The win came almost 30 years after she first rode there in 1997.

“Mandy Jackson had two qualified that year and I was lucky enough to get a ride.

“I finished last and I was last the following year when I qualified my own pony – Crown Royale, a section B I bought from Mandy – for the first time. Showing looks like all we have to do is walk, trot and canter. But, it’s an art. It takes time.”

An art that Katy feels she is still striving to master.

“I’m still winging it. There’s still so much to learn and understand. And showing’s evolved; it’s different now. I’m still trying to prove myself.”

This mindset is possibly, it transpires, the residual of her father’s attitude towards her hobby, and later, profession.

“He always said, ‘no, don’t do it’. He wanted me to have a ‘proper job’ and was quite anti-ponies. It made me really have to dig deep because it would have been very easy to give in and do something else. He certainly taught me to graft and to work for it; nothing’s come easy.”

The encouragement to pursue horses came from producer Andrea Boyle and Katy’s mother.

“Mum worked an extra job to pay for the ponies,” Katy says. “I had natives at home and plaited ponies with Andrea, who was a proper old-fashioned horsewoman. She had a mixed yard of all sorts and I rode whatever I was put on, whether it was a three-year-old or her HOYS hack. It gave me the best grounding.

“At that time, you don’t realise that you’re learning; you just live and breathe it. It’s only now as I look back on the opportunities that I was given that I am so grateful; the path that my mum put me on helped me get to where I am now.”

Emulating Andrea’s mixed lot, Katy’s early strings consisted of plaiteds and natives.

“The first year I rode M&Ms at HOYS, I came out of the small hunters, put my joddy boots on and went into the tent at Wembley on a section A. I remember rushing to change my boots; nothing’s changed.”

Their introduction to the HOYS schedule was a driving factor behind her increasing focus on natives.

“A lady whose Dartmoor I used to school asked me why the pony didn’t just come and live with me? Then the ponies just kept coming because I was so small. I’ve done plaited ponies since, but my heart’s with the native ponies now.”

Were there points when she felt she’d made it?

“The year I had my son, Thomas – 2006 – we were show pony champion at HOYS with Anton Princess Nadia. I still didn’t feel like I knew what I was doing or was good enough. I was just fortunate that I did what I did and it seemed to work. Winning that, because it was something I never thought I would, is one of my proudest achievements.”

If not to herself, she’s proven capable to others in the interim 20 years.

She’s proved formidable in the workers, too.

“It makes me giggle: people ask if I fancy trying the workers; they don’t realise that my first HOYS win was in the workers, with Callmore Bobby Zoda – a Connemara – in 1993.”

The pair went on to stand reserve champion, a spot she later occupied with Hilin Prince Dafydd, and bettered at the RIHS with the inimitable 2003 Olympia champion, Stowbrook Jenny Wren.

“She won the flats and was worker champion on the same day. I was last to jump and didn’t walk the course because we were in the flat championship. I remember I had a flat, hard show saddle, but I don’t remember jumping. Jenny was so special and set me on my way.

“Nowadays I’m just happy watching Kimberley and Maisie in the workers.”

Already this season, they’ve given her pleasing rounds to watch and much to feel proud of – Maisie and Ozzie picked up a stellar win and a tricolour in the M&M workers at Royal Windsor this term against some heavyweight competition.

With enviable highlights behind her and a string of 20 for this season, what keeps Katy motivated?

“You’ve got to have dreams to keep going, because getting to the top is hard, but staying there is exhausting. A HOYS supreme is the one that could keep me going for a bit longer.”

Her team – namely longstanding members Alice Tomlinson and Kimberley Bates – are also a key influence.

“My body is complaining these days, but I’m still young at heart and I love having the girls around,” she says. “I’ve never wanted to do this job on my own – it can be very lonely. It’s hard to have the drive when it’s lonely and cold and miserable.

“People only see the highs; they see the success and the smiles, but not every day is like that. They keep me going; I know it’s a cliche, but we really are a good team.”

Happy clients and happy ponies

The team spirit is clearly extended to clients, too.

“A few have been around a long time; we know each other so well. It’s come full circle and I now have Mandy Jackson’s ponies, and I feel I’ve known her forever now. I met Charlotte Laurens and Chris Phillips – Daffodil’s owners – as a child at Andrea’s.

“We won HOYS with Jess Harrison’s 123cm show hunter pony and took her to Olympia, and I’m now producing her daughter Aurelia’s pony. And Kathleen Scott arrived when her daughter Catherine was a child, and now she’s grown up.”

Kathleen rejoins the show team this year after a few years out of showing. Although, she never really left the yard; her Cadlanvalley Sandpiper, or “Sammy”, now 20, has remained with Katy.

“He’s the king,” she says of her third London winner.

She adds: “It’s lovely to have Kathleen back on the show team. I try to surround myself with the right people. Having your pony with a producer takes a huge amount of trust and I never take that for granted; they know they don’t have to worry when their pony’s with me.”

Keeping her clients in the loop has spurred her – somewhat reluctantly – into sharing more results on social media.

“I’m happy for the ponies’ results to speak for themselves in the ring. But I don’t mind sharing to the team page anymore as some clients aren’t always at shows, so won’t see a photo unless I buy one. And the kids on the yard love it; I share to share their successes.”

She also recognises it as a modern “shop window”.

”We have clients abroad now, and there’s huge interest from other countries in our showing and our natives. For that reason, it is good to have a platform where you can share the ponies with the rest of the world.”

Client satisfaction means careful planning, too.

“I try not to spread myself too thin. I don’t take my own ponies if it’s a busy day for my clients’ ponies, or if I have ponies for the children on the lorry, so that I can give them more time. While I’m still doing so much riding myself, I also try to limit the number of children’s ponies I have because they need time. It’s all planning – a side people don’t see!”

Pony satisfaction is also a priority.

“Mine are very much normal ponies that are happy showing. I think if things start to look a bit stale, then the last thing they want to do is go back on the lorry. It’s something I’m very mindful of.”

She concedes, though, this isn’t always easy.

“Ponies aren’t ‘one-shoe-fits-all’. You can think you have a formula and another pony comes along that makes you go back to the drawing board and scratch your brains. But that side of it I like because you’ve got to keep challenging yourself and evolving.”

It seems she’s not slowing down any time soon, then.

“Every year I start going through a time when I think I’ll retire,” she laughs. “But showing’s addictive and though we all know it can be really difficult on the down days. The highs give you a buzz that makes you want more of it.”

6 ponies on Katy’s yard to watch out for this season

Cadlanvalley Eldorado

Kathleen Scott’s Cadlanvalley Eldorado – a grandson of Katy’s former HOYS flat champion Cadlanvalley Buzby – was purchased from Katy having stood 2025 Picton novice champion. “He has big shoes to fill, but he’s matured loads and so he’s ready to do slightly more exciting things.” He looks set to give the team a lot of fun this term, picking up a second in the first Welsh B qualifier of the year at NPS Area 25.

Loxleigh Eye Candy

Louise Schafer’s Loxleigh Eye Candy – an eight-eight-year-old Connemara mare has had four foals and will debut under saddle this time.

Clanmill Sand Dollar

Katy’s own novice section B, Clanmill Sand Dollar recently made his ring debut a winning one, and is set to cover Katy’s own Clanmill Leteika Miracle.

Linksbury Dazzling Diamond

Linksbury Dazzling Diamond – also Louise’s – was purchased as a yearling from the sales, and now four, is turning heads in novice ranks already this term. “She’s really cool,” Katy says.

Marchmanors Mr BoJangles

Elaine Arnold’s Marchmanors Mr BoJangles hit the circuit last season under Katy, qualifying for HOYS and London despite being low in mileage. He’s “all grown up, now,” and hit the junior ranks with panache at the beginning of this season, standing second in the first qualifier of the season ridden by Heidi Cooper.

Castlehill Emperors Last

Castlehill Emperors Last – owned by Mandy Jackson recently made his ring debut and “loved it. He has got a tonne of winter coat to lose but there is a gorgeous pony underneath it!”

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From a lifelong passion for hunting to an unconventional return to eventing, the Badminton first-timer reflects on the lessons that have shaped him, his unexpected ambitions – and the cheap retrained racehorse now thriving at five-star, in this exclusive interview for H&H subscribers

“I’m not sure I should really be referred to as an event rider,” says Mars Badminton Horse Trials first-timer Tom Strawson, as he names two ambitions in life as hunting a pack of hounds and winning the Melton Hunt Club Ride.

It’s an unusual statement for a Badminton first-timer to make, but then Tom is an unusual debutant for this week’s spring five-star (6-10 March), where he’ll start on Public Address (Brian), with whom he was 21st at Burghley Horse Trials last year.

At 37, Tom has been point-to-pointing’s Midlands Area champion jockey three times, works full-time in property and won the Harborough Ride this spring. Eventing is not the only, or even the thickest, string to his bow.

“Hunting is my major love in life,” says Tom. “It’s been huge in terms of educating me as a jockey and it’s also massive in terms of educating horses.

Badminton final scores

“I think a lot of people don’t actually realise the benefit of taking younger horses hunting in making them brave, travelling through any going and teaching them to settle in a busy environment. It’s something I really value.

“And to win the Melton is on my bucket list. I had an epic battle with my hunting mate Rowan Cope in the Harborough and no doubt we’ll renew that in the Melton in the autumn.

“About three years ago out hunting with the Quorn when I was riding Brian, Rowan and I had a £1,000 bet I could get him round Burghley… I’m looking forward to the day he coughs up!”

Before the Melton, there’s the little matter of this five-star in Gloucestershire.

Horses have always been in Tom’s family. His father Paul evented and then point-to-pointed, his grandfather Michael was a young rider selector and Tom is the third generation of his family to be in the Brocklesby mastership.

His “Auntie Ginny” (Rose, née Strawson) was young rider European champion in 1982 on Minsmore and fifth at Burghley in 1981 on Greek Herb, before giving up eventing in her early 20s when she got married.

Tom did some pony eventing, then had a junior horse “who we didn’t get on particularly well with”, giving up when he went to university.

He says: “I’ve always been competitive and wanted to try to do something, so I had a go at point-to-pointing when I was 18. It worked better than eventing around university and work, because it happened around the hunting season and we could get the horses fit hunting.

“It was a slow start. It took me 14 rides and five seasons to get around a point-to-point, partly because six of the first seven horses I rode were first-time-out maidens! But then I had a fun six seasons and I rode 47 winners pointing and three in hunter chases.

“I’d probably be doing that now if I wasn’t the size I am. I’m nearly 6ft 2in and quite heavy-boned. Eventually, you get to the stage where you’re sick of sweating and dieting. So I gave up just after I turned 31.”

Tom was buying and selling a few horses and “I went out with a top girl [Katie Bleloch] who evented to a high level and I wasn’t going to just follow her around”, so he started eventing again. He competed an ex-point-to-pointer called Captain Bizarro to three-star, before the horse suffered a career-ending injury. Then Public Address came into his life through Irish hunting friend Aubrey Chapman.

“I always said to him that if he found a thoroughbred who could jump, to give me a ring,” he says. “Aubrey called one day and said, ‘I’ve got a thoroughbred who’s quite small, but he looks to have a good temperament and can jump. He’s actually been sent here to the hunt kennels to be put down.’

“So he sent a video and pictures. Although he was a bit small, a bit short of bone, I quite liked what I saw. So I took a trip across to Ireland to buy a very cheap horse.”

And so Tom Strawson paid less than £2,000 for the horse who would one day take him to the two British five-star events, Badminton and Burghley.

Tom says Brian has “an unbelievable temperament”, as shown by the fact that Ginny, his girlfriend Philippa Atkinson and friends hunt him.

“He’s an absolute donkey and that’s probably why we get on well, because he’s an out-and-out trier,” says Tom. “I was always taught that you’d rather have a horse with less ability that you get everything out of, than a horse with more ability that you don’t get everything out of, and he gives you 110% every time.

“He has a proper conscience and does not want to hit fences. He’s got one of the best actions with his front legs over a fence I’ve sat on – he brings his forearm up above his shoulder. I feel safe cantering downhill to the biggest fences on him, because his technique is superb and he’s so quick in front.”

From his background in hunting and point-to-pointing, Tom has learnt to sit slightly behind the motion, with a longer rein and his feet slightly further forward.

“Over the past couple of years, I’ve got to know Chris Bartle and had a lesson or two with him. He’s from a racing background and very much endorses that style of riding, so that’s something that I’ve brought into my cross-country riding,” says Tom.

Although he overfolds in his body – “we joke that it must be hereditary, as my Auntie Ginny did exactly the same” – being behind the motion means he’s fairly secure and doesn’t fall off much.

“And the hunting has given me a no-nonsense approach,” he adds. “I’ve ridden a lot of naughty horses and worked out how to settle them, stay on and get the best out of them. I think a lot of event riders are overthinkers, while I try to make things simple. At the end of the day, we’re just jumping a round of jumps, aren’t we?”

Tom and Brian progressed up the levels until, last year, they found themselves at Burghley.

“As a kid growing up, Burghley was everything,” he says. “We’re from Lincolnshire and we used to take a caravan and go with Mum and family friends. So I always fancied a spin around Burghley, but then I went point-to-pointing and that dream went because I never thought I’d end up back eventing again.

“I had a lesson three or four years ago with the late Caroline Moore and she said, ‘Tom, I think you could be my Burghley challenge project.’ I thought, ‘If you say that, then maybe we could have a go.’”

Having so many friends and family there made Burghley extra special: “To ride in front of a crowd like that was phenomenal,” says Tom. “I’ve ridden around Cheltenham and that was pretty good, but Burghley on cross-country day would be probably the best experience I’ve had on a horse.”

The pair finished the cross-country clear, with a respectable 25.6 time-faults, which combined with a 39.8 dressage and 16.8 showjumping penalties to give them 21st place.

Tom Strawson: Badminton aims

Tom Strawson has only been to Badminton Horse Trials once and he starts with the aim of improving on Burghley, having fun and feeling he’s got the best from his horse. Ginny and Philippa will be his chief support team, plus mother Jo and Strawson grandparents Michael and Pynnie are likely to be in attendance.

He hopes to jump clear across country and has reason to believe he can up his performance in the other phases.

Dressage, he admits, has been like “Tweedledum leading Tweedledee” and, physically, Brian struggles.

“He’s not the strongest behind the saddle and he doesn’t have the best mouth,” Tom says. “We’ve had to learn quite quickly together and we had an off-day at Thoresby this spring, but he was in the top group on his open intermediate runs.”

He credits Amy Woodhead for her help and the fact he gave the horse to Ginny for two or three months over the winter, for a bit of schooling and some hunting. They’ve made some tweaks to the horse’s management, too.

Philippa – a fitness and nutrition fanatic who worked for Tim Easterby in Flat racing – has encouraged him to feed linseed and soya oil and Brian’s coat and condition have improved.

“Being a thoroughbred, he’s slightly flat-footed and was getting a bit of pain in his feet, particularly on harder ground. So we’re shoeing him with spider pads with some cushioning behind, to try to take the pressure off the bottom of his feet,” explains Tom, who believes this will help in the dressage and showjumping.

“We are galloping him less, but going further when we do, and lungeing him more. He’s a little horse and sometimes less is more – I spend my life on a diet and am always mindful that I don’t want to spend too long on his back.

“The horse is stronger and fitter in himself and has had a better preparation than for Burghley. I’ve got to get him there as well and as fresh as possible.”

The pair will certainly have the best advice for their final tune-up before Badminton, with a trip planned to double Badminton champion Ros Canter, just four miles down the road.

Having sold his four-star horse, The Fieldmaster, for Tom McEwen to ride – “a commercial decision, although having another advanced horse would certainly help my Badminton prep” – Tom has three horses of his own. His hunter, ex-racehorse Traffic Fluide (who won a Grade Two and collected more than £213,000 on the track) and fellow ex-racehorse Cheddleton, on whom he won the Harborough Ride in March, join Brian in his converted cattle shed.

His stable also houses a horse that belongs to his part-time groom, Robyn Lawrie. He also has help from “local super-groom” Cheryl Hough one day a week.

“We have a farm in the family that I moved to three years ago and I’m setting up camp there,” he remarks. “We have split the farming up at home, so around the time of Burghley, I started farming the land near Louth, in Lincolnshire, where I live. I’m a chartered surveyor and have had 12 years working for myself running various property projects.”

How does he fit everything in?

“Get up early and work hard. And keep going,” he grins, elaborating that generally he rides one or two horses at first light and aims to have a couple of days a week when he doesn’t ride if he needs to be somewhere early. “And then Robyn and Cheryl do a good job helping me.”

It’s the no-nonsense, common-sense approach in action and it’s served Tom Strawson well so far – onwards to Badminton Horse Trials.

How to watch and listen to Badminton Horse Trials

To watch Badminton Horse Trials live or via catch up, including the trot-ups, from the comfort of your home anywhere in the world, you need a 2026 Badminton TV Pass. Badminton TV is once again powered by ClipMyHorse.TV, but you do not need a full ClipMyHorse.TV subscription to watch – you can just subscribe to Badminton TV for £22.99. Go to badminton-horse.tv to sign up. If you are already a ClipMyHorse.TV premium member, Badminton TV is included in your subscription. Also check out the Badminton app, which provides free live results and much more this year. Sign up for Badminton Plus membership for £4.99 to access the live Radio Badminton broadcast and receive exclusive offers from on-site exhibitors. Search for Badminton Horse Trials in your app store.

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Fresh from Cheltenham Festival, the jump jockey tells Martha Terry about his racing childhood, the invincibility of youth and keeping a level head, in this exclusive article for H&H subscribers

James Bowen had waited years for a Cheltenham Festival winner. This time round, he left with two. For those who knew his roots, it felt almost inevitable.

Childhoods don’t come much more idyllic than the Bowen boys’. The three brothers spent much of their schooldays playing with ponies in the Pembrokeshire countryside: racing ponies, racing each other, racing their cousins, racing themselves.

When James was 13, he left school – ostensibly to be home-schooled while pursuing his racing commitments. In reality, the yard, not the classroom, was the real crucible for his education.

“I didn’t spend any time on schoolwork,” says James as we chat while he drives from a morning gallop at Newbury to racing at Kempton. “If I couldn’t be a jockey, there wasn’t much chance of another career to fall back on.”

He didn’t need one. Aged 16, James was crowned the youngest-ever winner of the Welsh National, followed by becoming champion conditional jockey with 58 winners. Nine years later, last month at Cheltenham, he franked that prodigious talent, bagging not just his first Festival trophy but a double. On day one, he steered Holloway Queen to win the National Hunt Challenge Cup before Jingko Blue galloped to victory in the BetMGM Cup Handicap Hurdle the following day.

“A win there is incredible, and I wasn’t expecting much – especially from Holloway Queen as I thought she’d hate the ground,” James says. “Nicky Henderson actually asked me before the race if I’d run her. I said, ‘It’s up to you,’ but I’m glad she did run.

“The atmosphere is amazing, but you don’t hear as much when you’re on the horse. It’s when you watch it back that you realise just what a big deal winning there is.

“I’ve watched it back multiple times,” he grins. “I’m still watching it back now.”

James is the youngest son of trainer Peter Bowen, brother of champion jump jockey Sean and trainer Mickey. Although riding was on offer as soon as he could sit up, James wasn’t interested early on.

“I didn’t enjoy riding much until I was eight,” he says. “I rode a couple of times, but my mum didn’t let me off the lead rope and I didn’t want to do it unless I was let off. But once I was on my own, I got into it.”

At the heart of this utopian childhood was a 12hh roan called Striker.

“Striker was incredible, bombproof,” says James, chuckling at the memory. “He was older than Sean and I put together, and we were always galloping around on him. He didn’t love jumping, so instead of hurdles, we’d put poles on the ground and race over those.

“We’d take it in turns racing around the gallop. Sean always won because he went first – and I was smaller and weaker than him. I even tried stopping the clock later, but I still lost.”

Mickey, who is more than six years his senior, lit the touchpaper when he started pony racing.

“I just wanted to do what he did,” remembers James, with a sense of youngest brother syndrome. “And once Sean was champion conditional, being a jockey is all I wanted to do.”

The brothers’ domestic races ramped up a level in sophistication when their two cousins came to stay.

“They’d bring their ponies and we’d set up a four-horse race,” James says. “We’d do four races – probably six furlongs to a mile – so each of us rode races on all the ponies, and we had a points system.”

Striker – “not fast enough” – had by this time been superseded by increasingly racy models. The first serious ponies came when James was 10.

“The first two we’d just hunt round at the back, and then Dad got fed up of us always being beaten, so he got Sean a 14.2hh, Cudlic Verona, and me a 13.2hh called Push The Button,” James relates. “They were both great ponies, but on Push The Button it was almost impossible to get beat. If I did, Dad would let me know about it! We ended up having so many wins.”

This included 10 in one season, including the 138cm finals at York – with Sean also taking the 148cm trophy – in 2013.

The moment James turned 16, he moved straight into point-to-pointing.

“I had five rides on my 16th birthday, had two winners and fell off two, so I learnt a lot about the ups and downs on the first day,” he says.

Surfing on the wave of the invincible Push The Button and some dead-cert rides, James admits his mindset at the start of his career was that “every horse I rode would win”.

“I thought it was so easy!” he says. “I had 50 rides point-to-pointing and 30 winners, but they were all steering jobs trained by my brother. They were unbeatable, long odds-on shots.

“And when I first turned conditional, Dad’s horses were running well and I won the Welsh National. I knew that was a big deal, but as I felt everything would win every race, it wasn’t unexpected. I probably didn’t appreciate it enough at the time.”

Aged 17, he was champion conditional, with a plum job based with champion trainer Nicky Henderson. While his peers were still sitting exams, James had been plying his trade for seven years, and was heralded as the brightest young talent in the weighing room.

“It was going so swimmingly, but when I lost my claim I was struggling,” he admits.

James went from riding 70-odd winners a year to 20, hamstrung by breaking his wrist and his arm in successive seasons.

Perhaps it’s an innate understanding of the precarious nature of the sport in which he’d been raised, or that first yo-yo day as a professional, but James seems to take the rough with the smooth with equanimity. He may have switched from assuming every mount would win to a more measured approach, but the winners are rolling in all the same.

“I suppose it took a while for me to get my first Grade One win [on Jango Baie at Aintree on Boxing Day 2023], but I never worried about it – I knew it would come,” he says lightly. “I’ve been injured a couple of times, I’ve rebuilt and now I’m on my best season.”

Nor has Cheltenham been the happiest of hunting grounds, with him missing several due to illness or suspension.

“I’ve not enjoyed the meeting that much over the years because you come away thinking, ‘God, I’m just a spare part,’” he admitted after this year’s Festival. “But when you do have a winner, it’s as good a feeling as you’re going to get.”

There have been other levellers. In January 2024, James would have expected to log another Grade One win when stepping in for the ride on the indomitable Jonbon, at long odds-on in the Clarence House. He’d won earlier in the day on Sir Gino and thought, “I couldn’t do anything wrong.”

But Jonbon made a bad mistake four out, nearly unshipping James, who clung on to rally the horse for an embarrassing neck defeat.

In the same race this year, James made amends, again coming off the subs’ bench to pilot Jonbon to the horse’s 12th Grade One success.

“Last time I’d ridden him, I got beaten and felt like an idiot,” he says. “There was less pressure this time, and it was good to put the record straight. It’s a pretty good feeling riding such a crowd favourite.”

James uses the word pressure, but he’d prefer to describe the feeling “less as pressure, more excitement”, giving an insight into the make-up of a top jockey.

“You have to keep a level head,” he says. “You can’t get too up or too down. Of course you get excited, but it’s not like you feel nervous. If you’re on a good horse in a good race, it’s normal to get butterflies in the belly but you can’t let it get to you. You need to ride every race the same, just try to win every one. That’s what drives me: riding winners, any winners.”

His other driver is Sean. Three-and-a-half years older, Sean has already virtually secured his second champion jockey title. But James emphasises that their rivalry is mutually beneficial.

“Sean and I push each other,” he says. “Sean is older and if I can eventually start to achieve what he’s achieving, that’s the goal. He’s a massive help in terms of tactics. We help each other out. I talk about every race with him, we go into depth, probably more than a lot of other jockeys can.”

Those outside the Bowen family like to tickle the fraternal rivalry, with Nicky Henderson saying after James’s first Cheltenham Festival winner, “He beat his brother to it. They’re the best boys you’ll ever meet. What a family. We have a great bunch of jockeys but it’s terrific for James.”

The man himself brushes it off.

“Sean is doing well enough for himself; there was never a race between us to get there first. When he gets one, I’ll be just as delighted as I would for myself,” he says.

The only area that provokes a little jealousy is weight management.

“That’s the hardest thing for me about being a jockey,” James says. “Sean is extremely lucky – he wakes up a stone lighter than me. I’d be so happy if weights were a stone or two heavier! It can get you down a bit but you find your own way.”

And find his way he certainly has. But with the Festival box finally ticked and Sean still setting the benchmark, I sense he’s only just getting started.

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The reigning national endurance champion tells Martha Terry about the full-circle moment of completing her second 160km ride, her sport’s unique camaraderie and what makes a horse a winner, in this exclusive article for H&H subscribers

Endurance rider Emma Martin was 12 years old when she completed her first 160km ride. Nearly 40 years on, last season she bagged her second – and with it the title of national champion.

As Emma and two other top endurance riders, Amie Grainger and Victoria Davies, were tackling the final loop of the 160km, she admits fighting back the tears. After some 14 hours in the saddle, when the enormity of their imminent achievement began to soak in, they laughed, cried and discussed getting tattoos to mark the moment.

Just as she had as a determined 12-year-old – the youngest rider on the smallest horse – in 2025 Emma had set her sights on the 160km goal. One-day rides at this maximum distance are rare in the UK – maybe just one or two a season. So Emma clubbed together with Amie and Victoria to request the ride to be put on, at Thetford.

“The three of us rode round together, vetted together and finished together,” Emma says. “To achieve 100% success round a 160km is almost unheard of. There were tears – it was such a sense of relief and achievement.

“We talked all the time, except on the last loop when we were all trying not to cry. You remember the little things, like a pig running towards us and getting zapped by an electric fence. We talked about getting tattoos, but I’m quite glad that’s gone quiet as I don’t like pain!

“Winning the national title wasn’t really a goal,” she muses. “I’d set out to do the 160km and then realised with those points that I was in with a chance. I did 10 rides, and completed every one, so I had an inkling that the title could be a possibility.”

Emma Martin: ‘A top endurance horse needs attitude’

Back in 1986, Emma Martin was a budding little endurance rider with a plucky 12.1hh, Sandpiper, a roan “Heinz 57 with some Welsh”. This was a pony who could turn his hoof to any discipline and was certainly a match for his bigger counterparts.

In 2025, she rode her mother Julie’s Nightfire Hallelujah Louis, a grey Arab, bred, built and trained for the job.

“My mum took a back seat to crew, and Louis and I got going together,” says Emma.

“We’ve had him since he was an unbroken five-year-old and he’s always had attitude. He’s very sharp out hacking, he shies, spooks and bucks, but at competitions he’s completely focused, like he knows his job and just does it. His attitude is his best attribute; they need it to get to the top.”

She lays the endurance drive firmly at Julie’s feet.

“I caught the bug from her early on and it’s never gone,” Emma says. “She’s won national championships and was very competitive. She’s still stewarding, volunteering, crewing for me and doing pleasure rides – so it’s in the blood.”

The ultimate distance ride may not have been on the agenda in the intervening decades, but Emma has never really stepped away from the sport. She’s evented, done dressage, hunting with bloodhounds, “a bit of everything”, but her heart has always been in endurance.

“It’s addictive,” she says. “Even if I have time out, I always come back to endurance. I love the length of time you spend with the horse, that partnership, and also the camaraderie with other riders, the preparation and the training.

“You get camaraderie in all horse sports, but I’ve never experienced anything like endurance.”

Training smarter, not longer

Endurance riding puts very different demands on horses – and riders – than the likes of showjumping and dressage. However, like many competitors across the disciplines, Emma has a full-time job and has to fit training and caring for her two horses around that. She counters the suggestion that endurance horses need endless mileage.

“You don’t have to do as much training as you might think, especially once you’ve got to a certain level, it’s more a case of keeping them ticking over,” she says.

“The longest ride I’d do would be about three hours at the start of the season, with a lot of walking. I like to do different types of training – polework, hacking, lungeing, hillwork – it’s not all time in the saddle. And I don’t do much on the roads because of the concussion.

“It’s not just about long rides, it’s knowing when to give a rest or put your foot on the gas. It helps that I’ve done it since I was tiny – it’s natural to me, listening to the horse, knowing when they need more or less.

“We’d start with a low-level ride early in the season, of about 40–60km, to check out how the horse is, then up to an 80km. Each ride brings them on.”

Yorkshire-based Emma juggles this with her job as a probation officer in Wakefield prison, doing condensed hours over four days, with one day working from home.

“Three days a week I am in prison, working with prisoners helping them progress through their sentences – I’ve been qualified since 2004 and I really enjoy it.

“My mum and I share the care of the horses, and she helps with the schooling and lungeing,” Emma explains. “As well as Louis, I have an eight-year-old, Vlacq Mr Pizzaz (Zaz), who is part Arab, thoroughbred and British Riding Pony.”

Zaz stepped up to open level last season – meaning he can now do 80km rides – but whether he’ll eventually step into Louis’ shoes is still up in the air.

“It’s an extra-special thing to be a 160km horse,” says Emma. “A horse might happily do 80s or multi-day rides, but to do a 160km one-day asks a lot of the horse and your relationship – that’s why I’ve only done it twice.”

Buying a potential endurance horse is a gamble, Emma explains, because you simply don’t know whether they have what it takes.

“Louis has very good conformation – they need to be so sound, with straight action, to get through the vettings,” she says. “You’re going on soundness, because you can’t really tell their attitude, so you are taking a punt. Mum likes a short pastern, and we’d usually go for Arab, whether part or pure.

“Paces are important, because you want something comfortable,” she adds, “but I must be able to adapt as I’ve ridden so many different types. The majority of horses can do the sport up to a level. Training helps, but a low resting heart rate is something you can’t always control.”

‘Vets, crews, rivals – we’re all helping each other’

Speaking of heart rates and soundness, the bucolic rides Emma describes around the hills, vales and forests of Britain seem a world away from the gruelling tests of international endurance in the desert, which have been under the welfare spotlight.

Emma highlights just how rigorous the vettings are across the board.

“Not many sports have a vet assessing you constantly while you’re competing,” she says. “The vets are working with you, giving advice and monitoring the horses’ welfare. And they’re really strict.

“At the end of every loop, if you have a problem you can be eliminated – it helps if your horse has a straight, sound action. Then they check the respiration, mucous membranes, gut sounds, for dehydration and that the heart rate is below 64bpm.”

Besides the vets and crews working alongside the rider, Emma insists, “we’re all helping each other” – and that includes rivals.

“At Red Dragon, the crew of the guy who was closest to me in the national rankings hadn’t managed to get to a certain checkpoint, so my crew crewed his horse,” she says unpretentiously. “We share knowledge and experience, look out for each other and ask for help.

“Endurance is amazing, and anyone can do it,” she adds. “A sense of direction and ability to read a map is handy, but I’d say any horse and competent rider can do it… although maybe not a 160km.”

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Showjumping editor Jennifer Donald finds out about Jessica Burke’s pint-sized star with “frightening ability” and their exciting times ahead as they head to the World Cup Final in Texas, in this exclusive article for H&H subscribers

Proving that if you dream big, the results will follow, is showjumper Jessica Burke. Seven years ago, the Galway maths teacher decided to pursue her passion for horses, embarking on an exciting new career as a professional rider. She’s since gone on to represent her native Ireland in Nations Cups and won the prestigious Queen Elizabeth II Cup at Hickstead.

But this week, after a whirlwind few months on the indoor circuit, she finds herself making her debut in the World Cup Jumping Final in Texas, competing among the global elite for one of the sport’s most coveted prizes.

While most of her rivals arrive in Fort Worth with a string of grand prix horses at their disposal, Jessica only has the one five-star horse, the small but ever

so mighty Good Star Du Bary.

It’s a proper pinch-me moment for the 34-year-old, but “we’re going there with big hopes,” she reassures.

So how did this remarkable tale of David versus Goliath unfold?

Jessica always knew she’d found something special in the diminutive grey Good Star Du Bary, known at home as Rocky, who came from France as a

six-year-old via fellow Irish showjumper Ivan Dalton. She produced him carefully through the levels, including finishing an eye-catching 14th in the seven-year-old World Championship in 2023. Last summer they represented Ireland in the Nations Cup of Kronenberg, when Rocky finally felt ready to step up to the big time.

Jessica and the now 10-year-old gelding by Rock’N Roll Semilly used Horse of the Year Show (HOYS) as the springboard for what has developed into a phenomenal winter season indoors, culminating in a landmark first victory in a World Cup qualifier, in Bordeaux, France, in February.

“Rocky had been jumping really well, but it’s so hard to get into some of those better shows – especially in the summer – so I was thinking, ‘I have a really good horse here, he’s only nine, but I have to start doing something with him; I reckon he could be very good indoors,’” reveals Jessica.

“He was brilliant at HOYS in October, then at the World Cup show in Oslo, his first five-star, he had one down, but he just cantered round, he found it so easy. That’s when I knew. I just had this really good feeling about him.

“So then I was on the phone ringing all the shows, the federation, everyone, asking where can I go next!”

The following weeks involved checking off a bucket list of prestigious World Cup venues in Verona, Stuttgart, Mechelen and Basel. But despite excellent performances that accumulated vital points towards qualification for the World Cup Final, frustrations began to build about the series of four faults that appeared on the scoreboard.

It was in Bordeaux, however, that everything changed.

“I knew he was finding it all very, very easy so it was just about putting everything together. Jumping that first clear round in the World Cup there was

a huge relief,” she explains.

In a four-way jump-off that included Olympic veterans Daniel Deusser and Yuri Mansur, Jessica and little Rocky outsmarted them all, securing victory

with the sole double clear. Not only had she triumphed at just her sixth attempt at one of these hugely valuable five-star competitions – the first female rider to win Bordeaux’s showpiece class – she had stamped her transatlantic ticket to Texas and earned the chance to write showjumping history.

“To have patience and wait for your day to come is very hard,” she says. “So to win in Bordeaux was just amazing.

“Moments like that don’t happen very often so you have to enjoy them,” continues Jessica, who was overcome with emotion that day, surrounded by family and friends. This entourage included Rocky’s owner Liam Nicholas, who has been one of her greatest supporters of the past decade, and for whom it coincided with some 60th birthday celebrations.

That performance in Bordeaux also acted as a massive confidence boost and, having used the recent CSI5* Saut Hermès in Paris as her final prep show, Jessica arrives in Texas with a completely different mindset.

“I feel like Rocky – both of us actually – are in a really good place now,” she says. “We feel more comfortable at that level now. We treated Paris a bit like a championship: three days of jumping, which was a lot for him, but he was brilliant once again.”

Rocky enjoyed some downtime before boarding the chartered flight from Belgium to the USA last week with Jessica’s long-time groom Aaliyah Phillips.

While the number of European-based riders travelling to this year’s World Cup Final has dropped significantly against an uncertain background of international conflict, Jessica says, “I won’t let America, or anyone, get in our way!

“Look, the world is in a bit of a strange place at the moment but, for me, the World Championships in Aachen were never the goal this year. I think it would be just a bit too soon for Rocky,” she says. “So the World Cups were my goal and maybe we’ll look at the European Championships next year.

“I’ve never been to Texas and always wanted to go. Some of my family are travelling out, too, so we’re really looking forward to it.”

Jessica remembers watching the World Cup Final as a child and, ahead of fulfilling this dream to contest one herself, she’s been doing her homework.

“I’ve studied the whole schedule, the way it runs and I’ve watched it all before. But I’m quite a laid-back person, so I don’t tend to think about these things too much and try to keep my feet on the ground. Right now I’m focusing on my young horses jumping in Cluny,” she says as we chat during the two-star show in France.

The only slight thing missing from Rocky’s armoury, she says, is a bit more experience over 1.60m tracks, but Jessica has parked those doubts.

“It would be nice if we had another year at 1.60m under our belts, but I am enjoying the build-up and I am happy with Rocky’s fitness after Paris,” she offers. “I’m in a really good position because I’m going there with a very good horse who has all the ability and I know that, if I can do my job right,

he can do his.

“We’ve competed at 1.60m, we’ve enjoyed a really good winter, we don’t have any excuses. It’s time to knuckle down and get some results

on the board.”

Describing the “very intelligent” Rocky as “the best horse I’ve ever ridden”, Jessica says she wouldn’t trade him for anything. While he’s totally relaxed in the warm-up, he lights up with the crowd in the ring and the hugely likeable little grey gelding is developing a huge following.

“We’ve since met his breeder [Marina Storgato] and nearly everybody involved in his career,” she smiles. “When you look back at his videos from the early days, from when I first tried him even, he was always very good.

“He looks normal when he jumps – he won’t go an extra two feet in the air or anything – so when he jumps around 1.30m or 1.40m, there’s no indication of how much scope he has. But there was always a feeling of immense power.

“Actually, jumping the 1.60m grand prix in Paris was the scopiest he’s ever felt. I didn’t think he could surprise me again, but he did! There was a difficult line a lot of really good horses struggled with, but his ability is frightening really. Nobody expects it from such a small horse either.”

But while Good Star Du Bary is undoubtedly the star of the show, a new venture between Jessica and Ballyward Equestrian in Northern Ireland means her string is already expanding, with plenty of exciting youngsters from the McConville family’s breeding and production system vying for her attention, ready to stake their claim as future champions.

Jessica was based with Arion Stud in Hampshire for the past six years and in that time she amassed some great results with a high-calibre string that included her Queen’s Cup winner Express Trend, Nikey HH and African Affair.

“A move had been on my mind and I made the decision last summer,” says Jessica. “We were following the World Cups over the winter so it made sense to stay in Europe until the end of January when I started with some new horses from Ballyward on the Sunshine Tour and now in Cluny.

“But we’ll officially be back in Ireland after Texas, so it’s hugely exciting. Ballyward’s owner Brian McConville is very motivated about doing the sport and making it work, so I’m really looking forward to being part of their team. They do a bit of everything – breeding, producing – and hopefully we’ll buy a

few in. I hope it means I can stay at five-star a bit longer, too.

“This feels like a really good time in my life,” sums up Jessica with her trademark positivity. “Especially with the move home. Arion Stud was, I suppose, the start of my career professionally and we did all these amazing things while I was there. But a change is always good and I’m in such a fortunate position that I can take this opportunity and build another team of horses for the top level.

“I suppose mine is a good story. It feels like everyone is behind us and I’m appreciative of everyone around me. We’re enjoying it and long may it continue.”

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Billy Loughnane tells Lucy Elder about his hopes for 2026 and the feeling that comes with riding a big winner, in this exclusive article for H&H subscribers

Billy Loughnane knows exactly what he wants. The young talent, speaking on the cusp of his 20th birthday, has a crystal clear goal in his sights.

“I want to be champion jockey,” he tells H&H. “That’s the main thing; I won’t be happy until I’ve achieved that.”

Billy’s success has been meteoric since riding his first winner in November 2022, Swiss Rowe, trained by his father Mark. It is, he says, all he has ever wanted to do.

“Being a jockey has been it since day dot,” says Billy, whose idol growing up was 20-time champion jump jockey AP McCoy – although he’s always been drawn to the Flat.

“My dad trains. I’ve been brought up with horses my whole life, racehorses. I was on ponies pretty much from the beginning – I did some showjumping when I was younger – and then progressed onto racehorses. I’ve been riding out since I was 11.

“The showjumping I did was low level, just through my school showjumping team. I rode at Hickstead a couple of times, but just relatively small. I had a cool little pony called Dancer who I enjoyed playing around with.

“I always knew I wanted to be a jockey. I was just showjumping with time to kill before I was able to start pony racing, and then I stepped across.

“Pony racing was a really good foundation and gave me great experience of riding at a lot of tracks.”

That grounding served as a launchpad. Within 12 months of his first winner, he was named champion all-weather apprentice, became the youngest jockey in more than 60 years to ride in a British Classic, partnered more than 100 winners, and was crowned 2023 champion apprentice at Ascot on QIPCO British Champions Day.

And the milestones keep on coming. In 2024, he notched his first Royal Ascot winners and last year recorded his debut Group One success before going on to wave farewell to 2025 by setting a new record for the number of winners in a calendar year.

“That record wasn’t something that I set out to achieve specifically last year, but I had a great season that finished off well,” he says.

“I just wanted to try and ride as many winners as possible last year. I’d obviously been in the country for the majority of the year – January to January – which probably isn’t as common for a lot of the bigger jockeys. So I’ve had a lot more rides, and then towards the end certain goals started popping up in terms of the numerical number of winners.”

Billy Loughnane: ‘I like the adrenaline rush’

So what is it about this sport and working with these remarkable animals each day that drives him?

“I like the adrenaline rush. Big winners on big days, and seeing how good the horses can be,” says Billy.

He reflects on how he handles the pressure that comes with his position. He’s reached stratospheric heights and broken records all while still a teenager, he’s at the top of the game and with that, of course, comes expectations.

“I think first of all, it’s a feeling of relief to ride big winners, there’s obviously a lot of pressure on big days, and it’s just a proper buzz,” he says.

“A lot of it’s just wanting the horse to win, more than anything. Pressure is probably not quite the word for it… it’s a feeling of relief when the horse has won.”

Billy has top agent Tony Hind in his corner – “he’s the best agent in the country” – and support from yards including his father’s, Charlie Appleby and George Boughey.

“He [George] has looked after me since I was claiming. I’m lucky to have someone like him behind me,” says Billy. “Soprano winning at Royal Ascot was our first big winner together, I got a real kick out of that.”

Charlie Appleby, too, has been behind some of Billy’s biggest successes, including his first top-flight victory.

“Rebel’s Romance in Germany last year was my first Group One winner, he’s probably top of the pecking order,” says Billy, reflecting on the biggest moments in his career so far.

“That was a buzz. He’s a very good horse, it was my first time riding him and he’s been around the block, so he was pretty push-button.”

Aiming for a century-old record

Last year, Billy Loughnane finished second to Oisin Murphy in the Flat jockeys’ championship and has his sights on going one better this year. Oisin was 24 when he was crowned champion for the first time in 2019; should Billy succeed, he would be the youngest champion in more than 100 years – a record currently held by the late Sir Gordon Richards, who won his first championship in 1925 at the age of 21.

Hard-working, talented, professional are the words frequently used to describe Billy – and he shares the same advice to any youngsters sharing his dream.

“Keep your head down, work hard, and you’ll get there,” says Billy, who makes time for our chat having just landed back from the Middle East – before war broke out – and on his way to ride eight at Southwell that night.

“Usually I fly in and out, but this year I’ve been based over there for January and February, which has been a bit different, but I’ve enjoyed it,” he says.

“I’ve been in Dubai for the past couple of months, riding in the Middle East. I was in Saudi Arabia last weekend, Bahrain… I’ve been riding in a lot of countries around there, but I’m ready to get going over here.”

And so he has, this month backing up a treble at Kempton on his 20th birthday with a five-timer at Wolverhampton, as his laser focus turns in earnest to his main goal for 2026.

“My aim this year is to try and be champion jockey,” he says. “Oisin has had a tight grip on it the past few years, and I need to ride a lot more winners than I did last year to get close to him. I’ll be trying to ride as many winners as possible to give that a kick.”

From Billy the kid, to perhaps Billy the champion in 2026 – the sky is the limit for this shooting star.

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The event rider – who scored his best five-star result yet at Burghley last year – talks about returning to the top level after losing his mojo, the “chalk and cheese” friend who taught him to breathe across country and making the most of life after losing close friends, in this exclusive interview for H&H subscribers

“Not that I’m saying I’m a top sportsperson, I’m an also-ran,” grins Simon Grieve as he finishes talking about all the elements of sport and business event riders must juggle.

An also-ran? I want to stop him and say no, no, you’re not, you’re much more than that. But on paper, I know what Simon means. He’s started 19 times at five-star and had his best result last season when he finished 18th at Burghley on Autograf. With that profile at 44, it’s unlikely he’s going to win at the top level or ride at the Olympics.

Yet just competing at five-star puts you in eventing’s elite top tier and it is the stalwarts like Simon Grieve who make up the lifeblood of the sport.

“When I was younger I went to Badminton and Burghley and I was inspired. I always wanted to compete there. I always wanted to go and jump a good clear round, be part of the buzz, really enjoy it, but I never dreamt about winning it,” he says, naming eventing vet Tim Randle as an early hero.

“More than the winners, I was inspired by people like Tim, with Legs Eleven, or Helen Bell and Troubleshooter – those sorts, who weren’t super-famous and didn’t win everything, but did quite well. It’s weird, that’s kind of how it’s materialised for me.”

Does Simon want to go and do better at Badminton now, after that Burghley result?

“Of course. I’d love to be top 15, if not top 10 at Badminton – that would be insane. But as long as the horse has gone as well as I hope he can, then we’ve had a great time,” he says.

“It goes back to a conversation on my first day of my first job, with Debbie and Patrick Edmundson. I went hacking with one of their owners. She said, ‘To be honest, as an owner, what I want is to go to an event with somebody I like, watch my horse and hope that it goes as well as it possibly can that day. Then I’m going to have had a great day. And if it wins a prize, then that’s an added bonus.’

“It has always stuck with me that it’s about enjoying it and that’s even more in my head now.”

The road to Burghley 2025

The more five-stars you report, the more you realise it’s not always the winner who has the best story (though Ros Canter’s pregnancy was a pretty good yarn at Burghley). Sometimes, the best stories come from the self-styled “also-rans” and Simon Grieve’s tale of progression to Burghley is a fascinating one.

The background is that after his then most recent five-star in 2021, the Leicestershire rider thought his days of top-level competition were over.

“I thought I’d lost my mojo – I was getting very nervous and I was doing more showjumping, coaching, media, presenting,” he explains.

“I carried on eventing but my attitude changed – before it was very intense and I was putting a lot of pressure on myself. I’ve been eventing since I was 16 and spent most of that time chasing my tail. Doing this as a job is all-consuming and it takes over to the detriment of everything else in your life. My family, my partner’s family, my friends, they’ve all taken a back seat at times, which is not how it should be.”

Autograf (Buster) belongs to his breeder Gerry Torr and her niece Evie Mackel. Initially produced by Samantha Hobbs, he had stints with a few different riders “because he was a bit tricky at times” and then competed with Evie. When she went to university, Gerry rang Simon Grieve and asked him to showjump him to improve that phase, with a view to selling him. One thing led to another “and all of a sudden we were qualified for five-star”.

In the spring last year, Simon headed to Thoresby for the CCI4*-S.“I was going down to the cross-country on Sunday with Buster and I was really nervous. I came out of the start box being quite drippy and didn’t jump through the first water very well. And then he had a run-out, which is unlike him. We came back to the water, he jumped in amazingly and jumped the first corner, but I was pulling and not riding well at all.

“So I pulled out of the second corner. I was like, ‘You are not even going to try that as you’re riding like an absolute moron.’ So I retired and thought, ‘You’ve lost it mate, you can’t do this anymore’.”

Deflated on the way home, Simon realised that he had driven for 12 hours over the previous four days, as well as teaching non-stop the previous week. He was exhausted. He also hadn’t had much training recently.

“I know I need help with the dressage but I thought I knew what I was doing with the jumping phases, but it obviously wasn’t working. And I also thought, ‘Your mindset’s rubbish, so let’s speak to a sports psychologist’.”

He booked a session with Chris Bartle, which ended up being with Chris and Ros Canter, and with sports psychologist Charlie Unwin.

“I hadn’t spoken to Charlie Unwin before, though I did go to school with him and he gave me lines once when he was a prefect,” he remembers with a smile.

In the week before his next big event, at Burnham Market, Simon didn’t teach, focusing instead on his headspace.

“And honestly, it was a revelation. I was a completely different person. I was confident. I was happy. I was really looking forward to it. I enjoyed the whole weekend and the horse went brilliantly.

“Performance is like an onion – there are so many layers to it.”

He cavorted through the summer with a string of good results.

“I rode really well – and that’s another thing, I’m trying to change my vocabulary, because I’m so good at being negative about myself. I’m trying to be like, ‘Actually, I did a good job,’” he says.

When he was at Burghley, he spoke to mindset coach Evie Llewellyn-Smith on cross-country morning: “But to be honest, I’d already got my head in the right place,” he says. “There have been multiple times at five-stars when I’ve wondered on Saturday morning how I can withdraw without looking really stupid, but this time, I literally couldn’t wait. I was really excited about the whole prospect. But it was the most prepared I’ve ever been for a three-day event.”

He jokes at one point that this article might just be “a list of people who’ve helped Simon Grieve” and names a group of friends who were at Burghley in Marie Osborne – “one of my best friends who’s a psychologist who works with young offenders” – showjumper Josie O’Leary and Alison Leonard.

“I also speak to Izzy Taylor most days. We’re like chalk and cheese – I help her with social media and she helps me with focus. I said to her, ‘When I’m at a big event, I get to halfway and I start to do random things and get defensive and don’t ride as well as I can.’ And she pointed out, ‘You’re not breathing enough and you’re basically starving your brain of oxygen and therefore you can’t function as well.’

“So she said, ‘When the starter says ‘one minute’, I want you to take as many deep breaths as you possibly can.’ So I was hyperventilating approaching the start box at Burghley.

“And then she said, ‘When you’ve got a long gallop, do the same thing.’ I spoke to my mindset coach about that and she did a little hypnotherapy session to try to remind me to do it.

“As a result, I was a lot more focused all the way and I’m hugely proud of our Burghley round, it’s just how I imagine cross-country to be. My horse had his ears pricked the entire way and I was loving it.”

Simon Grieve: ‘Life’s so bloody delicate’

Simon Grieve’s attitude has also been shaped by losing friends, including Caroline Moore. He says: “It makes you realise that life’s so bloody delicate and fragile and we’re not here for long. Caroline was amazing at getting us to go and do things and not feel guilty about it – she was always saying there’s more to life than horses.

“She said she had a massive wobble when she was first diagnosed with cancer and bawled her eyes out and then was like, ‘Come on, let’s make the most of what we’ve got here’. We went skydiving, gliding, ziplining, we climbed Snowdon.”

Those adventures encouraged Simon to do more hiking, including the Three Peaks Challenge, climbing the highest mountains in Scotland, England and Wales in 24 hours, which he used to raise awareness of suicide prevention.

“My farrier and friend took his own life and I always felt bad that I didn’t check up on him,” he says. “So I made up a little campaign called #LetThemKnow. I did a video for my followers and said, I’m doing this challenge and rather than giving money, what I’d like you to do is look through your phone contacts, find somebody that you haven’t spoken to in a while or the last time you saw them you thought were a little bit flat and then message them and let them know you’re thinking of them or that they’re special.”

In 2024, he climbed Mont Blanc and Gran Paradiso for the British Eventing Support Trust.

“After three days on each, we got back to the bottom of Mont Blanc and went out for a celebratory meal. The next morning I left at 3am and flew to Gatwick, drove straight to Hickstead, met Drumbilla Metro there and did the trot-up.

“The steward asked, ‘Why are you so lame?’ – because coming down mountains is really bad for your knees. I said, ‘I climbed Mont Blanc yesterday.’ She thought I was completely insane. And then I did the speed derby and finished eighth.”

What a story. And Simon Grieve has a gift for the way he tells it, which is no doubt helpful in his other career, because he’s a popular media presence as well as being a five-star rider and coach.

He presents for Horse & Country TV, on the Shut Up and Ride podcast and at events, as well as having a YouTube channel with 16,000 subscribers. In January he rode Becky Moody’s Jagerbomb at a podcast tour date and he has some “road to Badminton” lecture demos coming up, alongside high-profile grassroots rider Megan Elphick.

With all his other commitments, Simon Grieve doesn’t want many more than the eight horses currently in work at his yard in Wymeswold, Leicestershire. Among them are Best Escapade, who went to the seven-year-old World Championships at Le Lion last year, his year-older half-brother Best Trick – both owned by The Best Syndicate – and six-year-old Pemmely, as well as Patricia Pytches’ Golden Recipe, who previously competed at five-star with Matthew Heath.

“The yard belongs to the Shields family and it has everything I could possibly need,” says Simon, who lives a 45-minute drive away with his partner, shepherd James Horswell.

“It’s a lovely house… I’m just not here that much,” he says. “It’s a good thing James is independent. I’ll say, ‘I’m leaving at 3am to go to an event’ and he’s like, ‘OK cool, have a nice time.’ Because of his background with animals he understands, and when it comes to lambing, the hours are unsociable.”

Climbing Mont Blanc, completing five-stars, the speed derby, 3am starts, being behind the mic, riding an Olympic dressage horse – if being an event rider is about being able to succeed at lots of different things, Simon Grieve’s definitely a winner, not an also-ran.

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Joe Stockdale talks about mental toughness and how he has developed his mindset in this exclusive article for H&H subscribers

Winning a six-bar or a puissance requires an ice-cool temperament. The pressure ramps up as the field whittles down to the final contenders for the prize. When British showjumper Joe Stockdale cleared 2.13m on Its Confidential (Rolo) at Spruce Meadows, he not only won, but set a new six-bar record (joint with Czech rider Vaclav Stanek).

But the mark of a great rider is how they respond to that pressure, and in Joe’s case it was very much “bring it on”. He had meant to jump only a couple of rounds, but as Its Confidential was jumping so well, he decided to go for the win.

“I got a bit excited, he kept jumping better and better, and I ended up going all the way,” says Joe. “I wasn’t going to pull out once it was a two-horse race.

“When I went in and showed Rolo the fence, that made me nervous. It doesn’t even look like a jump when it’s that big. But Rolo is so brave; he didn’t blink an eye.”

But Joe recognises that thriving under pressure is a symptom of being on form.

“That’s when you know you’re confident, because you’re not thinking of what could go wrong,” he says. “Pressure is a nice thing to be a part of. If you’re under pressure, it comes down to being the last person to jump and having to go clear. That’s what you dream of – and pulling it off.”

Joe explains that this kind of good pressure is a result of the hard work that’s delivered you to a winning position – and that readiness is something you can lean into.

“When you’re feeling under pressure, you have to think about the preparation, the work you’ve done to get to this point,” he says. “The horse is ready, you’re ready, you’ve ticked every box and you’re in the best position you can be in at the time. Obviously it’s a worry if you’re not well prepared, but if this is your big goal, you’ve trained to be ready for this moment and you try to do the best you can.”

Dealing with pressure when the results aren’t coming

But pressure can exert negative forces in showjumping. The pressure of the winning round might be a privilege, but there are other times when the burden of just keeping your head above water in a highly emotive sport can weigh heavily.

“Mentally the sport is very difficult, there are lots of ups and downs,” says Joe Stockdale. “Any sport is tough, but ours is particularly tough. We have massive highs and then have big troughs, lows when things aren’t working out.

“It’s very difficult to deal with. You feel under pressure, because you want to do well, and the people around you want you to do well and they’re part of that team.”

Joe’s tools for diffusing that pressure when the rosettes aren’t coming is to remember what motivates him in the first place.

“I just try to find what I enjoy about it,” he says. “I enjoy being with the horses, I enjoy working with them day to day trying to improve them, even if it’s a little a time. It’s taking it step by step, a day at a time, keep turning up and doing what you can. Hopefully, eventually you get the result you deserve but it might take time.

“I’m lucky to have a great team of people around, who’ve been with me a long time and we’re all working towards the same goal. They understand that if it’s not going well, I’m still trying my best and vice versa, they’re giving 100%. That’s all you can ask for and hopefully the results come.”

If he has a horse that loses confidence in a show environment, Joe immediately works to build back the trust.

“The best thing is to slow things down, drop down in height to take the pressure off yourself and the horse, and make it easier for everyone,” he says. “Then get them confident before you go up the levels again, not rushing to go to bigger shows. Take it in the horse’s time, so that only when they’re ready can you pull the trigger and move up.”

How Joe Stockdale developed his mindset

In terms of mindset, Joe Stockdale has various mentors that have shaped him into the rider he is today, but the main drive has been his work ethic.

“There’s not one piece of advice I’ve been given that’s made the difference but there are a lot of people in the sport and around me I look up to,” he says. “My dad [Tim Stockdale] was one: very hardworking, very determined, worked extremely hard to get to where he wanted to. That’s something I think about every day.

“When I’m struggling or finding it difficult he’d be giving me a rollicking, telling me to buck my ideas up and get stuck in and get on with it!”

William Funnell is another.

“William’s a mentor and a very good friend,” Joe says. “He’s got the biggest breeding operation in the UK, a massive set-up with so many things going on at once, and he’s run that and gone to the top of the sport. I look up to him and his work ethic at lot. These are the things that inspire me and keep me going every day.”

As for the little hacks that help him along the way? Don’t mention Lady Luck.

“I was always told you’re not allowed superstitions,” Joe says. “My dad always said that then you have an excuse when things go wrong. I once had a lucky set of cricket gloves I always used to bat in, and Dad told me it was nonsense, because one day I’d forget them and it wouldn’t go well and I’d say it wasn’t my fault because I didn’t have my lucky gloves.

“So I have no superstitions but I have my routine and I stick to that. I’ve got a system, and I try not to rely on luck, though I could do with a bit every now and then!”

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How does a top rider warm their horse up? What do they consider a good workout – and how do they wrap up? Joe Stockdale outlines his system for an everyday exercise session in this exclusive article for H&H subscribers

For all the trophies and laps of honour, every top rider’s success is rooted in the daily grind at home. Joe Stockdale outlines his everyday training routine, from the details of the warm-up through what he wants to achieve in a session, to rounding off with a relaxed pick of grass as a reward at the end.

“I have a checklist to tick off when I’m warming up,” says Joe. “Essentially to jump a course, all we need is to move forward, back, turn left and right.

“If I touch the horse with my leg, does he open up his stride? If I stay tall, think ‘slow’, does the horse come back without me having to pull hard on the reins? Through the turns, are they staying through to the outside rein both ways?

“Once I’ve got these four things, it’s just a case of warming up the body and getting the horse’s mind on the job, asking questions so they’re listening to me rather than worrying what might jump out of the bush. It also keeps me active, rather than going through the motions trotting circles.”

Joe tends to focus on a specific exercise for each horse he is riding. For example, he might work one horse through a set-up to improve their discipline and straightness, using canter poles and tramlines, while another horse may be put through their paces on accuracy, jumping single fences on angles and landing on different leads.

“A good session is when we’re both in sync and comfortable with what we’re doing, but it depends on the day – how they’re feeling and how I’m riding,” Joe explains.

“My job is to challenge the horse, but not ask questions they can’t answer – entertaining them but not overstepping the mark.

“Sometimes I can step up the challenge, other times less is more; I might ask something simpler, they get it right first time, I give them a pat and take them for a hack round the field.

“You have to do what’s best for the horse, not what you want to do, and always be in a good frame of mind yourself, relaxed and not trying to rush them. You wouldn’t expect a five-year-old to jump round a course with no mistakes in perfect balance.

“Marginal gains every day is what I’m aiming for; there’s no pressure and with horses you have to be patient.

“I don’t jump big at home,” he adds. “For instance, my stallion Ebanking [who competes up to 1.60m classes] might jump once in between shows over about 1.10m at home, and then I’ll hire a course at 1.30m. It’s just about keeping the muscles active, rather than the height.”

Joe Stockdale on the benefits of variety in training

Training on a variety of surfaces is one tool Joe believes helps prevent injuries.

“Not only is it boring for me to go round in circles in the school every day, but I’m thinking about the horses’ minds and bodies,” he says. “All those little ligaments that are to do with the foot rolling and moving in a different fashion, like they might do in a jump-off turn, benefit from working on different surfaces.

“I like to work in my grass field, where there is a bit of undulation; I have a dirt track around and up a hill so they can do a bit of hillwork and fitness, and a surfaced gallop as well as the arenas. So that’s four different surfaces to give the horses a nice variety during the week.

“Mentally, too, it keeps them fresh and happy to have a change of scenery every day. They really enjoy going up the hill, having a blow with a bit more speed. Lots of variety helps them in their everyday work.”

How Joe finishes a training session

Whatever type of exercise has been on the agenda, Joe has a routine to finish off.

“If I’ve worked them in the school, usually I’ll jog off for two minutes, to let them catch their breath, have a stretch and get their head down,” he says. “So they have a reward at the end of their work, and a relaxing jog.”

Once he’s finished in the school, Joe rides out to his jumping field, which is dotted with Derby-style fences. He likes his horses to put their heads down to have a pick at the grass, or lets them graze off the man-made bank.

“I like to come out to my field, especially if it’s not too wet, and hack around for a couple of laps, which also means they can have a nice snack of grass before they go back to the stable,” he says. “I like to them to have a little stretch and a graze as a reward for their work.”

Joe remembers the first time he brought Ebanking out here.

“He jumped on to the bank and then couldn’t work out how to get down!” Joe laughs. “I had to leave him there and go and get a lunge line, but he didn’t like me leading him off either, so I got back on and he eventually got it.”

Joe describes this routine as “short-term care” after low-key exercise at home. For those returning from competition, they have three sets of ice wraps to cool the legs repeatedly.

“It’s also about keeping an eye,” he emphasises. “As the horses are groomed every day, they get a full checkover top to bottom, making sure everything is as it should be, no lumps, bumps or swelling anywhere. We are covering all the bases as well as all our physio and veterinary side of things, it’s the everyday things that help them stay on the road and be as happy and comfortable as they can be.”

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On a cold winter’s day in 2019, Louise Bell’s eyes glowed bright as she spoke about a home-bred yearling, for whom she had high hopes: “He’s absolutely spectacular – he’s the golden child.” Seven years later, the now eight-year-old dressage horse called Peaky Blinder is living up to the promise he showed back then.

Known at home as Duggy, he has been relatively lightly competed, thanks to a tendency for “self-harm” as a four- and five-year-old that meant a few stints off with injury. However Peaky Blinder has since proved his worth with a win last year in the international young horse division at Wellington Premier League. He’s also racked up three prix st georges (PSG) wins and two at inter I since stepping up to the level in July, with scores nudging 70%.

Could Peaky Blinder be Louise Bell’s Valegro?

“He’s a gift from God,” says Louise Bell, 54, her enthusiasm for the Uthopia son she now owns with her friend Denise Reynolds still totally undiminished. “He’s such a trier – he has ‘Uti’s’ trainability – and he’s such a kind horse.

“But actually, I get real Valegro vibes from him, even though they’re not related. Duggy’s a beautiful, upstanding horse and he has that same sort of presence in the ring. He has such a desire to do the job, he’s really good at almost everything and he’s so easy to train – it’s like he’s been here before.”

Another “Professor”, then, as Valegro was famously nicknamed by Carl Hester. And with his dark colouring and white blaze, dressage horse Peaky Blinder doesn’t even look too dissimilar to the legendary champion.

“Gosh, it would be wonderful if we could emulate even 10% of what Valegro and Uti did,” says Louise, who admitted she found the news of the deaths of the great pair incredibly emotional.

A showing outing for dressage horse Peaky Blinder

That Louise switched roles from working hunter specialist to dressage star thanks to the H&H discipline swap challenge she took up in 2011, has been widely reported. Although she may not have any desire to go back to showing as a career, Louise did cause a stir when she and Peaky Blinder made an impromptu appearance in the show ring back in September.

“I wanted to help encourage him to go a bit more forward, but without the pressure of going on the gallops. I knew it was in there. So I thought I’d take him in the ring with other horses,” she explains.

Despite being out of Louise’s top showing mare Working Girl, Duggy didn’t wow the judges on his show ring debut. Louise doesn’t care: “Peaky Blinder stuck out like a sore thumb as a dressage horse – he almost went too well – but it was the right thing to do. He did his first PSG two weeks later and did brilliantly.”

Next on the cards for Duggy, following a demo at the London International Horse Show, are the regionals at PSG and inter I, and hopefully the winter dressage championships. Louise has her eye on international small tour in the not-too-distant future, though ultimately “he’ll tell me what he wants to do”.

These days, Louise trains mostly with Gareth Hughes – she describes taking her rising dressage star Peaky Blinder to Gareth’s as a bit of a full-circle moment. Gareth was instrumental in her early dressage career with her former working hunter star Into The Blue, who sadly passed away days after his retirement from international competition was announced in Horse & Hound magazine.

And she’s long worked with Carl Hester, who she says is another member of the Duggy fan club, which seems to be growing by the day.

“I send Carl videos of Duggy all the time, it probably drives him mad,” she laughs.

She’s great mates with Alan Davies too, Carl’s former top groom – it was Alan who bought Louise the Uthopia semen that resulted in her current dressage horse Peaky Blinder, as a birthday present.

Louise Bell rates ‘quality over quantity’

Louise may not have a huge string of horses, but she says it’s about “quality over quantity” for her: “I don’t need many, and I don’t have the time anyway. And I’ve got to think about later life, at least sometimes.”

That said, when breeder Claire Hester recently told her about a little filly by Uthopia, out of an Integro mare, it wasn’t long before said filly was ensconced in Louise’s Oxfordshire yard.

“So now I have this beautiful yearling with a heart-shaped star on her forehead,” says Louise, her excitement palpable. “Her name’s Unity and I call her Toots – she’s going to be my swansong horse.”

I wonder where they’ll be six years from now.

• Read this exclusive interview in full in Horse & Hound magazine (29 January 2026 edition), and to stay up to date with more insight from top riders across the disciplines, subscribe to the Horse & Hound website

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Exceptionally athletic and a supreme trier, this sensitive character met his ideal match in Oliver Townend and they went on to become one of the greatest partnerships in eventing history, as Catherine Austen explains in this exclusive article for H&H subscribers

Diamonds are forever – except in the case of horses, they are not. Ballaghmor Class is a diamond. He has dazzled at the very top of eventing for the best part of a decade, illuminating CCI5* level at a time when it has threatened to drop into shade. But he is not immortal, and, at the age of 19, it is time for him to retire.

Oliver Townend, Ballaghmor Class’s partner and jockey for 15 years, says: “Of course I will miss [competing] him – although he’s not going anywhere – he’s my best mate. That’s probably pretty sad, but it’s true. All the things we’ve done together, for so many years… But, touch wood, all my top horses’ careers have finished in the right way, with them well and happy; I’ve always called ‘time’ before they did.”

In a career that started in September 2012 and concluded in October 2025, the standout statistics are these: four CCI5* wins, two at Defender Burghley Horse Trials, one at Defender Kentucky Three-Day Event and one at Mars Maryland 5 Star. Ten consecutive top-five placings at CCI5*. An Olympic team gold medal. Numerous other victories merely as warm-ups for those five-stars. A total of 2,845 British Eventing points. He is a hero of the sport, a cross-country deity whose spiritual homes were the world’s biggest, most challenging courses.

Behind the headlines is a shy, brave, wilful, affectionate and needy character whose relationship with Oliver runs extremely deep. His stable is directly opposite Oliver’s bedroom window and everything about Ballaghmor Class’s life has been meticulously organised to suit the vagaries of his character for 15 years.

How this special relationship began

Katherine Charlton bought the unbroken son of Courage II as a three-year-old from an elite event horse sale at Tattersalls in Co Meath in 2010.

“He was just a lovely young horse – very athletic-looking with correct movement and presence,” she says.

When he was four, she rang Oliver and said that she had a horse she thought he ought to come and see. Oliver remembers the then steel grey youngster putting his back up when Katherine got on him.

“She quietly said to him, ‘Please don’t buck me off in front of Oliver Townend.’ I liked him straightaway – he was big, sexy, rangey. I had a sit on him, not for many minutes, but he felt like he had a lot of power.”

Oliver sent Karyn Shuter videos of him, she bought him, and Thomas – his stable name is that of Katherine’s son – arrived in Shropshire.

“He’s always been very sharp, and difficult to get on,” Oliver says. “I remember the first time I saw him run off with someone. Thomas got something up his tail and ran and ran and ran, and there was very little to stop him.

“But he became professional very quickly at an event, because if you give him something to concentrate on when he’s somewhere he doesn’t know, suddenly he needs you.”

Karyn sold four-year-old Ballaghmor Class to a fellow New Zealander, Garth Davies and his family, who wanted to invest in horses. She bought him back when the horse was six, then shares were sold to Angela Hislop and Val Ryan so that Oliver could keep the ride.

Karyn says: “He is not what you would call an easy horse; he loves attention on his terms, loves work but is insecure, very sharp and brave but also sensitive and careful. He falls in love a lot, which is a nightmare when travelling. At events he doesn’t like other horses going out when he isn’t – so often we had to take extra staff to put all his boots on and take him out for a walk while the other horses were getting ridden or washed. He just doesn’t like missing out.

“He tries to load himself on the lorry but doesn’t want to be there if everyone’s getting off, so he can’t be the first or last.”

Karyn is certain that the consistency of one rider, one home and a long-term plan has had much to do with his success.

“To be in control right from the start with a big, rangey horse was ideal, as we never put pressure on him to do age classes or work him in frames that his body wasn’t ready for. That is one of the reasons he stayed fit and healthy at the top of the sport for so long; the basics have been so true as Oliver worked him in a correct, classical way,” she says.

Ballaghmor Class: the early years

Thomas’s early years as an event horse were quietly successful; he ticked all the boxes of progression neatly and quickly.

“He was a good, scopey horse, but he was very stiff in himself,” Oliver says. “If you arrived at a fence a bit close, he couldn’t get himself out of the way of it for love nor money. But the potential was always, always there. As he became stronger, he became sharper in his reactions and learnt how to use his body more.

“To me, he was always going to be a five-star horse – and a top one – but you had to work round the quirks all the time. I used to have my tailcoat pinned to the saddlecloth or to my breeches, because a tap on the backside and you’d have been gone.”

Karyn interjects: “It has been lucky that Oliver has an extremely good lower leg position, otherwise it would have never worked.”

Oliver continues: “It was about managing everything. And he just quietly went through the motions as a good horse who was making mistakes and learning.”

Oliver had other, more eye-catchingly competitive, horses and Thomas stayed just below most people’s radar. That changed, dramatically and ultimately, at Burghley in 2017.

“I remember coming out of the dressage at Burnham Market in the spring and saying to Karyn, ‘I’m going to Burghley on this one this year.’ She said, ‘Well, one step at a time…’”

Oliver had already won two five-stars – Badminton and Burghley – but in 2009, which seemed half a lifetime ago to him at that point. His entries for Burghley in 2017 wouldn’t have given commentators cause to think that was about to change: 10-year-old Ballaghmor Class, a five-star debutant, and 13-year-old Samuel Thomas II, a good, reliable horse but not a megastar.

“I was still teaching Thomas flying changes in the warm-up at Burghley and I remember saying to myself, if he gets four clean changes, we’re going to win. It felt like a secret. I was absolutely convinced that we could win,” Oliver says.

Many of us can remember the ride Oliver gave Ballaghmor Class across country on that day. For the first half of the course, he held the strikingly talented but green horse’s hand.

“I was just trying to be open, but as quiet as possible,” Oliver remembers.

Two-thirds of the way round, Oliver crouched lower in the saddle and pressed “go”. The response was immediate and by the finishing line, the education was complete. This was a fully fledged five-star horse – and 24 hours later that was franked with the Burghley winner’s trophy.

Consistent five-star performances

There isn’t sufficient space to detail the subsequent years; the clockwork chimes of Badminton and Burghley, spring and autumn, fifth, second, second, third. Not a beat missed.

The sadness about Ballaghmor Class’s career, however, is those missed Covid years and two Badminton and two Burghley chances at his absolute peak.

A daring raid on Kentucky in 2021 delivered a brilliant triumph – a second CCI5* win – but Oliver will always regret opportunities missed.

“He was 13 and that’s often when these horses are at their best. What could he have achieved?” asks Oliver rhetorically.

That strange, postponed Tokyo Olympics in 2021 was Ballaghmor Class’s first team appearance. Sent out first for Britain, they were perfect round a cross-country course a world away from the demands of Burghley, Badminton and Kentucky.

Individual gold wasn’t to be – the pair had a single showjump down in each of the two rounds and they finished fifth. But Oliver, Tom McEwen and Laura Collett had secured team gold, and humans and horses flew home national heroes.

“The nicest thing for me was that when we won the team medal [after the first round of showjumping], Thomas was the best scorer in the team. I’ve never been happier on a team than I was with Laura and Tom; we respected each other and it worked very well,” says Oliver. “All three of us were there on horses of a lifetime.

“It was very special for us and for eventing, but also for people outside the sport, such as the local community. Not everyone in the village here knows what eventing is, but they do know who Ballaghmor Class is.”

Third and fourth five-star wins

After another second place at Badminton, they came back to Burghley in 2023 for the first time since 2019. The weight of expectation they carried was immense, but the nature of diamonds is that they are formed under great pressure. To triumph at what is acknowledged as the world’s most challenging CCI5* for a second time, with six years and thousands of miles galloped and flown in-between, placed Ballaghmor Class in the pantheon of all-time eventing gods.

“I was incredibly proud – of Thomas and also of the team at home. It made me very emotional and I cried my eyes out on the podium,” Oliver says with an embarrassed grin.

A minor foot problem lingered for too long in the spring of 2024, and Thomas missed Badminton. He had a holiday, got fat and came back delighted with himself and as arrogant as a multiple five-star winner has the right to be.

“I couldn’t quite get him ready for Burghley, but we agreed that if we could find a way to finance a trip to Maryland in October, we would,” Oliver says. “For me, that was one of his greatest performances. He was 17 and he had the time of his life. I could barely hold him across country – he tore round – and then, showjumping-wise, I jumped four warm-up fences and that was it. In we went and I’ve never felt him like that. To win a fourth five-star there was very special.”

There was one more Badminton, in 2025, where they were outstanding across country but a small injury – “like a paper cut” – meant they didn’t showjump, and a final, almost surprise CCI5* at Pau that October, as the horse felt so fit and well that Oliver thought he deserved one last party.

“It wasn’t the dream ending, but I didn’t want this greatest of all five-star horses to end his career by not finishing one. I always want my horses to bow out on a good note.”

“Do I think he could come out and win a four-star next season? I could sit on him backwards and win a four-star next season,” Oliver says. “But does he need to do that? Of course not. He’s Ballaghmor Class.”

A full retirement ceremony is planned at Burghley this autumn and he and Oliver may go “on tour” together, to let Thomas see his fans – and they him.

“I think he’d love that,” says Oliver. “Like me, he needs to be active, or we’ll end up in trouble.”

Enjoy more exclusive insight from Ballaghmor Class’s travelling groom Jess McKie, his part owner Karyn Shuter and Equiratings’ Sam Watson in Horse & Hound magazine, in shops from Thursday 29 January

• To stay up to date with all the breaking equestrian news throughout the year, subscribe to the Horse & Hound website

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Felix Vogg talks about the rehab regime that took him from paralysis to the Europeans in 26 days, an autumn to remember and a theme of quirky rides in this exclusive article for H&H subscribers

Don’t ever tell Felix Vogg he can’t do something. On 23 August last summer, his arm was paralysed in a fall. Just 26 days later, against all medical prognosis, he was riding for his country in the European Eventing Championships. A month after that, he won Maryland five-star, the first Swiss rider to record two victories at the highest level.

“When I got up from the fall, I thought I was fine although it was hurting a bit,” describes Felix, 35. “I tried to get on to my next horse, but needed two people to help me and then I really couldn’t ride.”

Things deteriorated rapidly as the adrenaline wore off, until he was unable to move his entire arm – bar the hand.

“It was very scary, because until you experience it, you cannot imagine how it is to try everything to send the signal to your muscles to make them function but it just doesn’t work, it’s incredible,” he says. “It was even harder when I was able to make it move a little bit, because I had to put so much mind and energy into it just for a tiny movement. After one session of physio I felt like I’d ridden 15 horses.”

But Felix had places to go. Burghley was looming at the start of September and he had a fighting chance of a top placing with his five-star specialist Cartania, who was storming round Badminton in May when they were eliminated late on after a peck on landing.

“I told the physios I needed to be better the Sunday before Burghley, but they said ‘no chance’ of riding there or at the Europeans,” he says. “I didn’t hear that part.

“I did four painful hours of physio a day at a great clinic in Geneva, with electrostimulation and a lot in the swimming pool. It was fast-track rehab; they tortured me a lot and I put everything into it – I even begged the physios to come into the clinic on Sundays.”

Felix kept up his goal of riding at Burghley, and he did manage to get into the saddle the weekend before.

“But I still couldn’t connect the brain with the arm,” he says. “I could hold the reins but not move my arm forward.”

The Blenheim Euros were only two weeks later, by which time Felix was back riding. He had an early run-out on championship debutante Frieda, but a top-10 dressage and clear showjumping. Switzerland, as in Paris, finished fourth as a team.

Felix Vogg’s victory at Maryland

Come Maryland in October, Felix was no also-ran: third after dressage, second after cross-country and the victor on the final day, adding just 0.4 of a showjumping time-fault to their dressage score.

“It sounds weird, but I had the feeling before Maryland that something was different that week,” says Felix, currently sporting a buzzcut after a deal with this groom that she could cut his hair if he won. “I had the same feeling when I won Luhmühlen with Colero.

“As I’d lost all that time with injury, and missed Burghley, I really focused on Cartania – which I’d also done with Colero. I did everything with her, groomed her, tacked her up, took her to the field. I went out to Maryland three days before my groom, so I had those days alone with her. It just helps us to connect better.

“And with all that time together, I just had a feeling, even before the dressage, that it would probably happen – if I didn’t do anything crazy, the win was there for the taking.”

Felix’s hunches are intriguing if not always spot on.

“It was similar in Paris with Dao De L’Ocean. I called my girlfriend Lea Siegl from the training camp and said, ‘I will lead the dressage.’ She laughed, saying, ‘A week ago you didn’t know the test or how to ride a half-pass with him!”

His premonition didn’t quite work out that time – they were fifth, 0.1 behind the joint thirds – but scored a massive personal best of 22.1 and eventually finished eighth.

Back to Maryland, there were other signs that this was Cartania’s moment to shine.

“She isn’t usually nice to ride on a daily basis because she has so many opinions, but there she was so soft, smooth and listening,” Felix says. “We even checked that there was nothing wrong after the long journey. She was just in a good mood.”

Felix’s hopes for a tough cross-country were fulfilled when only seven jumped clear: “I was worried it wouldn’t be tough enough. Not to be arrogant, but I know I have more chance to move up to the top spot.”

And when it came to showjumping, historically Cartania’s weakest phase, a hackamore this season has revolutionised her record.

“I used to ride her in it for dressage schooling and hacking, but she started leaning on it, so now I only jump her in it at competition – it’s a game changer,” he says.

“I do really like a tricky horse”

Cartania clearly likes things done her way – Felix was apologetically late for our Zoom meeting because “she’d been left inside when she wanted to be outside” – and this is a theme.

“I do really like a tricky horse; somehow I pick them,” Felix says. “I’m not going out looking for them, but I like the extra challenge.”

From his first international ride, his European pony ride Connection D, to his top campaigners today, each one has a certain edge.

“I mostly had to ride horses my brother didn’t want, so maybe that’s why I ended up with the difficult ones. For me, it’s not such a challenge to win a competition, but to gain the trust of a horse is much more of an achievement. I never like to give up on a horse, and sometimes I feel I can help them.”

Quirks haven’t stopped these horses reaching the top, quite the contrary. But it took Felix a lot of patience and time to earn the trust of Colero and Dao, his rides at the past two Olympics.

“Colero needs his people to like him – he didn’t come to the stable door for two years, he’d hide in the corner,” Felix says. “It’s not a good idea to target his weakness, he takes it personally, but once he’s on your side, he tries his heart out.

“Dao is similar. I initially thought he didn’t want to do the job. He got eliminated twice at two-star only two years before the Olympics, but it wasn’t the height or difficulty, just that he was scared. So for six months, I’d pop over tiny logs and houses almost every day until he realised nothing bad would happen.

“Once he switched, he never ran out again, but it took me time to trust him! He is like me, once he understands how to do something he can repeat it.”

Frieda is another conundrum.

“She was my favourite horse when she was young, but she has a weird body – the front is completely different to the hind so it feels like you’re riding two different horses,” Felix explains. “Her mind isn’t ideal either as she’s terrified of other horses.”

This horse-shyness became so limiting that the mare’s owner sent her away to be “fixed”.

“She came back worse,” said Felix. “But I thought back to when I liked her so much and thought she’d be a great horse, so I decided to work with her and never put her in a position where she is scared. I ride her early in the morning, never with other horses, and not near any mirrors as she’s even scared of the reflection. It’s working out well.”

How Felix Vogg developed his system

Felix’s unorthodox approach is rooted in his upbringing. With a grandfather, Roland Perret, who evented at the Stockholm Olympics, Felix and his brothers Ben and Christian were drilled in horses as kids – with winters spent in the mountains ski-racing (the ponies came too).

“We were allowed to play football, but my mother made us feel like it wasn’t what we were supposed to be doing,” Felix smiles. “It was always riding and sometimes it was tough. We learned that if you have a pony, you take care of it every day.

“My grandfather was really strict with us in the dressage. We had to ride the ponies for two hours or more and run through our tests a lot before the competition, something I never do now. Before his dressage in Stockholm, he warmed up for five hours!”

Felix has guarded admiration for his grandfather, who was fifth after dressage in Stockholm.

“He liked to lean forward over drop jumps, so he was always falling off – he fell off twice at the Olympics,” Felix says. “A German rider overtook him, then fell off himself and asked my grandfather to catch his horse and bring it back – so the German team won silver and The Queen gave my grandfather an award for fair play.”

But while Felix hasn’t inherited his cross-country position, he follows the same schooling system.

“Where I grew up, in Germany, it’s arena, arena, arena – but my grandfather did all his training in the woods and fields, which I found interesting,” says Felix, now based in France, 10 minutes from Geneva. “I too work mostly in the fields and woods, maybe only once a week on the sand. If you can do a half-pass in the woods, why shouldn’t it work in the arena? If a horse is correctly ridden you should be able to ride any line anywhere.

“I think horses get tired of the arena, but the main reason I do it is because I think the horses stay sounder. For me, the worst thing is if a horse is injured. My number one priority is to keep horses sound and healthy, the results are second or third.”

Felix adds that a stint with Michael Jung taught him the art of test-riding.

“He trains his horses so they are always ready to do any movement on any occasion. It applies to cross-country too, so if you want to make a flying change, it happens, you don’t waste three strides and concentration on the fence because the change isn’t coming.”

For all that Felix is a stickler for details, he insists he’s “not competitive, not at all”.

“I don’t always want to win, but I do always want to get the most out of a horse – which can be annoying for the people around me! I am definitely not relaxed, I’m very picky.

“I just think there are negative aspects of running fast every time. For example, I wouldn’t be able to handle Cartania if I always rode her fast.”

He points out that Cartania has been inside the time three times in the past five seasons, precisely when it mattered: the two championships she’s contested and Maryland.

“I do it for the good of the horse,” he says. “What’s the point of winning €400 at a four-star short? I prepare everything to peak at the right moment, like riding for my country.”

And so thoughts turn to the World Championships in Aachen, where Switzerland will keep pressing for their first medal since 1981. Colero will be 18 and although he’s “in better shape now than when he was 10”, Felix treats every competition as though it were his last. Dao De L’Ocean hasn’t been seen in public since Paris but the 12-year-old looks his likely ride.

“I made a mistake giving him too much time off after Paris, and he lost too much muscle, which has taken time to build up,” says Felix. “He’s ready now and I hope he’ll get his chance in Aachen.”

If past form is anything to go by, the best thing to do is tell Felix Vogg is that he has no chance at all.

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The 24-year-old dressage star talks about his life before becoming a social media star, swapping the influencer tag for international results and proving himself as a rider on rise, in this exclusive article for H&H subscribers

“I thought I was going to fall to pieces before it,” Harrison Ashton laughs, recalling the nerves ahead of his team debut at the under-25 European Dressage Championships in Kronberg, Germany.

“I couldn’t sleep for a week. But it wasn’t panic – I was excited. I knew our preparation had been the best it could’ve been. I had a fantastic horse I believed in, and people who believed in me. I couldn’t have done any more.”

He was right. Riding Million Dreams – the 10-year-old mare owned by Jesse Honka and his mentor, Finnish Olympian Henri Rouste – Harrison delivered personal bests in all three tests, helping Britain secure team bronze. It was all the more remarkable given the pair had only a handful of tests at that level behind them.

Compare that to his team-mate and friend Annabella Pidgley, who has been stepping onto podiums since childhood and was competing in her eighth consecutive Europeans.

“I remember sitting at dinner with her and her mum about four years ago,” Harrison says. “I hadn’t even really started competing yet, but I told her, ‘One day I’m going to be on a team with you.’ We joked about it – I even said I’d beat her.”

He grins. “I didn’t beat her. But I was so close. And then suddenly, there we were. On a team together. We couldn’t believe it.”

But if you thought his breakout results took the pressure off, think again.

Next stop was the World Cup show at Herning, Denmark, where the pair lined up in the Lövsta Future Challenge for under-25 riders.

“I have to be honest, I was more nervous for Herning than I was for the Europeans,” Harrison says. “Because it had gone so well. I thought, ‘This cannot go wrong now.’ I couldn’t have the Europeans look like some fluke.”

Once again, they rose to the occasion – winning the competition and setting another personal best in the freestyle.

One thing becomes clear as we talk: no one piles on the pressure quite like Harrison does himself.

“The difficult ones teach you just as much – sometimes more”

Before the interview, most of what I knew about him came from social media. With nearly half a million followers and a feed full of polished, well-lit highlights, it’s easy to assume the riding was secondary – especially for someone who hadn’t competed much until recently.

But in person, that idea falls away quickly. He’s driven, warm, unguarded, often laughing at himself. And above anything else, he’s determined not to be boxed in as “the influencer”.

Horses were always part of the picture for Harrison. “I’ve literally had horses forever,” he says. “My parents were into horses as well. I started on Shetland ponies and did a lot of showing.

“But mum never bought me horses ready-made. We’d buy the ones people didn’t want. One of mine, a Welsh section A from Beeston auction, ended up winning everything – lead-rein, first ridden, and we went to the Horse of the Year Show too.”

As he reached the end of school, he stepped away from the show ring and into life on a dressage sales yard, working for Astrid Bolton. By 16, he was there full-time.

“I was riding all different sizes, all different types of behaviour. It was hard work, but I learned loads. Even now, when we get one I don’t click with as much, I know I’ll come away having learned something. The difficult ones teach you just as much – sometimes more.”

Meanwhile, his family were backing his ambition: they sold their house and bought a property with land. “We had two wooden stables and a small 20x20m beach sand arena,” Harrison explains.

“I knew it wouldn’t support a top-level career, but it was a start, and one that I’ll always be so grateful for.”

He bought a Welsh Cob, produced it, and sold it as an FEI prospect. That little cob – and a sandpit with two wooden stables – became the seeds of Kirkland Dressage, the home yard he grew into one of the country’s busiest sales bases.

“From there, I started selling more, and the horses got nicer. I ended up working with big studs and selling to riders I’d looked up to for years – it was all a bit crazy.”

Through all of this, Harrison adds that he knew that without money, horsepower or connections, the usual route into dressage simply wasn’t open to him. So he took a different path.

“I knew the only way for me to grow the business or get opportunities was to be on social media. I couldn’t afford a ready-made horse. I didn’t have the experience. But I knew if I posted, it might open some doors.”

It started with one photo that went viral of him and one of his Welsh ponies – then the next one did too.

“It probably helped that there were hardly any equestrians doing it back then,” he says. “There were maybe four of us. I was still a teenager. Now there are hundreds.”

His sister encouraged him to keep posting, so he did, and by the time lockdown hit, his following on Instagram and TikTok had exploded. Brand deals arrived. A TV crew followed. Sponsors reached out.

“My first job from social media was Changing Reins for Horse & Country. It was straight after lockdown, and I look back and cringe a bit now. I’d never even been in front of a camera before. It was just boom – you’re allowed outside now, and you’ve got to film a full-on TV show.”

But he knew the awkwardness came with opportunities. One sponsor, Martin Collins, even built him a professional arena at home – something he’s still slightly stunned by.

“Without social media, I’d still be trotting around my little sandpit.” But the visibility also brought assumptions: “People were like, ‘You have such a glamorous lifestyle, look at you on a plane again.’ And it’s like – no, I’m absolutely shattered. I’ve jumped on a flight, been there one day, and now I’m back mucking out with my mum.”

The curated nature of social media didn’t help: “You do post the things – like me drinking a piña colada on a beach – but people don’t realise I was there for one day. I just had to get three days’ worth of posts out of it. You create this false perception – that’s part of it.”

And at his core, he was never the archetypal influencer anyway. “I’m actually quite closed. I hate speaking to a camera. I can’t vlog. I’ve tried – I just can’t.”

“I used to be on the sidelines, hoping one day I’d get my chance – and now I do”

But being a competitive, professional rider was always the goal. The first glimpse of what that might look like came thanks to a sponsor.

“I originally came to Henri’s with Sprenger Bits,” he explains. “I was there with them for a visit, and I was just… wowed by it. Watching Henri ride – it was another world. I just thought, OK, this is the level.”

They stayed in touch. At the same time, Harrison was starting to feel that he’d gone as far as he could at home.

“I knew I didn’t want to stay in the north selling horses forever. It’s not what I wanted to do. I always wanted to ride and compete.”

He spoke to Carl Hester, whom he’d met and later trained with, through social media, about going abroad. Carl gave him the same time-tested advice he’s given other young riders who went on to make it big.

“I asked him, ‘Should I go abroad?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah. It’s the only option, really.’”

Then came the nudge that made the decision feel like more than coincidence.

“I spoke to Henri and I wasn’t sure… then I spoke to Lyndal Oatley, Patrik Kittel’s wife, who said, ‘I know the perfect place for you: Henri’s.’ I thought, ‘This is so strange. Everything is pointing me there.’”

Within two weeks in late 2024, he had made up his mind. “I thought, if I don’t like it, I can always move home. I’ve got the yard there. But I didn’t want to look back in 10 years and still be doing the same thing. So I just packed my things and left.”

Henri and his wife Senta’s base, Gut Bertingloh, sits just outside Dortmund, but with its strong Finnish contingent, it delivered a few unexpected culture shocks when he first arrived.

“I went into the shared kitchen, opened the fridge, and there was a full-on carp on a plate,” Harrison laughs. “Like something you’d find in a pond in Britain. After that, I never opened the fridge again.”

But once he was in the barn, he slotted straight into the riding team. “It’s basically me, Henri and Senta riding. It’s a big sales yard, very exclusive. The horses are expensive, amazing quality, but they’re here for a long time – it’s not like you have them six weeks and they’re gone. You really get to develop them.”

Harrison Ashton on being labelled an influencer, not a rider

Still, he had work to do to shake the influencer label.

“When I first moved here, I was looked at as ‘the influencer’. People literally said that to me. And I don’t think they realised I was ever a rider. I wanted to say, ‘Hey, I used to back three-year-olds and do all that cowboy stuff too!’”

At first, he didn’t expect to compete. “I came here just to ride and learn alongside Henri. I never thought I’d have the chance to compete.”

Then Million Dreams – Mildred at home – changed everything. “Henri said, ‘You should try her.’ She was very green; she knew a few of the higher-level tricks, but not much.

“Then he said, ‘You should compete this horse.’ I was like, no way. She was nine, she was green. But with his experience, I thought, OK – I’ll take his word for it.”

That trust meant more than he admits at first. Henri didn’t have to offer him that chance; he chose to. And what hit Harrison hardest was that Henri believed in him as a rider, not as a social media figure.

“It was a huge confidence thing for me. None of this would have happened without him,” Harrison reflects. “I thought, without big financial backing, no one would look at me for the hard work I was putting in.

“Now I can finally show it. And I have to thank Henri for that. He believed in me and gave me the chance to prove myself. I hope other young riders start getting opportunities like this too.”

And now? He’s looking further.

“My dream is the Olympics. I know it sounds clichéd and delusional, but that’s the goal. I’ve watched friends compete for Britain for years. I used to be on the sidelines helping them, hoping one day I’d get my chance – and now I do.”

• 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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“We didn’t have a wheelbarrow to our names,” say breeders Richard Miller and Meirion Davies of the early days of Heniarth Stud. But 30 years later, they’ve made history, with three “Heniarth” ponies qualified for the prestigious Price Family supreme in-hand championship at Horse of the Year Show (HOYS). These are section A mares Heniarth Yours Faithfully and Heniarth Sh-Boom, and section B Heniarth Derring Do.

So how did they do it? Read on for six tips from the experts…

1. Invest in a strong female line

“I’ll never forget the time my mother said, ‘Some idiot’s just paid £4,500 for a Section A mare,’ unaware that we’d purchased her,” recalls Meirion.

But this was strategic.

“We sold five animals that day and consolidated on one good mare,” clarifies Richard.

2. Take note of a young pony’s pedigree

This pair are self-confessed “pedigree anoraks” but insist this is key to breeding and should also inform decision making when buying future prospects.

“If you know how a youngster is bred, you’ll know what it will do, how it will mature and perform,” says Meirion.

But not too closely… They would encourage anyone looking for a future star or diamond in the rough to consider pedigree and conformation together.

“When I was working with thoroughbred yearlings in Kentucky, that was the frustrating thing; many were million-dollar animals, but people weren’t actually looking at them but seeing them as a commodity for the bloodlines,” says Richard. “It must be a 50/50 thing.”

3. Don’t get caught up in a prefix

While the Heniarth Stud prefix is now world-renowned, they’d caution anyone buying a new pony to take heed of the pedigree, and not be taken in by prefix alone.

“A lot of people trust in a prefix, as they would a designer handbag, because of the brand, but they won’t care what’s behind it even though that’s what will come through; blood will out,” says Richard.

4. The run of luck

“You can breed some fantastic ponies that just don’t get the break,” says Meirion. “We have just been lucky this year it all fell into place.”

He points to the fact that this season’s HOYS-qualified ponies from Heniarth Stud are with top producers, including Simon Charlesworth.

“When somebody with their capabilities has a good animal, it is given the best possible opportunity to shine; it’s put on the right stage at the right time looking great, so it has the laws of probability on its side,” he says. “It has a fighting chance, but it still has to have the run of luck.”

5. Online research

Richard and Meirion encourage aspiring breeders to make the most of online pedigree facilities.

“It is one of the most hugely important tools we have,” says Meirion. “Of course we have the stud books, but they sit on the shelf. Now you can access all the information on your phone!

“If we’d had something like that in the ’70s when we were really young and learning about pedigrees it would have been so much easier.”

6. Full dedication

“Give it all you’ve got,” is Richard’s advice for up-and-coming breeders. “You don’t have to have lots of land or money, but you have to be dedicated. We didn’t even have a wheelbarrow to our names when we started here, but 30 years down the line…”

Ultimately, successful breeding blends knowledge, patience and putting your heart and soul into the game. Lady luck may play her part, but the key to excellence lies in Heniarth Stud’s vision and dedication.

• To read our exclusive interview with Heniarth Stud’s Richard Miller and Meirion Davies in full, pick up a copy of Horse & Hound magazine, in shops from Thursday 25 September

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As we enjoy the Agria European Championships at Blenheim this week (17-21 September), 20 years on from the last championship at the Oxfordshire venue, Zara recalls that week in an exclusive feature for Horse & Hound subscribers

Zara Tindall and Toytown galloping through lashing rain to win the gold is the enduring image of the 2005 Blenheim European Championships, remaining in the minds of many who were spectators on that memorable cross-country day. Here’s this special story of those few days in Zara’s own words…

Zara Tindall tells her 2005 Blenheim Europeans story

Back in 2005, the home nation could take 12 riders to a European Championships. Leslie Law, Pippa Funnell, William Fox-Pitt and Jeanette Brakewell were selected for the team and four of the individuals were named straight after Badminton Horse Trials, then the rest of us were called up later.

Toytown – who we called Noddy or sometimes Ginge – and I had been under-25 champions at Bramham Horse Trials in 2002, then young rider individual silver medallists that year, followed by second at Burghley Horse Trials in 2003. He was injured in 2004 and in 2005 went to Luhmühlen Horse Trials for the first five-star there. We finished second to Bettina Hoy and Ringwood Cockatoo, earning selection initially as individuals.

It was an amazing feeling to get that call-up for a first senior championship, especially on home turf, and I knew Toytown was worthy of being there.

In early August, Pippa Funnell’s selected ride Primmore’s Pride was withdrawn as he wasn’t quite right and I was moved into the team, with Pippa taking an individual spot with Ensign. It’s always sad that someone gets a chance because someone else has to miss out – it was so unfortunate for Pippa.

One of the most exciting parts of being on a squad is always the moment when you get your kit – I think it’s the bit that makes it all feel real. We had team training at Eddy Stibbe’s and with 12 of us there it was particularly fun. I had come through young riders with Kitty Boggis (now King) and Matthew Wright, and we had incredible people to learn from like Pippa and William Fox-Pitt.

There was a lot of support, knowledge and experience at that training session and around the team in general. The older riders reminded us to keep doing what we were doing, as it was clearly working and, as obvious as that sounds, it was important to hear to remind us to stick to the basics. Watching experienced people is important in any sport; I’m sure just being around them was a big positive in our performance.

“Noddy loved a crowd”

Blenheim was my first encounter with the European Championships tradition of a welcome evening where all the teams dress up and do a song – it was hilarious!

The British squad stayed in their lorries and I had two boxes there over the weekend. One was for me and my groom, Catherine Owens – she used to drive me everywhere because I didn’t have my lorry licence at the time – and the other had mates in it. Because it was local, everyone could come and watch.

The crowd all week were incredible. It was so busy and there was a lot of noise. There was a long hack up to the dressage arena and we had to time it perfectly so

as not to overdo or underdo how much work the horses needed.

Yogi Breisner was the British chef d’equipe and Tracie Robinson and Kenneth Clawson were the chief British team trainers for dressage and showjumping. Tracie’s great just before you go into a test as she concentrates on getting the best out of you in the moment.

Noddy was never really chilled, but he loved a crowd. He adored being the centre of attention and thought everyone was there for him. There was always a moment in every test where he liked to tell you he was in control and he was constantly on the edge of doing something he wasn’t meant to be doing – each time, he’d break or anticipate, but then we’d pull it back together.

I remember flashes of the test – just the impression of being in the arena with the house behind – and that he was pretty good. Our only mistake was a blip in the rein-back. He was a great mover, expressive, with natural impulsion, so those marks came easily to him. But he could struggle with balance and then overcompensate.

We scored 38, which put us equal third alongside Frank Ostholt and Air Jordan, with their German team-mates Bettina Hoy and Ringwood Cockatoo out ahead on 31.3 and Pippa second on Ensign.

“I didn’t have much grip on the reins”

I definitely had the naivety of youth back then – I was 24 – and it’s an amazing feeling. You can never recapture it once you’ve lost it. I remember that first-time buzz of not knowing what might go wrong, just going out across country and getting on with it. It was definitely a precious moment.

I was excited for the cross-country. Toytown was so good in that phase and also quick. Although it was my senior team debut and first time at Blenheim, we all love going to these big events and a championship creates so much excitement. I was third out for the team, after Jeanette Brakewell with Over To You and William Fox-Pitt on Tamarillo, with Leslie Law the anchorman on Shear L’Eau.

The rain was insane. We were drenched. I went through three pairs of gloves in the warm-up and once I started, it was so heavy it was impairing my vision, but you just had to ignore that.

I knew Toytown so well and I was confident – he was the horse of a lifetime, the pinnacle of horses, and going out on him, you felt like you could take on anything. He didn’t enjoy the first two minutes – he was shaking his head because of the rain, with his ears flat back, and I was like, “You have to concentrate mate!”

I probably didn’t have much grip on the reins and rode with them longer than normal, but I let him get on with it. He banked the boxy tables at fence four, but I don’t remember any other dodgy moments and we came home inside the time. He even kept all his shoes on, surprisingly.

For a long time afterwards, whenever it rained, people would say, “Zara’s great in the rain,” and I was like, “It was one time…”

“It was special to put that right”

The most pressure of the week was going into the showjumping. I was leading individually, but the Brits had had a good cross-country day, so as a team we had a comfortable lead.

The final phase was always stressful with Noddy. He was so good across country and quick over a fence, but that didn’t help in the showjumping. He did the bare minimum and wasn’t good at taking fences more slowly and making a shape.

When I first had him, he was so weak and we used to have about four down. We’d done a lot of work trying to build his strength. As he became older, he perhaps just wanted to keep everyone on their toes by having fences down. That was his character. I had to try to keep everything smooth during the round, rather than being too careful as that would backfire.

A rail down at Burghley and the young rider Europeans had cost us those wins. It was special to be able to put that right and nail a clear at a long-format championship event, alongside my peers and all those older guys who I looked up to over the years, with so many family and friends there.

Zara Tindall at the Blenheim European Championships: “Mum presented the medals”

You feel so much relief when you win, it takes away from the actual excitement. Now, I look back and think, “That was pretty cool” – at the time, you just fall in a heap and think, “Thank God for that.”

I remember Ginge was really strong on the lap of honour. We had him all bandaged and booted for the prize-giving as he was such a fragile person and we didn’t want him to do anything stupid. We had a big wreath – it felt like racing in America where they put laurels round the horses’ necks.

Mum presented the medals and it was a really nice family story that she had also been European champion, at Burghley in 1971.

My messages were off the charts and the lovely thing about it being close to home was we were back an hour after leaving Blenheim, so the whole team could be involved. When we got there, everyone was in the yard and we went down to my house. I’d been given some big bottles of Laurent Perrier champagne and we drank those, and a lot was drunk out of the cup! It was a great night.

Toytown never competed at Blenheim again, but we led the parade of champions to celebrate the event’s 25-year anniversary in 2015, when he was 22 years old.

I’ll definitely pop up to Blenheim this year to watch. My father will probably make me drive round the cross-country course with him. It’s nice that he’s been able to design a championship there towards the end of his career, with all his experience and knowledge.

As told to Pippa Roome

• To stay up to date with all the breaking news from the Blenheim Europeans, subscribe to the Horse & Hound website

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

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

Postmen in Mary King’s Devon village became accustomed in the 1990s to fielding letters addressed to her legendary eventer: “King William, Devon”.

“I suppose there weren’t any other King Williams,” laughs Mary, 30 years on.

The fan mail had started after Mary and the 17hh gelding had won Gatcombe in 1991 and by the following year, hundreds of letters were arriving at the yard. With his prominent blaze, alert demeanour and increasingly consistent one-day-event record, he was easy to recognise.

“Even my mother, who was unhorsey, could always tell which one William was,” remembers Mary.

Eventer King William: the early days

When Mary was told that an exciting five-year-old was coming up for sale at Bernice Strong’s yard near Newbury, she leapt in her car and drove there immediately, “knowing how hard it is to find good young horses”, she says.

Badminton final scores

“As soon as I saw William, I absolutely fell for him. He came out of the stable with his head held high with his big white blaze; I could tell he was a natural athlete. But when I looked at him more carefully, I could see he had poor lower-limb conformation; he was quite pigeon-toed, slightly tied in below the knee and had curbed hocks.

“I thought he was a lovely horse, but thought, ‘Surely I can’t buy a horse with these sorts of conformational faults?’

“I remember being quite embarrassed phoning the former British team vet Peter Scott-Dunn to come and vet him. But he felt the same as me, that as he was so athletic and light on the ground, it was worth taking the risk.”

But it was in the biblical rain and mud at Badminton in 1992 that his celebrity status was cemented. Arriving in the 10-minute box, 38th to go, Mark Phillips delivered Mary the news that no one had yet gone clear and as she set off, she found herself praying: “Please God, look after William.”

But with Mark’s advice ringing in her ears to kick on and ignore the mud, they rode the first clear of the day. And after painstakingly rubbing nearly every showjump on the final day – but knocking down just one – Mary took the Badminton title for the first time; a childhood dream realised at the age of 30.

“Winning Badminton is in a league of its own; it’s like a jockey winning the Grand National – virtually everyone in the world has heard of this occasion, and it’s your big, famous moment,” wrote Mary in her 2009 autobiography.

As adoring crowds and press descended on the pair – “there wasn’t such health and safety then, there were people clambering over him wanting to touch him”, says Mary – they tried to make a quick exit.

“We drove out of Badminton thinking he’ll calm himself down, but as we were coming back down the M5, he was absolutely turning himself inside out,” remembers Mary’s former groom Annie Corbin.

Mary, following in a car behind with David King, whom she would later marry, spotted the lorry pulled over in the pouring rain in a service station and persuaded David to reverse up the slip road to be with them. The rest of the journey was spent with Annie in the back of the lorry scratching his neck until they arrived safely home – it was a reminder that for all his courage and flair across country, William was a sensitive soul.

Showjumping demons – and a split skirt

The heroic victory secured the pair a place on the team for the Barcelona Olympics that summer, a chance to rewrite their debut team performance at the European Championships in Punchestown the year before, where Mary had felt the “hollow victory” of winning a team gold when the pair had retired before the showjumping following a fall in the water.

But in Barcelona, a promising start for the British team began unravelling with Richard Walker falling, Ian Stark’s Murphy Himself igniting an old injury and William having a “humiliating” six fences down in the final phase, dropping Mary to ninth place and the team to sixth.

The press pounced on the team’s failure to secure a medal, with H&H’s former editor Michael Clayton slating the team as being “hypnotised by their own cleverness” having led after dressage, and Mary coming under fire for patting William as he left the arena even though he’d flattened the fences.

It was becoming clear that showjumping on the biggest stages, when crowds peered down from tiered seating and photographers loomed, was thwarting William’s potential medal haul. Even William’s owner Gill Robinson admits to having had to close her eyes on occasion when he was in the final phase (although she “didn’t mind if he had three down or six down, as long as he was OK”, she says. “He was just such a lovely horse.”).

Mary found herself bombarded with advice – including from a woman who offered to cast a spell on him – but eventually it was Lars Sederholm who was able to tweak Mary’s position, encouraging her to keep her weight back and instilling confidence in William.

By the time the World Equestrian Games came around in 1994, the narrative had changed for British eventing. An exposing moment in the trot-up when Mary’s team uniform of a narrow brown linen skirt split up to her hip, as she tried to keep up with William’s elaborate trot, fortunately didn’t set the tone for the championships; the all-female team of Mary, Karen Dixon, Tina Cook and Charlotte Bathe were hailed as heroines as they returned with a gold medal from the Hague.

A special trust – and an individual medal

Having married David in 1995 (with William in attendance at the reception), Mary was five-and-a-half months pregnant with her daughter Emily by the time of the European Championships in Italy that October, and she was stealthily letting out the buttons on her team jacket. Only her mother, groom Annie and the team doctor Michael Dooley were in on the secret, but it was William’s track record across country that convinced her she was making the right decision.

“He was so brave, bold and smooth across country,” she says. “If I’d been on any other slightly more difficult horse, I know my brain would have told me not to do it.”

It was here that she won her first individual medal, a bronze, as well as the team gold after another unnerving showjumping round where William knocked two of the three fences he had in hand.

While the press speculated that motherhood would mark the winding down of Mary’s career, she was looking ahead to the Atlanta Olympics, with Emily’s January arrival expertly planned to allow Mary to be in the running for selection. Riding as an individual, there was an element of relief that the team wouldn’t be relying on William’s showjumping.

But after a dressage test that reduced Annie to tears of pride and the late Dr Reiner Klimke to remark: “That was real dressage,” William and Mary had an uncharacteristic stop on the cross-country and an uncomfortable showjumping round hitting eight fences, meaning they finished in 12th place.

William arrived home full of energy nonetheless and winning the British Open Championships at Gatcombe that year was a consolation for the Atlanta disappointment. And it wasn’t until three years later, when Mary felt his gallop change halfway round the course at Blenheim in the autumn of 1999 that she made the decision to retire him, aged 16.

“He was still happy to jump, but I pulled him up. It was a tell-tale sign that he’d done enough,” says Mary, with William going to Annie in retirement.

Looking back, it was the “boundless energy” that Mary remembers so fondly about William, who was put down aged 19 in 2002 after suffering a pastern injury.

“He was an incredibly sound, tough and powerful horse,” she says. “He’d gallop around Badminton long-format and you honestly felt like he could just do it again, he had such natural energy and stamina.”

While adrenaline might have raced through his blood in the electric atmosphere at championships, at home he was the ultimate gentleman.

“I have a photograph of Emily when she was about 18 months old sitting there with him lying down in the stable,” remembers his owner, Gill Robinson. “Emily was touching his face and he was just looking after her. I’ve never seen a horse do that, but we all trusted William. He was just such a kind horse.”

Eventer King William’s crowning moments

17hh bay gelding by Nickel King (dam unknown), born 1983

• 1991: team gold at the European Championships, Punchestown
• 1992: won Badminton and individual 9th and team 6th at the Barcelona Olympic Games
• 1994: team gold and individual fourth at the World Equestrian Games in the Hague
• 1995: team gold and individual bronze at the European Championships, Pratoni del Vivaro
• 1996: individual 12th at the Atlanta Olympic Games

The groom’s perspective: “He had Badminton written all over him”

“When the lorry rocked up on the day that he arrived and they opened up the back, there was this horse that looked like a giraffe coming out the back,” remembers Mary’s former groom, Annie Corbin. “My first thought was, ‘How am I going to get a saddle on that?’ because he was so big and tall. But from the word go, he was the handsome one on the yard.

“As a baby, he had to be the first out and about, he didn’t like hanging around. And he always wanted to know where his neighbour was; we had to be a bit careful not to leave him on his own too much and to make sure he had a friend that he could see.

“From a groom’s point of view, he was quite high maintenance because you had to be conscious of that. I was always working out when the neighbours were taking their horses out because then I’d take him grazing. I used to take a book with me to events and I would go off grazing for hours with William.

“When he proved himself and won Badminton in that awful mud, I was so proud of him. They hadn’t had any clears and as he was about to go out on the course, I wanted to say, ‘Don’t go’, but I knew I couldn’t say that. He always had Badminton written all over him. He just flew across country; it was his thing. He loved working.

“And he made me think outside the box as a groom – about the noise, who was beside him, if there was going to be a parade. I had to be ready. But he gave a lot back. He was always very grateful and he definitely knew my voice. He was very true to me.”

The team-mate’s view: “I was in awe”

“At that stage in my career, in my twenties, I was very much in awe of Mary and King William,” remembers Tina Cook, who rode on a team with the pair at the 1994 World Equestrian Games and 1995 European Championships.

“He was a big, rangy horse who was quite imposing to look at. He was workmanlike, but sensitive and kind.

“I remember thinking what an amazing partnership they had – how Mary had so much belief in her horses and they had in her. I looked up to her and thought she made it all look so easy, even though the showjumping was obviously William’s weakest phase.

“But I was very young – it was a whirlwind going straight from young riders into seniors – and in that situation I was just overwhelmed and in awe to be there with them.”

• 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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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

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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It’s not an exaggeration to say that Uthopia was the launchpad to Britain realising – after a lengthy medal drought – that team gold was within reach. Uthopia and Carl Hester stepped up to top level in 2010 and, just a year later, won the grand prix at the European Championships with 82.5%.

Until then, British gold was a pipe dream. Such has been Britain’s subsequent success that it’s hard to remember just how unlikely it seemed for so long. And that’s thanks, in large part, to a small black stallion who bounced like a pogo stick – and continues to thrive in retirement at Carl’s at the age of 24.

“Uti” was bred in the Netherlands and bought as a rough-and-ready three-year-old with a chewed tail by Dutch young horse producer Ivonne Lawrence, who had gone to view another horse.

“There was this little miniature horse looking at me with his beautiful face,” says Ivonne. “Uthopia was very small and had only been under saddle five times, but I sat on him and in my whole life I’ve never felt a horse like it. He had so much suspension it was like a trampoline, and cantering him felt like shooting off to the moon.”

Based on that exceptional feeling, Ivonne put concerns over his size aside. Uti was easy to train; if he learnt something once, he never forgot it. The pair finished seventh in the Pavo Cup final for four-year-olds and, although she was reluctant to sell the little guy, she forced her business head to overrule her heart and put him on the market. Step forward Carl Hester, shopping for a client.

How Uthopia landed with Carl Hester

Back at the Athens Olympics in 2004, Sasha Stewart was eventing for Ireland.

“I met Carl and told him I wanted to be a dressage rider when I grew up,” she says.

So, on a shopping trip to Holland, he was looking for a horse for each of them.

“Uthopia was the first horse I saw when I got off the plane in Amsterdam,” says Carl. “I had one quick sit on him and although he was very small, riding him was like jumping on a trampoline. He was so bouncy, energetic and sweet. I thought he’d be perfect for Sasha.

“I rang her and said, ‘As it’s the first one I’ve seen, you can have him and I’ll find something bigger for me.’ I never did.”

Sasha adds: “When I tried Uthopia I said, ‘He’s amazing, I love him, I’m taking him home.’”

A deal was struck and Uti went to Ireland.

“He threw me off the first day,” she admits. “He did this extravagant pirouette and I just plopped off like a total beginner, which was a surprise. Uti then galloped around my property and jumped a huge hedge with all his tack on. I thought, ‘Oh good, he jumps as well.’”

Soon after, Sasha became pregnant, so Uti went to Carl’s yard in Gloucestershire and hit the competition scene under Matt Frost. The pair won 10 of their first 11 starts, logging an 80% at novice level and standing regional champions at elementary. Carl rode him in young horse classes.

“He was just gorgeous and won everything,” says Carl. “His walk wasn’t the best, but he’d get nines and 10s to make up for it. He was incredibly easy to train.”

Carl’s long-time groom Alan Davies also fell for the compact stallion.

“He’s got the most divine character and he’s not stalliony at all,” says Alan. “I adore him and I often got into trouble for spending too much time with him.”

Carl and Uthopia’s one year at small tour, in 2009, raked in the prix st georges, the inter I and the inter I freestyle titles at the national championships. The following spring, Carl was heading to the Spanish Sunshine Tour and put Uti – then nine – on the lorry “for fun”. That trip resulted in four plus-71% wins from four starts at grand prix.

Uthopia and Carl Hester: “Like riding a computer, I just steered”

In 2011, at the picturesque venue of Fritzens in Austria, Uthopia found a new gear and aced the grand prix special, cracking 80% at the level for the first time. Valegro was just behind on 76% at his third FEI show.

“At Fritzens I got my first-ever 10,” recalls Carl. “Suddenly everyone was saying, ‘Wow, what a gorgeous horse.’ I was so used to riding him, I hadn’t really noticed.”

And given Valegro’s astronomic rise, it’s easy to see how Uthopia’s brilliance was shrouded as Carl poured everything into his protégée Charlotte Dujardin and her budding star. A month later, selection for the upcoming Europeans was hotting up and Carl headed to Hickstead with Uti.

“The breakthrough show was Hickstead in 2011,” says Carl, who once again topped 80% to win the grand prix. “There I met my first big gun in Parzival and beat him. Suddenly everyone realised we could actually win the Euros; it all happened so fast.”

Everything changed at the Rotterdam Europeans. With Uthopia on the team, flanked by Valegro and Mistral Hojris (Laura Tomlinson), in the blink of an eye, anything was possible.

“In the grand prix I knew I had to do something special for us to win gold. I floated around the arena and forgot how green Uti was. I just steered him; it was like riding a little computer.”

In the final extended trot, the crowd gasped as they saw seven 10s flash up.

“I heard that and thought something bad had happened,” he recalls. “At the final halt, they erupted and I was a bit bemused. Then the score [82.56%] went up; I’d won the grand prix at the Euros and we’d won gold. It was a defining moment.”

The pair went on to claim double individual silver – Carl’s first-ever individual medals – pipped twice by Adelinde Cornelissen and Parzival.

“After the gold, we had a great party. I never expected to win the kür as that’s not my favourite, but I missed my changes in the special,” rues Carl. “I moved my legs too fast and that was my gold gone. Honestly, though, I thought an individual medal would never happen for me; I felt so much love for Uti at that show.”

Alan says, half joking: “Uti was the saving grace of British dressage when he won that grand prix. He should’ve won an individual gold, but I think Carl was a bit hungover.”

Uthopia and Carl Hester win Olympic gold on home turf

After the Europeans, offers to buy Uthopia ahead of the 2012 Olympics flooded in. A big-money sale was agreed, but Uti got sore feet. This meant the buyers couldn’t complete the purchase ahead of the FEI’s January transfer of ownership deadline, so Uthopia couldn’t be ridden by anyone of a different nationality at the Games. The sale evaporated and Sasha told Carl to keep Uti for the Olympics.

What a happy accident that proved to be. In front of a capacity home crowd, the same dream team of Carl, Charlotte and Laura did what many had deemed impossible just 18 months earlier: they won Olympic team gold. It was epic.

“Uthopia pulled it out of the bag and we finished third in the special,” recalls Carl. “By the freestyle, I was in a right state because Charlotte was on her own in the warm-up at her first Olympics and I just wanted to get it out the way and run back to help her on Valegro.”

In the months that followed, Carl had a surfeit of upcoming grand prix horses – Nip Tuck, Dances With Wolves and Fine Time – so he handed over the reins.

“Carl said Charlotte should ride Uti for the experience,” says Alan. “They ride and train together every day, but they ride completely differently and expect different things. Charlotte learnt an awful lot from Uti as he was completely different to Valegro.”

Uti and Charlotte were first or second in all six of the tests they contested. Carl’s other horses weren’t yet team-ready, so there was pressure for Carl to get back on for the 2013 Europeans in Herning.

“Charlotte had ridden Uti all season and Carl only rode him at one show; Hickstead, just a couple of weeks before Herning,” adds Alan. “For a dressage horse to do that in one season – especially a stallion – proves his amazing temperament. You couldn’t ask many horses to do that.”

Carl and Uthopia’s chunky scores in Herning, coupled with Valegro’s brilliance and solid performances from Michael Eilberg meant the British team added another medal – bronze – to their burgeoning haul.

A nightmare scenario before a fairytale ending

However, trouble was brewing. Sasha’s family suffered financial troubles and Uthopia became a ward of the court, which limited what he could do. The case dragged on for years, and Carl wasn’t always sure exactly where he stood.

“With the court case in full swing, they said I shouldn’t compete the horse, and that I shouldn’t have even ridden him in Herning. That’s why Charlotte started riding him again,” explains Carl. “I presumed – wrongly – that by then I was a part owner, but as I’d never technically purchased him, there was nothing I could do to stop the process.”

Uthopia was sold at public auction in May 2016. Nobody came to see him ahead of the sale and, with the help of some supporters, Carl drummed up what he hoped was enough money to bid on him remotely and secure his future. But, as the bidding ticked up, it wasn’t enough. The then 15-year-old stallion was bought by an anonymous man in the room for £165,000. Carl was devastated. The horse had remained at his yard, and Carl was simply told to await instructions. Days passed.

“It turned out the buyer had seen the video of Uti winning gold in London and bought him on the strength of that,” says Carl. “But when he approached some riders about taking him on, nobody was interested. He realised he’d made a big mistake.”

A friend of a friend of Carl’s – who wishes to remain anonymous to this day – stepped in.

“This angel appeared and negotiated to buy Uti back on the condition that I’d look after him for the rest of his life,” continues Carl. “I’m eternally grateful that she did that. I couldn’t believe that someone who’d never met me would be so kind and generous and give Uti the retirement he deserves. It was a fairytale ending after what he’d done for British dressage.”

While the court case was in progress, Charlotte successfully campaigned Uti at a couple of shows a year, until his swansong at Amsterdam in January of 2016.

These days, Uti goes in the field every morning alongside his bestie Valegro. The pair are “both foodies and eat every blade of grass they can get their mitts on”. Alan – who has since retired as their groom – remembers what a joy he was to ride.

“Uti was amazing to hack,” enthuses Alan. “He was bouncy and bold and never frightened me. If he was excited, he’d do a little piaffe or passage, but I knew him so well that I just patted him and ignored it. He could scare some of the younger girls, though.

“I’ve travelled hundreds of thousands of miles with Valegro – we have a huge bond – but I had to share him with Charlotte and the rest of the world. Uti was mine and mine only. He’s still my hero.”

Uti’s competitive days are behind him, but the hallmark he left on British dressage is indelible.

Did you know?

• Uti is 16.1hh (164cm).
• His best score was 84.17% for individual freestyle silver at the 2011 Europeans
• Fun fact: Carl had his tailcoat made shorter to help make Uti seem taller

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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

“I’ve done an awful lot in my lifetime,” says Jeff Osborne. “And everything I’ve been involved in, is fast.”

The founder of Osborne Refrigerators, a name known throughout the equestrian world, has done it all, within horse sport as well as outside it. But as he enters his 90th year, it’s the scurry driving that continues to inspire him to compete – and succeed – week after week.

“It’s you and the ponies,” he says. “Nobody else’s views on it matter at all; if you make a mistake, you made a mistake. It’s all about the rapport between you and your ponies, and when I started, that was – and still is – the adrenaline.”

Jeff founded Osborne Refrigerators 65 years ago, and it’s going strong, as one of only a few companies still manufacturing fridges in the country. But as well as working hard, he’s played hard along the way too; his interests as well as – or before – horses include skiing all over the world, motorbike racing and flying in an air display team.

“I took my pilot’s licence a long time ago,” he says. “We had a display team called the Red Sparrows – the aeroplanes weren’t red, they were white, actually, but the name seemed appropriate. I once flew the Red Arrows commentator back and it was the first time he’d ever got home before his team.”

Then there was the motorbike racing, which came about as the sport used to be on the television on a Saturday afternoon and “I wanted to qualify and get on the television”.

And did he? “Oh yes,” he says. But then his children got him into horses instead.

“I started when I was 35, because they said, ‘You make Mummy go skiing and Mummy doesn’t like skiing; she likes riding and we like riding, why don’t you ride?’ So I did,” he explains.

“I got placed second, in my first year, in the hunters at the Royal International, and got hooked,” he adds. “I sold my aeroplanes and spent my time riding and showing hunters.”

Jeff showjumped as well as the showing; his ambition was always to jump in the International Arena at Hickstead.

“After I did that, I realised it was too much time and effort,” he says. “You really have to be semi-professional to do it, so I took up showing. I think I won most of what you can win showing, then was introduced to scurry driving.”

This was more than 40 years ago, and he hasn’t stopped yet.

“Because I’ve always been involved in things that are fast; cars, bikes, aeroplanes and boats, I just thoroughly enjoy it,” he says. “I carry on doing it. I can’t beat my wife – I’ve taught her too well, I think! – but I’ve always said how nice it would be to come down the centre line at Horse of the Year Show (HOYS) when I’m 90 and drop dead halfway down.

“That would be nice, wouldn’t it – what a lovely way to go.”

“More mishaps with ponies than motorbikes,” says Jeff Osborne

Jeff has had his share of injuries during his time racing between the cones, but it has never put him off.

“Someone asked me once, ‘Is it dangerous?’ he says. “My reply was: ‘Since I started driving, I’ve seen the inside of more A&E departments than ever before’. In my motorcycling days, I ended up in hospital once, when someone ran me over, but I’ve had more mishaps with the ponies, it’s unbelievable.”

Jeff and his wife Alison, who is also a speed demon at shows across the circuit, have eight ponies competing in any season, and seven or eight in reserve. They never race them at home; that’s just for shows so they stay fresh and enjoy it.

At home, there are a couple of miles of woodland paths to ride or be led round, the ponies are schooled, then there will be a fast spin at home before a competition. Jeff is there every day – “Although I haven’t mucked out for 50 years,” he reveals. “You don’t have a dog and bark yourself, do you?” – and the ponies prick their ears when he arrives.

“The thing about scurry ponies, they either like it or hate it,” he says. “You might look at 10 pairs to find one that’s suitable. They have to like each other, and like you and want to do the job. And those who do want to do the job, really do want to do it.

“I took a 30- or 31-year-old to HOYS a few years ago; one went lame at the last minute so I took him out of the field and he got placed. They love it; if I get the vehicles out, to go to a show, they’re jumping up and down, thinking, ‘The silly sod’s forgotten us!’ You get nowhere if you don’t have a decent rapport with your ponies.”

Alison’s Woody and Buzz, with whom she has won at HOYS, will not go as well for him, Jeff gives as an example.

“You either gel with them or you don’t,” he says. “We don’t breed ponies; I found from my days of trying to breed showjumpers, you’re always a step behind what’s wanted. It’s too long a process; you’ve got to go out and find the right ones.

“We spot ponies in the Prince Phillip Cup; we’ve been known to approach people at HOYS to say, ‘When your child outgrows him, let us know’; we’ve found several like that.”

HOYS is a key Osborne Refrigerators event; the company sponsors the championship there, as it has so many equestrian events.

“We only started sponsoring because in those days, the breweries were big into heavy horses, it was a good advert to have the ponies close to those horses, and it’s carried on ever since,” he says.

“And you’ve got to put something back, haven’t you? You can’t just take, you have to put back into the sport.”

The sport is still a huge crowd-puller – anyone who’s been to HOYS or Hickstead will have been caught up in the fast and furious action.

“I try to get the result that the last to go is going to be the winner, so we keep the suspense right to the very end,” he adds. “It is outright competition – with a bit of theatrics thrown in. Someone said the other day, ‘I can tell when you’re on, because of the noise’!”

And although Jeff and Alison are both out contesting the classes at every show, it’s not competitive between them.

“We’re a team,” he says. “She’s won every small class this year, and most of the large ones too. But she has in the past few years won every class at HOYS too.”

“I won’t retire unless I look a fool”

Jeff Osborne is speaking midway through the season; it starts about April and runs until HOYS, after which it’s time for a break for the ponies, and some travel for Jeff and Alison – “you can’t run your life just round ponies,” he adds – but for that “silly season”, they might be at three shows “almost on the trot”.

It’s full-on, but Jeff wouldn’t want to do anything else. He had a pacemaker fitted four years ago and was told to have 10 weeks off, although he “negotiated it down to six”.

“I go in once a year and they give it a tweak,” he says. “It’s still going!

“I wouldn’t want to keep going if I was down the line; Hickstead was a bad show for me; I bumped my head on the way in and wasn’t on my best form, but all the time I can get into championships and not look a fool, I’ll carry on. I won’t carry on till I’m last every time.

“How long that’s going to be, I can’t tell you. I won’t retire unless I absolutely have to; if I start looking a fool, I’ll stop; if not, I’ll carry on.”

Jeff says his legs aren’t up to course-walking any more; he does that in a buggy, and it “does the job”,” he says.

“I have a constant battle every year to keep my HGV licence; they don’t think I should but I don’t agree,” he adds. “If they say my eyesight isn’t good enough, I’ll suggest they have a ride on the back of the scurry cart and then they can decide!”

And if he were to retire, his huge fan club would be devastated, although he sometimes thinks people don’t want to interrupt or approach him.

“It’s a bit of a laugh because I get more cheers for coming third than my wife does for winning!” he says, “I think people want to see us oldies are not finished yet.”

And looking back on his decades of driving, Jeff is clear what it has done for him.

“It’s kept me active, it’s kept me alive,” he says. “When you’ve got to get through a dozen cones within 40-50 seconds, you’ve got to be on the ball, and pay attention.

“We walk the course at HOYS on Tuesday and won’t walk it again and you have to remember every inch of it. There’s no time for thought, you have to know exactly where you are, and it keeps your mind active.

“I love it just as much as I ever did, and I hope to keep on going. I won’t say 100 – but my grandfather was still riding a bike at 96, so you never know. I’m still in with a chance.”

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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

Matt Sampson’s showjumping career is on an upwards trajectory. He has three top horses who have all had success at five-star level, and a string of up and coming rides, but there are still dreams to be realised.

Matt is gearing up for a busy summer, going back to his favourite stomping ground Spruce Meadows, while he also has his eyes on more Nations Cup team appearances.

“Dublin last year was a great experience, and we were third,” says Matt.

“There’s no better feeling than when you put the team jacket on. Somehow you just get a spring in your step, it’s a different feeling and everything changes. It’s like, ‘Right here we go, we’re doing this together.’ It’s an amazing feeling.”

Matt will also be scheduling in some time to support his home shows.

“I love the British shows; Hickstead, Windsor and London. Unfortunately Bolesworth is on when I’m in Calgary, but I love it there too,” he says.

“There’s other shows that shouldn’t be forgotten like Chepstow and Chard, it’s not super easy to get international riders to come from overseas for these internationals, but they’re doing a great job.

“There’s nothing better than riding at those shows at home, it’s the vibe and the people and the crowds and everything. I always try to come back and do those shows, no matter where I am because I think it’s super important to support them.”

“Showjumping is up and down; focus on the positives”

Matt’s upbeat personality is infectious and it’s easy to see how much he enjoys what he’s doing. But has this positive mindset always come naturally – and how does he deal with pressure?

“With showjumping it’s always a bit up and down; horses get injured or you have a few bad shows in a row, but I try to focus on the positive parts. I think it’s something that everyone has to work on a little bit with showjumping,” he explains.

“But I’ve always had the mentality that I’m a horseman before I’m a showjumper. And as long as the horses are good and healthy and everybody else is good and healthy, then it’s not the end of the world when the result doesn’t come.

“A lot of it is down to confidence, and I think it’s important for every rider to know that even riders doing five-star shows every week go through stages where you lose a bit of confidence, be it in your riding or plan – it’s human.”

But Matt admits he does enjoy the pressure and the thrill of riding in those big grand prix classes.

“It’s those butterflies when you’re at a big competition and it’s something you’ve been thinking about for a long time, then when you have the chance to actually do it, that’s when the adrenaline gets up. It’s a strange feeling, but I like it,” he laughs.

Matt Sampson’s showjumping hero

When it comes to success, Matt puts it down to the team around him and his parents Ruth and Sam.

“People ask me who taught me the most about horses and it was my parents. It’s all the small things that they told me that makes the biggest impact,” he says, adding that when it comes to horsey idols, there could only be one: John Whitaker.

“Without a doubt John is my hero, the way he manages his horses and rides them, and how they perform for him,” Matt says. “He can get out of a horse what nobody else can and I look up to not only as a rider, but as a person.

“He’s always there for advice, and normally his advice is so simple that you think it’s just not even advice, but it works.”

Looking beyond 2025, Matt still has dreams he wants to fulfil.

“I’ve not done a senior championship yet. I think the Olympics is the main goal for all of us who initially start competing seriously,” he says.

“It’s something that you dream about, especially as a kid. To do a senior championship and an Olympics are the two things that I really want to do.”

There’s also the small matter of a wedding to plan. Matt got down on one knee and proposed to Kara Chad, a Canadian showjumper, while the pair were on holiday in Canada in January.

“She said it was about time,” he laughs.

“I proposed in Whistler, which is a place Kara has been going skiing every year since she was a little kid and it’s her favourite place. It was really nice, and she said yes, so that was even better.

“We’re hoping to get married sometime next year, we’ve just got to try and fit it around shows!”

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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

While trying to produce consistent results is naturally a big part of being an international rider, much goes on behind the scenes from a business perspective. Showjumper Matt Sampson and his fiancée Kara Chad, a successful Canadian rider who represented her country at the 2018 World Equestrian Games, run Maple Park Farms together.

“There’s quite a lot going on, but I love having the business. We have three people training with us, we have our competition horses, we’re breeding and we’re also selling,” explains Matt.

“We’re not a dealing stable by any means, but I like to produce a horse and find the right person for them. I get a real buzz out of seeing them go on to do good things together.”

And following in the footsteps of other power equestrian couples, Matt and Kara are proving to be a good team.

“We’re both striving to do the same thing, so I think it can only help to have two minds rather than one,” says Matt.

“We’re very lucky that it works, and we work well together with the horses. There’s times where I’ll have a horse and I’ll say it’s the perfect fit for Kara, and other times Kara will have a horse that’s a better fit for me, we’re not afraid to say that.”

“Good hacking and fields are our priority”

The life of a showjumper often means much time on the road, and Matt and Kara are no different, splitting time between Spain, Calgary and England.

“We’ve been based all over, but it’s worked and where we’ve been has always had good hacking and good fields – and that’s always a priority, more so than anything else,” says Matt.

“We strongly believe in keeping the horses in a place where they’re happy, and I think that shows in the ring. If they’re not happy, you can’t expect them to perform. I always say when they go in the ring they’ve got to feel like they’re the King and can conquer anything.”

The pair are now looking for a permanent base, although where home might become is still up in the air.

“It’s a hard decision and it’s about finding the right place for the business where it works, so we can do everything we still want to do,” says Matt.

Matt is a busy man, but running the business is a side that has come naturally to him.

“I’ve always had to do it to pay for my showjumping, and I’ve always bought and sold my own horses to try to then get better horses,” he explains.

“The end goal was to jump at five-star shows, so I’m used to doing the business side of things to help pay for that – it’s in my blood.”

How showjumper Matt Sampson broke through the ranks

Gaining entry to those coveted five-star shows is no mean feat and often discussed in the showjumping world, with limited entries available and a strict invitation system in place – not to mention costly entry fees.

While Matt is gaining entry to more five-star shows, admittedly it hasn’t been easy – but a trip to Spruce Meadows in 2021 became the turning point.

“It’s very difficult, especially when you’re sort of up and coming. I struggled for a couple of years; I’d have a horse going really well but then I couldn’t get into the top-level show to prove that the horse was what I thought he was, a five-star horse, so it was difficult in that sense,” he says.

“That’s why four years ago I decided to go to Spruce Meadows for the summer. I had a couple of good horses and I just felt that they were wasted at the shows that I could get into. It cost a lot of money to go to Calgary, but I could do the classes, so I went there a bit all in – I spent all my money to go, and then once I was there I had to win the money back to go home.

“But I got some ranking points, and it went really well and it opened a few doors when I got back. Luckily, it paid off in a really good way – it was a great thing, but it was risky!”

Matt went on to build up quite the affinity with the great Canadian venue. After success in 2021, he returned the following summer and racked up a phenomenal 17 wins, taking home $430,000 in prize-money, as well as being named Spruce Meadows’ Xeros rider of the year.

“I love it there, it’s a wonderful place. I grew up watching it on TV all the time and I just wanted to compete there,” says Matt.

“The first time I ever went there was when I went to visit Kara the first year we met, and seeing it in real life just made me determined to go there with horses. And the following year I did.

“It suits my style of riding, with the big arenas. I grew up hunting and doing a lot of cross-country, and I like that open space.”

“London is one of the best shows in the world”

Another show at which Matt is known to shine is London International. Every year he’s welcomed home with open arms by the crowd.

In 2022 he landed the grand prix with superstar Ebolensky, in 2023 he was named the show’s leading rider, and in 2024 he enjoyed another five-star win with Daniel – plus he made young rider Lilly McBride’s dreams come true when they stormed to victory in the mini major.

“London is 100% one of the best shows in the world,” says Matt.

“The crowd is incredible, and my horses seem to really like it there. I think everything about it is just wonderful, it’s so close to Christmas, and my family comes to watch, it’s great, I just love it.”

It’s no wonder the crowds get behind Matt – he’s personable, isn’t afraid to show a fun side, and he has a lot of time for young riders.

“I remember being that young rider going to Olympia with my Mum and Dad to watch. You can have that feeling that it’s impossible to ride there, but I remember my mum saying ‘Right, we’ve got to keep training!’ And we did,” he says.

“Stay motivated for the horses, not the results”

What is Matt’s advice for those wanting to follow in his footsteps?

“To young riders I would just say ‘work hard’. When I was young I always tried to take any opportunity, if somebody asked me to ride a horse, I didn’t even ask what he was, I was just like ‘Yep, when? I’ll do it now’. That was how I’ve always been, and I think that’s why I’ve ridden quite a lot of catch-ride horses.

“We didn’t have the means to be able to buy top horses so I worked for training when I was 16 to 18, and I was always thinking about getting better. I tried to keep that mindset that even when it’s not going great just to keep trying, and make the most of what horses you have at the time. Don’t over face a horse because you personally want to do a bigger class.

“It can be super difficult to get owners when you’re starting out, but as long as you stay motivated for the horses, rather than the results, things will pan out.”

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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

When H&H caught up with British showjumper Matt Sampson he was taking some brief time out from his horses, hiking in Patagonia with his fiancée Kara Chad. He’d spent March on the Sunshine Tour in Vejer de La Frontera, Spain.

In recent years 34-year-old Matt has been plugging away, building an exciting string of top horses and promising rising stars, growing his and Kara’s business Maple Park Farms, and recording consistent results at the top level.

2024 was another solid year for Matt with 33 international wins – 10 of those at five-star level – plus a Nations Cup team appearance at Dublin Horse Show, where the Brits finished third.

“I think we had a great year and the horses were really good,” says Matt.

“I spent quite a bit of time building some young horses up, and we had some nice results. It’s a great feeling when you’ve been slowly producing a horse over a couple of years, and they show the belief you’ve had in them – it’s nearly the same feeling as winning a class.

“I had a great show at Windsor, and I also had some great times with Daniel. He won a five-star grand prix in Spruce Meadows, that was probably the highlight for me last year.”

Meet Matt Sampson’s top horses

Daniel is one of Matt’s three top horses, and it was a happy coincidence that brought them together.

“I’m really good friends with the Davenport family and Angelie Von Essen who own him, and it happened a bit by chance,” says Matt.

“I was going to a show in 2023, but I didn’t have a horse to jump in the bigger classes. They said he was fit and ready to go and asked if I’d like to take him. I did, and we just clicked really well.

“I rode him at a couple more shows that year, then last year I rode him more often and he was fantastic. He was double clear in the Windsor grand prix, then at Spruce Meadows I jumped in three grands prix and he was first, second and fourth. He did the whole summer series without a fence down.

“He’s just an amazing horse; he’s super easy and he’s been produced by those guys to perfection. We were third at the Nations Cup, he won at London International and he’s just been just fantastic.”

Matt’s other top-tier stars are 15-year-old Fabrice Dn (owned by Luis Alejandro Plascencia) and 16-year-old mare Ebolenksy (owned by Rachael Evison and Matt).

“Fabrice is the horse that I won my first five-star grand prix with. He’s very special,” says Matt. “He’s quite sensitive and sharp, he’s got a lot of blood and he’s a horse that spends a lot of time in the field. Every winter I’ll put him out with a friend for two or three months.

“He doesn’t do too many shows throughout the year and I try to pick the right ones for him which he’ll enjoy, which are mostly grass arenas. He’s just getting fit now and the plan is he’ll go back to Spruce Meadows again this summer.”

Ebolenksy (Lenny) is Matt’s longest partner. He took on the ride when the mare was eight.

“She’s been amazing all the way through her career,” says Matt. “She’s won so many classes, and given us so many good memories, she just always tries her best.”

“She’s similar to Fabrice in that she’s quite a sensitive, sharp horse, but she’s got a heart like a lion. When she’s in the ring she does everything she can to win or be clear.”

Ebolensky offspring

Matt has some promising up-and-coming horses including Ebolensky’s two five-year-old daughters Extralensky and Specialensky, both by stallion I’m Special De Muze.

“We’d always planned to breed from Lenny when she retires, but she had a period of time off so we decided to do it then by embryo transfer. She’s extremely well bred, so it made sense with her being such a good horse,” says Matt.

“They are just starting out in their careers. Specialensky had a foal so she was started a bit later, but Extralensky was double clear in the four-year-old championships last year. They’ve both had the winter off and are coming out again now.

“I’ve got a couple of others that I’m excited about, one is Pretty Pi’Que De’Luxe, who is a nine-year-old and she just did her first 1.50m recently.

“I also have Clayton Z, who is eight. I bought him as a five-year-old from Derek Morton. Every month he’s getting stronger and I have really big hopes that he’ll reach the top level.”

Matt Sampson’s search for a star

When it comes to picking the next star, Matt says he’s looking for a lot of character.

“For me it’s the jump and character. When I’ve bought young horses I’ve always thought if I like the feeling of the jump, then I can work on everything else,” he explains.

“That’s part of producing a good jumper. The training programme is to help them develop all the other skills that enable them to put it all together in the ring.”

Riders often talk about having a system, and while Matt says he has a base program, generally how he produces horses is very individual to each one.

“When they’re young we don’t jump them too much, and up until they’re six or seven they’ll spend more time out of the arena than in it,” he says.

“Maybe one horse won’t be ready to do the seven-year-old classes, so I do what they feel ready for,” he says. “And when I feel that they’re super comfortable with one height, we’ll move up to the next, and if they do that well we’ll maybe drop back down again for a bit.

“I really think about producing the horses on an individual plan to put them in the right place so that when they’re eight/nine they’re ready to go and do their job.

“When it comes to planning the year, I’ll play it a little bit by ear based on how the young horses are feeling.

“But with the older horses we’ll think about the bigger shows that will suit that horse, and we’ll make a good program leading up to those to give them the best chance of performing at the time, in a venue they feel at their best in.”

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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

Showjumper Mark Edwards is a regular sight in the top shows both home and abroad, but what is perhaps even more remarkable is the number of home-breds he rides. The breeding side of his business has been paying dividends in terms of horsepower. The likes of Mark’s national championship-winning ride Montreuxs Tale, Tinkers Tale and Flying Tinker II are all proof of this.

“We’ve been very lucky with the horses we have bred over the years; breeding is a tremendous amount of luck,” says Mark, who works alongside his father Martyn. “You can have the best mare and best stallion in the world and for whatever reason, more often than not you don’t get the result you were hoping for. But when you get a good one there is nothing more rewarding and exciting.

“It’s not going to happen overnight; even if the first one is a good one, it’s still a 10-year project. The first thing is to get a nice foal, all correct and everything. And then you can start dreaming from there.”

Mark says Martyn started with two mares; one line has produced most of their superstars.

“The other line, they will be nice horses, but not quite up to the standard we hope for,” he says. “But if you get a good dam line, it’s a case of keeping on trying. The mare has to be naturally scopey with a good stride, as the quality of movement comes a lot from the mare, but you always try to improve what your dam’s got; if you want a bit more quality or scope, you look for that type of stallion. If you want a real careful one, you look for different again.

“It’s lots of trial and error as well. We’re looking for broodmares as that’s where our success has come from but it’s a job to find the right ones – I think the more success you have, the more critical you become.”

The early days for showjumper Mark Edwards’ home-breds

Mark says the Edwards are lucky to have the space to breed but they only have two each year, as “how would you get round them all otherwise?” He has a business to run, clients’ horses to ride, and only so many hours in the day.

Foals of the same sex in the same season “more or less stay together till they’re backed”; if they have one of each gender, they are separated at weaning and go into different herds with others of similar age.

“Then it’s quite nice watching them play,” he adds. “We generally back them in the winter of their three-year-old year, then ride them 10–12 times, until they’re cantering around both arenas nicely, then leave them for a year. We won’t decide what we’re going to do with them then, but we have a good idea whether they’re going to go down the showjumping route or we’ve got to find another job for them.”

The five-year-olds might go to a few shows, Mark adds, but are generally learning at home rather than in the ring, having “plenty of time to grow up”.

“They’re still growing, and we’re very much looking at the long term,” he says. “Rather than trying to produce a youngster to sell, we’re trying to produce them for ourselves, so it’s always with the end goal in mind.”

The Edwards’ ethos with young horses is to do the work at home, be patient, and produce them with the future in mind.

“At home we like to work the horses as much as we can around the farm,” he says. “Cantering around the fields, working in open spaces, helps not only with the physical side of things; fitness and muscle strength, but also the mental side of things, and not just for the horse. Exercising around the farm, time seems to go a lot quicker!”

Assessing young showjumpers’ potential

Showjumper Mark Edwards says he will have a good idea from a young age as to whether individual home-breds will be future stars – but warns against judging too early.

“You need to give them a chance to learn to take off and develop their natural jump,” he says. “But what we look for, they’ve got to want to jump a lot of clear rounds. Whatever height they do, they’ve got to be careful and looking to leave the fences up. Because if they keep the jumps up, there’s always a job for them.

“You can tell quite early if they’re real careful types – whether they have the scope, you never really know until you get there and try it. Then, obviously, the stronger they get, the more, the more jump they generally find.”

And physical talent alone is not always enough.

“The mind and heart is a big, big thing to it,” he says. “If they haven’t got the right mindset, or are perhaps a bit chicken-hearted, they’re not going to go and achieve what you want them to achieve. But there’s no secret recipe; they’ve got brains! And if you try something with one horse, it might not work with the next one. You have to do everything with an open mind.”

Whether it’s a home-bred or one coming in to be ridden, Mark is also looking for range of movement, without which life will be harder for the horse.

“But you never really know until you get on and ride them, because one horse might look completely different to how it feels,” he says.

Some of his horses’ talent is clear from the start though; Dillinger, who arrived for backing and never left, competed in the Foxhunter and grade C finals at Horse of the Year Show (HOYS) 2022, then won an international class there a year later. Royale Tale, who also arrived for backing, won the newcomers and grade C at HOYS 2022, and also an international class there in 2023.

“Dillinger just had it from the word go,” says Mark of the 10-year-old he has previously said may be the best horse he’s ever had. “From the moment he started, he was jumping the right way; he has really nice movement. You always have the question mark about their scope when they’re four or five because you don’t try them over big jumps at that age, but he’s progressed and he’s really turning out to into the horse we thought he was in the beginning.

“He and Royale Tale are coming through together; they’re the same age and they’ve both kept on improving. She’s a real fighter in the ring; she’s got that attitude of, ‘Let me do it and everyone else will follow’.

“It’s a long process, and you’re always questioning if you’re doing the right thing in a way. But when it all works out, and you start reaping your rewards for taking all the time and producing, it makes it all worthwhile.”

With Flying Tinker, on the other hand, the 15.3hh 2023 H&H showjumping horse of the year, it was not as clear.

“We really nearly sold him as a six-year-old!” Mark says. “We had that question mark on how much scope he had, and because he was only little as well, we sort of questioned, did he really have enough stride to go on? But luckily, we stuck to it.

“He’s definitely one who jumps off his heart. Perhaps he’s not the scopiest horse in the world, but he hates touching a fence, and that gives him that extra bit of scope that not many have.

“It’s always nice to win, whatever horse you’re on, but to do it on one you’ve seen from the word go, just adds to the whole value of why we do it. It gives you that extra bit of buzz, and you can’t really describe it. It’s what we do it for.”

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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

Showjumper Mark Edwards has been riding high on the home circuit and abroad for years; representing Britain on Nations Cup teams and winning everything from speed classes to grands prix. But like all the best horsemen, he believes “you never stop learning”, whatever level you reach personally.

“Every day, every show, every round, you can learn something,” he says.

Whichever horse he is partnering, if he’s in a jump-off, the others need to look to their laurels. This is down to talent, will to win and some lovely horses. But it’s also, as always in this game, down to sheer hard graft.

“Whenever we have a fence down we think about what I could or should have done to jump it clear,” he says. “It’s very good to analyse every round, and we learn a lot more from the rounds that haven’t gone well than the ones that do. In this sport we lose a lot more than we win so it’s very important to not be negative and move on to the next round.

“In showjumping, like most sports, success is a lot to do with mental strength. When things are going well, everything seems easy and you feel like you’re going to win every class. When they’re not, you go into the ring overthinking every distance, every line. Sometimes we just have to accept that some days it wasn’t our day. We all need a little bit of luck.”

Hard work the main ethic

But, as has been said, those who are the luckiest are those who work the hardest. Some 75 horses were at Mark and his father Martyn’s yard, in Wales, last year, from youngsters in for backing to the grand prix veterans.

“We do a lot of riding for clients; that’s our bread and butter,” Mark says, adding that they rarely turn an offered horse down.

The Edwards have always spent a great deal of time at David Broome’s, and Mark cites the legendary showjumper as someone from whom he has picked up tips and advice all along.

“You just try to pick bits up as you go along, like you’re always watching the top riders at shows,” he says. “And of course Dad has been the main influence, all the way.

“David’s always one to be patient, give them plenty of time, so that sank in. But you’re almost taking things in without realising, in a way, little bits just as you go along. You just keep learning, watching; everything progresses so you have to keep learning to keep up.”

Mark Edwards’ advice for up-and-coming showjumpers

Mark’s recommends that aspiring showjumpers ride plenty of horses, of different types, and find a good mentor, so you get a consistent message rather than asking lots of different people and getting conflicting and confusing opinions.

“I think the biggest mistake is probably rushing up the levels too quickly,” he adds. “A lot of people get to a certain level and all of a sudden you see them jumping abroad when they would benefit from a year jumping on the county circuit, getting that real base of riding in different rings and on different going rather than going to the nice easy shows where it’s just on sand and everything is the same. The biggest thing is, get out on those grass rings and learn to ride in different situations – it’s very easy to get caught out on the grass.

“Go to a big jumping yard as a young rider, that helps you see a different system, but you have to just keep learning. And if you work hard enough, the right horses should come along. I do think that the horses find you, rather than you find them.”

Showjumper Mark Edwards has two daughters, aged six and three, and it can be hard to fit everything in.

“We just make it work,” he says. “When we’re at home, we try to spend as much time with them as possible. They’re just starting to get into ponies, which makes it a bit easier! But you’ve just got to get on with it.

“It is a big weakness in a way, that with horses you never really have a day off, but we have a couple of quiet afternoons, to go and do something non-horsey, and try to have a nice holiday once a year. That gets us away from the farm, but I enjoy my work. There are worse jobs to do, aren’t there?”

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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

“You want them to have a tidy, clean jump,” Yasmin Ingham says, as she explains what she looks for in a horse. “Two out of three phases of eventing are jumping; it makes up a lot of the competition.

“Also, character, and presence that stands out in the dressage arena, good paces, athletic, nimble, and good stamina. They have to tick so many boxes, they’re multi-athletes”.

To put it another way: Banzai Du Loir.

“If I could build a horse, it would be him!” she says. “He’s beautifully put together, elegant, with character and presence. His paces are beautiful, in cross-country he’s brave, agile and fast, and in showjumping he’s careful, quick and nimble.

“He ticks all the boxes and he’s in the back of my mind when I see other horses”.

Temperament is key.

“You hear a lot that the quirky ones are the best,” Yasmin says. “Banzai was very sharp growing up, very giddy and excited at an event – he’s getting more relaxed. Every horse has something that makes their character special.”

At home, he’s undisputed king of the stables.

“He knows he’s the best; there’s a hierarchy, and he’s at the top,” she says. “He knows his place and he’s earned it.”

He’s a confident horse, but he’s also “such a gentleman, gentle and quiet, no trouble, everyone’s best friend and such a nice person, as well as a successful event horse”.

Banzai is sired by Nouma D’Auzay, and Yasmin’s a fan of the bloodline (her nine-year-old Goliath Du Loir shares the lineage).

“I love it when they’re talented jumpers,” she says. “On the last day of competition, you can have faith and confidence your horse can jump a clear round. There’s nothing more heartbreaking than a stunning dressage test, being in the lead after the cross-country, and you lose on the final day.”

Yasmin Ingham’s training philosophies: “I listen to the horse”

With any new horse, Yasmin starts slowly.

“I don’t have one system for every horse, they’re all different,” she says. “But what they all have in common is that the only way they learn is from positive repetition.”

She’s always listening – to how the horse is feeling, what they are telling her, whether they are ready to progress.

“If you have a careful jumper, and he over-jumps and scares himself, I listen, and take it back a level, or stay at the same level for longer, until they’ve grown in confidence to progress to the next level,” she explains.

Knowing your horse and establishing mutual trust is the building block to success, and Yasmin does that by using nothing more sophisticated than time.

“We have a very small string at the yard, and I spend pretty much every day with all of them,” she says. “We all chip in, tacking up, grooming, washing off, mucking out. I spend a lot of time with the horses, getting to know them inside out; there’s no better way to connect with them.”

Her grooms, Denise, Alison and Owen share the same goal to “forge an intimate connection with all of them”.

Yasmin builds strength and avoids the enemy of enthusiasm, staleness, with plenty of variety in their work. Hacking, cross-country schooling over water jumps, ditches and natural fences, spins up the gallops, water treadmills for conditioning and “not too much time in the school”. She’s ever mindful of her horses’ well-being, as she says: “They are your partner, you have to connect to bring results and their welfare is always at the front of my mind. They’re such important athletes, we really need to look after them.”

The goal of training is to make the competition easier, and her method of training is to give the horses exciting and interesting challenges at home, including “random and weird” cross-country jumps.

“I also love gridwork,” she says. “It’s so important to have good footwork. Placing poles before and after fences, or a long line of a grid is interesting for them. Having fences of different heights, smaller and slightly higher, and if you want them to put their neck down and have a good stretch over their back, wider oxers in a grid.”

With physios, farriers, nutritionalists on call, she is quite sure, “they have a better routine than I do!”

Treats, carrots and holidays in the field

Elite athletes, but also beloved like family pets, with treat jars dotted round the yard to reward goodness and when they come back from big events, her grooms put up balloons outside the stable and carrots in the haynet.

“They’re so spoilt. we make such a fuss!” she admits happily.

She tries not to ask too much of them, explaining: “If I’m trying to get a perfect half pass or flying change, it’s about small wins, small progress, a pat to let them know it’s positive. Instead of doing it until it’s perfect, then they’re flustered and they’ve lost confidence, you’ve got to make sure they’re understanding what question you’re asking. If not, you need to simplify it, go back a few steps to make sure they understand so they don’t get tense and have a negative experience.”

Yasmin breaks her season in two parts. For instance in 2024, after a demanding, flagship event – in his case Kentucky – Banzai had a few weeks in the field to wind down and refresh, before Yasmin picked him up for the second part of the season, and the same after Bicton for her younger horses.

Horses need time to just be horses, enjoying their holidays in the field.

“I know what makes Banzai happy,” says Yasmin. “He loves to roll without his rug on. As much as I love to keep him as clean as possible, he loves to go out roll in sand and get dirty. As long as he’s happy I’m happy.”

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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

When Polish dressage rider Sandra Sysojeva qualified for the freestyle final at the Paris Olympics, it was the culmination of a long and delicate journey with her outstanding eight-year-old mare, Maxima Bella.

“For 30 years I have been with horses, I’ve been dreaming about competing at the Olympic Games,” says Sandra. “It took a lot to get there, thanks to my team support and my amazing horse. What could be better than scoring 80% in the freestyle? For a long time, I couldn’t believe it really happened, that the horse was so good and well-behaved. It’s the biggest present she could ever give me.”

While Sandra has spoken before about how patience, trust and time enabled her to bring this hot and capricious mare up to the grand prix level, their Olympic build-up also required a special approach.

Maxima Bella competed a little in young horse classes up to the age of six, but didn’t face the judges at all during her seven-year-old season. Sandra knew the mare had the talent, but she had been working gently at home, without pressure – playing in the forest with the grand prix moves.

“She wasn’t so interested in the easy tests, she found them really boring,” explains Sandra. “She was offering some passage or piaffe or changes where it wasn’t needed.”

Instead, in 2023 – the pre-Olympic year – she did demos with Maxima Bella to expose her to clapping, noise and lights, but never a competitive test. When they first came down the centre line, at Kalen-Towarzystwo CDI3* in February 2024, they hadn’t competed for nearly 18 months.

“This year we started to compete in grand prix and it was quite difficult to ride her, as she didn’t have much experience in the ring,” says Sandra. “As with any horse you take to the grand prix level, we have a special connection. So she was prepared, but not for this test.”

“The less I ride her, the better”: Sandra Sysojeva on Maxima Bella

It would be a long season ahead, qualifying for the Olympics and then competing in Paris. Maxima Bella would go on to win 16 tests, and acquit herself fantastically in Versailles, as the youngest horse in the field by more than two years. She belied her lack of experience to perform personal bests in both the grand prix and freestyle in the buzzing atmosphere of the Paris stadium.

But it was a fine balance. Keeping the horse on a steep upward trajectory while maintaining her freshness and appetite for the work – a challenge exacerbated by her highly sensitive character – required supreme horsemanship.

“Maxima Bella has just finished her season winning in Salzburg CDI5* and scoring over 83% in the freestyle, and she’s still in excellent condition, very sound and fresh,” says Sandra. “It’s not like the horse is tired after competing all season long – she’s full of energy, willing to work, and that makes me really happy. She’s stayed like this all year long even though we have competed a lot.”

Sandra explains the management strategy that has brought out the best in Maxima Bella this year, which is borne out of the past six years spent getting to know her, with hours and hours spent walking in-hand and gaining her hard-won trust.

“We decided this year that she would have more rest than riding,” Sandra says. “But she’s not a horse you can just keep in a box all day and ride for half an hour. She goes in the paddock in the mornings, or if it’s bad weather I’ll walk her in-hand. Some days we train, other days we work on the lunge. She doesn’t just stand in the paddock as that won’t help her gain muscle.

“I have a rule that the less I ride her, the better she is. She doesn’t need to be ridden five times a week – she’s ridden two or three times, maximum four. Most of her time is spent resting, with some groundwork exercises and some physical training on the lunge. We just do a little bit of ridden work here and there – and this includes when we go to shows.

“But she still needs my attention for two or three hours a day, and it’s important to me and her that I am doing everything with her, because that is why we have such a special relationship.”

Maxima Bella is still a very young grand prix horse, so it’s exciting to see what 2025 has in store.

“Of course we have plans for next year, but with horses you cannot plan much,” says Sandra. “So we plan quite cautiously, but if all goes well we would like to compete in some of the bigger shows, like the CDI5* in Doha, to the Europeans, qualify for the World Cup Finals.

“But the main goal is to keep her happy, healthy and enjoying what we do, that’s the priority. She is an amazing horse, and it’s a wonderful story how she has got to top level.”

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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

Polish dressage rider Sandra Sysojeva caused quite a stir at the Paris Olympics when she steered her eight-year-old mare, Maxima Bella, into the freestyle final. This daughter of Millennium x Christ 3 was two years younger than any other horse in the field, and waltzed her way into 15th place with a score of plus-80%. Since Paris, they have been unbeaten in six international competitions, including a massive personal best freestyle score of 83.41% to win at Salzburg CDI5* in December.

With such success at such a precocious age on the world stage, it’s easy to assume Maxima Bella was a prolific young horse winner, but the reality is rather different. This Olympic season was her first at grand prix – and the pair didn’t compete at all in 2023. While Sandra loved the look of Maxima Bella when she first set eyes on her as a three-year-old, it’s been a rocky road to the top.

“I knew from her pedigree that she might be quite hot and sharp, but she was frightening me a bit,” says Sandra. “So we took time. We worked on building up muscle, with exercises on the ground and walking up hills in the snow. We have a lot of snow in winter, and working in the deep snow helped her to gain muscle. We also walked in the river together, and all the time I was building a nice relationship with her.

“I would take her everywhere with me, walking beside me and cuddling her all the time – and that has made our relationship really special. Putting her in the stable and taking her out for half an hour a day would not work for her. I found that you had to give her attention for two or three hours a day, walking, patting, taking her to the paddock, the forest, and training.

“She was not the easiest character,” adds Sandra. “She was quite wild and difficult in all new situations. It took a lot of time and patience to enable her to understand and learn what she has to do and how to behave. It’s not been easy to get her trust.”

Six years on, Sandra feels she understands this “mare of all mares” well, and vice versa – even if the horse “changes her mood 10 times a day”.

“Maxima Bella’s character is a mystery – one day she’s friendly, another day she’s screaming at other horses,” Sandra says. “One day she likes to eat this, another that. You need to understand what she wants every day. In competition she’s in one mood, at home she has another mood, in the forest she is different again. But you can never be tough with her because it goes against you. I’ve had to learn so much about her, to have a lot of patience and to be calm.”

“We trained grand prix in the forest”: Sandra Sysojeva on Maxima Bella’s route to the top

In Maxima Bella’s early competitive outings, she wasn’t exceptional – “she finds the easier work boring”. But Sandra knew almost from the outset that she had a grand prix contender in her hands.

“I could see it from her very early years that she had huge talent for piaffe-passage, she was offering it all the time,” she says. “If she was trotting she’d try to stop and passage, so I’d pat her, give her a sugar lump and she’d offer it more and more. The hot horses can often become grand prix horses if they have a talent for piaffe-passage.

“Of course I had to teach her all the basics, it wasn’t like I put a saddle on her and she’s doing grand prix. But she has natural talent for piaffe-passage, flying changes, self carriage and collection. I asked, and she offered it. Some horses you have to teach for a couple of years how to collect and carry themselves – she was doing that from the first day. I’d work her in the forest and the field, that’s how we trained all the grand prix stuff, just playing in nature.

“But it took me a long time, because she only started to communicate me when she was six and to get to grand prix you have to have a special connection with your horse; all grand prix horses have an exceptional character. That’s why I’m so happy I’m doing everything with her myself – not just riding but grooming, walking, doing the groundwork. Every day it’s me and that’s really important. The more time you ‘waste’ with your horse, the better relationship you have with them.”

The final cog in the wheel is Sandra’s team, particularly Dominica Krasko, who always travels with her, and Sandra’s 11-year-old daughter Emilija – who is set to start competing internationally herself in 2025, and was on site cheering her mother on at Versailles.

“We are a small team but very friendly and supportive,” she says. “It shows it’s not all about money or big trainers behind you. We’ve done all this by ourselves, with the help of this wonderful horse.”

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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

After ending their 2024 eventing seasons on a high, Ros Canter’s five-star horses have been enjoying a holiday in the field. Her Defender Burghley win with Lordships Graffalo (Walter) – who has Mars Badminton lightly pencilled in for his 2025 diary at this stage – was followed up by a successful trip to the Pyrenees with her two other top campaigners. Izilot DHI backed up his 2023 Pau CCI5* victory with the runner-up spot, and five-star first-timer MHS Seventeen came of age to finish 11th with a double jumping clear.

“We’re very lucky in our system at home in that they live outside anyway during the summer,” said Ros, explaining this meant the horses were able to transition seamlessly into their down-time with very little change to their routines.

“They have a bit of downtime and then we start to kind of quietly make some plans for next year and see how they come out.”

She adds: “I know Badminton and Burghley didn’t really go to plan with Izilot DHI, but bar those two events – which were always going to be a question mark – he has had his best season in terms of cross-country and rideability.

“We’ve made a big leap forward in his dressage. I’ve always known he’s had massive, massive ability in that phase, but probably never quite allowed him to use it. Now we are and he’s starting to really grow up. I’m learning to ride him better all the time.”

Ros Canter’s one to watch in 2025

MHS Seventeen was among the stand-out performers on Pau’s drenched cross-country day. The 11-year-old gelding, owned by Deirdre Johnston and Lady Milnes Coates, skimmed across the sloppy going with a smile on his face. The world number three now has three five-star diamonds in her string heading into 2025.

“I absolutely love MHS Seventeen. We call him Vinnie at home and I really love riding him,” says Ros Canter.

The Irish Sport Horse, bred by Mary Brennan, is by Callahan and out of Quidam Junior I mare MHS Dancing Queen. He was produced to three-star by Sara Bowe and later ridden by Nicola Wilson.

“He’s just that little bit smaller and he’s a little bit different to Walter in the way he jumps,” Ros adds. “He’s less thoroughbred in his jump than Walter – he has a more careful kind of bascule in his shape – but he’s like Walter to ride to a fence cross-country. He really looks, he’s very careful, he draws himself back and does a lot of those things automatically.”

Bramham CCI4*-L this year, where he finished third, marked a turning point.

“He definitely became a man after Bramham. There were a couple of times at the start of the course where he was a little bit green and he had to really work quite hard in some of the combinations,” she says.

“Ever since Bramham this year, he’s just gone to the next level and got stuck in from the start. He’s great. I’m really excited about the future. It might be another couple of years before you see us near the top of the dressage, but I think the potential is there and that he will be very competitive on the flat.”

And so, onwards.

“I have a little bit of a gap between the top three and my next bunch of horses, just because of when I had [my daughter] Ziggy,” says Ros. “I don’t have many eight- and nine-year-olds, but I have quite a lot of six- and seven-year-old horses coming through. So it will be interesting to see, and I think a lot of them have really good attributes, which is nice.

“Looking to the future, I’m still really loving it. That’s what’s important to me now. I enjoy getting on the horses, I love training the horses, and I love being at the big events – I get a kick out of the big competitions.”

That competitive drive is as strong as ever. The training side too is something Ros intends to do more of. And there’s something else Ros has her eye on for future.

“I have a slight dream of one day having a dressage horse as well…” she says.

“We all have the same goal – to become better”

Shortly before travelling to Defender Burghley, Ros Canter boxed up her five-star winners Lordships Graffalo and Izilot DHI to head from her base in Lincolnshire to Leicestershire to pop a few fences and have a “brainstorming session”.

Ros is a mentor on the Performance Mentoring Programme (PMP), founded by top coach Caroline Moore. On the riding side, it aims to give equestrians starting out in their careers all-round support, while the coaching strand is designed to give those with aspirations of one day coaching teams opportunities to further their careers.

As a mentor, Ros is there to support those on the programme. Part of its beauty, she has found, is how rewarding it is for all sides involved.

“We all chatted and bashed ideas around together – it was fantastic,” says Ros. “It’s a great bunch of people that all mutually respect each other, are very open minded and all have the same goal as wanting to become better coaches and better riders. I found it fascinating, and I learned a lot.”

Teaching and helping other riders is something Ros has done since she was young. In the busy eventing season, she tries to fit an afternoon of coaching in each week and carves out time in other places to mentor and support PMP riders where she can.

“Some of them came to stay in November to shadow me and bring a couple of horses,” says Ros, whose support also extends in other ways, such as course-walking with PMP riders at major events. “They are to use me to benefit themselves and I’m there to help.”

Ros reflects on all those who have played a role in her own career, and how beneficial it is for both riders and coaches to have a network to “bounce ideas off”.

“Caroline was keen to set something up for people that aren’t on the World Class programme, but who she felt had the right attribute to be top performers and hopefully, represent their country in the future,” she says.

“It’s fully funded and they all get training, but if somebody specifically needed a bit of help with a particular area, such as running a business, or personal training and fitness, then that could be put in place with them. It’s about opening doors for people that we think have got a lot of potential for the future to access anything that they need that can be career enhancing.”

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‘I can’t believe I’ve actually done that’ – four months on, Ros Canter is folding washing when her Olympic gold sinks in

‘Walter was telling me he thought it was a good idea!’: Ros Canter reflects on winning her first Burghley title

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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

As the sun set on the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, so too did the first chapter of this rider’s remarkable year of two halves. Some six weeks later, the team gold medal-winning combination of Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo would lead another career-defining lap of honour – this time closer to home.

“The moment we decided that we weren’t going to Badminton in the spring, we thought Burghley might be an option for him,” says Ros, for whom this was a first Burghley win.

Ros and Michele Saul, who owns the 12-year-old gelding with husband Archie, had the conversation early in the year. While the focus was on Paris, Burghley had also been pencilled in to “Walter’s” tentative season plan.

“It wasn’t a last minute, ’let’s just throw him in at Burghley’ – it was very much something we’d had in the back of our minds,” adds Ros. “We were always going to wait and see how Paris went, provided we got there, and what he thought of it afterwards.

“He had had a week off after Paris. Then I took him for a couple of hacks. He squealed, he bucked, he was fairly fresh and fit. I rang Michele, and said, ‘If you still think Burghley is a possibility and a good idea, Walter is telling me that he thinks it’s a good idea!’

“We decided to give it to the ballot date and if we were on target, we would enter, and then take every day as it comes and if he felt good, then we would go for it.

“He never had a day when he didn’t feel like he was as fit as a fiddle and ready to do something else.”

Ros: “Walter felt fit and ready for Burghley”

Heading to Burghley was an easy decision with a horse in sparkling form, having taken the nine minutes of galloping over Versailles’ broadly flat terrain in his stride.

“I felt in a really good place in the last week running up to Burghley and was really happy with the way Walter was going,” says Ros.

“I tweaked a couple of things – nothing major, but you learn about horses with every event, and horses change as they go through their career. I felt I really knew Walter well. I knew how he was going to react to things, and where I wanted to be in my training, and everything was going very well.

“I had Ian Woodhead there at Burghley to help me on the flat, like I always do. But I very much felt that if he hadn’t been there, I would have been very clear about how I wanted to ride.

“I was quite relaxed about the whole thing as well – whether it was because it was in the aftermath of Paris, which had been quite a high pressurised situation – I was really looking forward to taking him there. It just all worked out.”

She adds: “Burghley’s terrain rides lumpy, bumpy, even when it looks flat. You can walk it and think you’re going up a slight incline. But actually, when you ride it, you go up an incline and bump along as well.

“Walter – just in his balance and the way he goes cross country – is so incredible that it actually felt quite smooth. He’s so easy on himself, balanced and rideable. He’s so good at coming back to me that I can ride fast towards a turn, take one balance and he clocks it and steadies himself up.

“He’s just the ultimate athlete. He seems to be able to tackle these huge courses, and doesn’t seem to find galloping hard work, meaning can come out on the final day and still have that enthusiasm.”

Ros Canter: a champion’s mindset

Ros’s mindset as an athlete and a horsewoman is exceptional. Her analytic brain and attention to detail set her apart. Walter, after all, is a horse who came to Burghley already a 2023 Badminton and European champion – but she always has a fresh gem to share about something she has learnt in the build-up to that particular event. It’s what makes her post-ride analysis in her debriefs to the media a must-listen. From how focusing on straightness helped Walter nail a new five-star personal best of 22 in the dressage, to not letting her guard slip until through the cross-country finish flags as the last fence had a roof – something Walter hadn’t liked in his younger years.

Ros has also spoken openly about the mental processes she went through to get herself in the frame of mind that led to that Burghley win. Uncharacteristic showjumping faults with Izilot DHI costing them the Luhmühlen CCI5* title in June stoked her competitive fire. Processing her feelings around Paris also helped to give her clarity.

“I do use sports psychology a bit. I had a really good sports psychology session that week [before Burghley]. Again, we tweaked a couple of things, I got myself in a slightly different headspace, and everything did just go well,” she says.

“It’s not something I do on a weekly basis, but I generally have a session at the start of the season. Then when gearing up towards a big one, I normally have one or two sessions.

“We cover all sorts of things. I am quite a thinking person. So quite often, I can come up with the problems I’m having, and I can almost come up with the answers to my problems myself. But it is just nice to bounce ideas off someone who knows me.

“We often talk about family life, juggles, guilt, all sorts of different things, but the preparation for Burghley was very much around the feelings I’d had after Paris, how I’d felt a bit flat and deflated, and how that was actually quite normal.”

She adds: “My psychology around Burghley was making that decision to myself that I actually really, really wanted it.

“I think because I’d had Paris as my big end goal and then that goal had gone, I was a bit like, ‘well, now what do I do?’ Then I sat down and we chatted, and I really decided that I really wanted to go to Burghley, I really wanted to do well at Burghley, and I wanted to get really psyched up for it. And before cross-country, I was going to get myself really revved up to go out and to really mean it, to really want it.

“It was something a little bit different to what we have done before – changing it up, trying to keep everything fresh.”

Keeping things fresh certainly did pay off.

Enjoy the day-by-day reports of Ros’s Burghley win:

Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo win Burghley: ‘I wasn’t sure I’d ever tick this box’

‘I didn’t realise he’d lost a shoe’: Ros Canter’s fascinating analysis of her winning cross-country round at Burghley 2024

‘I held my breath until the final fence’: Ros Canter cements Burghley lead despite last-minute concern

Ros Canter holds one-two at Burghley after ‘lightbulb moment’ with Lordships Graffalo

British Paris Olympic gold medallists head up strong field as Burghley entries close

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

Pre-Paris and post-Paris. Ros Canter’s experience of 2024 falls neatly into two halves, each topped by achieving two life-long ambitions. Ros’s Paris Olympic team gold medal performance and her Burghley Horse Trials win took place in fairly quick succession, but were completely different experiences.

“Paris was such a big focus for me that the first half of the year all revolved around that,” she explains. “I had a couple of weeks after Paris where I felt a bit flat and a bit lost, because I hadn’t really thought beyond the Olympics – and then I really kicked back into gear again.”

We caught up in the days after Pau five-star, where Ros ended her season with another top-level podium finish, this time riding Izilot DHI, the pair finishing second in 2024 having won in 2023. Ros’s five-star debutant ride MHS Seventeen also stepped up to the big time in Pau, meaning the eventing season finished for Ros with this new star’s five-star future just beginning.

“Normally I finish the season ready to stop and have a bit of a break, but actually this year I still feel quite buoyed up,” says Ros. “I could have quite happily carried on for a bit longer. I think that’s because the first half of the season was so different to normal, as I only had that one focus. Now, I almost feel like I found another spark – that I still really love it again.

“Paris had just become such a big thing, in that I really wanted to tick that box. I felt like it was the one box I hadn’t ticked.”

Pressure to reach the Olympics

“Having a horse like Lordships Graffalo, and having had a [successful] year like we’d had in 2023, I felt quite a lot of pressure on myself to make sure that I got him to Paris, because I knew I was sitting on a horse that ought to be going to the Olympics,” says Ros.

Teams of three means there is ever more pressure for Olympic places – as Ros well knows, having supported the Brits as the alternate combination in Tokyo 2021 with her 2018 World Champion, Allstar B.

As 2024 dawned, Ros and Lordships Graffalo (“Walter”) – owned by Michele and Archie Saul – were in one of the strongest positions to make that team for Paris, having backed up their Badminton win by leading the Brits to victory with a double gold medal-winning performance at the 2023 Europeans.

Handling high expectations

Ros is no stranger to preparing for championships. Paris was her sixth call-up – seventh including Tokyo – and her system is well honed. Beneath her cool outward composure is a competitor constantly evaluating every decision.

“It was more mental pressure than anything else,” says Ros. “I think the team at home would say it was probably a bit more stressful at the yard. We tightened everything up in terms of biosecurity, so put more work onto ourselves to just try and keep ticking all the boxes and making it happen. But mentally, really, it was the big thing I wanted to do.”

Ros was with her daughter, Ziggy, at the yard when she got the call to say she’d been selected.

“My reaction was relief first and foremost. It’s a funny year, an Olympic year, and a long process. With the weather and everything else, there’s been lots of chopping and changing of plans and you never quite know if you’ve got it right,” said Ros at the time.

“The feelings were bigger than anything I’d felt before”

“The atmosphere we had in Team GB at the Olympics was incredible,” says Ros, acknowledging her squad mates Tom McEwen, Laura Collett and alternate rider Yasmin Ingham, as well as the wider support team.

“We all knew our jobs, everybody respected that we knew what we were doing. Nothing really changed, in terms of that we were allowed to prepare how we wanted to prepare. But we had all the right people there if we needed them.

“The overriding memory is definitely of cross-country day. The pressure was quite big and obviously I was last to go for the team, so I had a long wait. The sensations and the feelings were bigger than anything I’d ever felt before.”

They delivered, as they have spent their lifetimes preparing to do. But the emotional rollercoaster had a twist yet, as Ros and Lordships Graffalo were awarded controversial flag penalties. The Brits were still out in front, but their buffer ahead of the showjumping was far thinner.

An emotional rollercoaster

“My competition was quite up and down in terms of how it panned out,” says Ros, reflecting back on that evening in Paris some three months on.

“Emotions wise, I got an initial thrill from the cross country, but then that evening didn’t really pan out how it was supposed to, so there was a lot of worry and different emotions surrounding that.

“The knock-on effect for showjumping day was that when I finished my round and we’d won the gold medal, the real emotion was relief. Relief that the situation hadn’t lost us the gold, and relief that I hadn’t let anybody down too much.

“By the time we got to the medal ceremony, we were able to really enjoy it. That was really great fun – our horses behaved impeccably, which helped, and we were able to play to the crowd.”

Ros Canter and Laura Collett return to Paris

A beauty of these Games was the rare opportunity for athletes to be able to nip back to appreciate more of the Olympic magic after their events had finished. Ros and Laura made the most of the opportunity, hopping back across the Channel for a few more days in Paris.

“As soon as I saw the timetable and that we were on early in the Games, I knew I’d like the opportunity to go back to the closing ceremony,” says Ros. “I knew I was going to try and make that happen. When Laura said she wanted to come back too, we made a plan to make two or three days of it.”

The pair hot-footed it from Aston-le-Walls down to London, where they jumped on the train to Paris to parade through Champions Park and experience the closing ceremony.

“It was absolutely brilliant. One of the best things I’ve done,” says Ros. “When you’re actually competing at an Olympics you have to treat it like it’s just another competition – you can’t get bowled over by it being the Olympics, or it would just become much too difficult.

“To be able to go back and soak it in was fantastic.”

Ros Canter: “I’m still first and foremost a mother, and an eventer”

Has life changed since winning Olympic gold?

“Not really!” says Ros, with a smile in her voice. “There are some lovely things that come because of the Olympics. We get new opportunities, which is great – I get to experience and am invited to places that I would never normally get to go.”

She mentions a trip to Downing Street to meet the Prime Minister – shortly after we speak, Ros joins fellow Olympians to meet The King at a reception at Buckingham Palace.

“But no, life very much goes on. I’m still, first and foremost, a mother, and an event rider, trying to juggle – and life is still one big juggling act,” she says.

There are moments, though, that the glint of that golden achievement sinks in.

“Yesterday evening, I was upstairs putting clothes away or doing something very normal, and I suddenly thought, ‘oh my gosh, I actually won a gold medal!’” she says.

“I love the Olympics, I have always loved the Olympics, and I love sports. I just had a moment where I thought, ‘crikey, I can’t believe I actually, I’ve actually done that!’”

You may also be interested in:

‘I didn’t realise he’d lost a shoe’: Ros Canter’s fascinating analysis of her winning cross-country round at Burghley 2024

Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo win Burghley: ‘I wasn’t sure I’d ever tick this box’

‘We were broadsided’: Dickie Waygood and Ros Canter on THOSE Olympic flag penalties

Change in tactics pays off for Ros Canter in final jumping round of Olympics eventing

‘I don’t think I breathed the whole way around’: Ros Canter on her team leg of Paris Olympics eventing showjumping

‘We’re only scratching the surface’: Ros Canter buoyed by what the future holds following Paris Olympics dressage test

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 this exclusive, subscriber-only interview, Paris Olympics team bronze medallist Becky Moody looks back on her journey to the top to reflect on the highs, lows, and lessons learned along the way.

Becky Moody may have captured the hearts of fans at the Paris Olympics with a team bronze on her homebred 10-year-old, Jagerbomb – but her journey to that podium was anything but an overnight success.

Over her more than 25-year career, she’s competed three horses – Jagerbomb, Carinsio, and Famke PF – on the international grand prix stage, bringing several others to the highest level nationally. She’d represented her country on five youth teams and on senior Nations Cup teams all while amassing more than 30 national titles.

Yet until Paris, she’d never secured a spot on a senior championship team, and she admits she had nearly accepted that such a moment might not come for her.

“With the change from four riders to three on a team, and with the core riders we have in this country all having such an incredible string of horses I knew the possibility of breaking into that team was very, very unlikely,” she explains.

“I guess I’d hoped maybe a Europeans or a worlds, where that extra team spot gives you a bit more leeway, but I don’t think I even thought that was going to happen until we realised how good Bomb was.

“You realise the more you do this, that you need to have a pretty special horse to be able to get to that level – and that’s what he is.

“There’s an element of luck involved, I have to be realistic about that. With Bomb, I’m lucky I bred what I did, I never set out to breed a superstar – I’m just lucky he’s turned into one.

“I’ve had some really talented horses in the past but for one reason or another, it just didn’t quite work out. But they’ve all made me the rider I am now.”

Significant interest in Jagerbomb

Jagerbomb is now among the most recognisable and beloved horses in international dressage and, understandably, there’s been significant interest in him ever since he was tapped as travelling reserve at last summer’s Europeans. But Becky has never entertained any of the significant financial offers.

“I’ve worked my arse off all my life to have a horse like this, I’m not going to stop here,” she says.

And the pair have embraced the ambassadorial roles that have been thrust onto them with grace. At this summer’s national championships, Becky drew crowds, happily pausing for photos with and encouraging words with young fans.

“It’s taking me longer to get anywhere as loads of people want to say hello,” she laughed at the time. “But it’s so cool to feel the love and I’m hoping we can inspire the generation of tomorrow.”

Through it all – and amid the intense scrutiny surrounding dressage at the Olympics – Becky’s remained calm and approachable, refusing to get to swept up in the emotions of the moment.

“So many people have said to me, you must be on cloud nine after the Olympics, and I’m like, ‘Well, no, not really,’ because one of my philosophies is actually to try and stay pretty level-headed whatever happens. That means I don’t get so high when it’s great, but I also can protect myself by not getting so low when it’s bad.”

Why mental resilience matters

This mental resilience is something she’s developed over the years with the help of her long-time coach, David Hunt.

“He’s helped me enormously to become a stronger person, and to believe in what I’m doing,” Becky adds. “But sometimes you just don’t, of course you don’t, and that’s one of the hardest parts of what we do, and people need to talk about mental health more.

“I’ve definitely had my share of ups and downs, both with my confidence and mentally. I had a lot of success at junior and young rider levels, we got a team bronze and I was the highest-placed British rider at the last couple of Europeans I did.

“The horse I was riding was a fantastic small tour horse, he won at the nationals, and we were put on the World Class scheme, but he ended up not being a grand prix horse.”

Reflecting on those challenges, Becky explains how each experience has shaped her training approach today.

“That was partly because I hadn’t trained him to be a grand prix horse from an early enough stage,” she says. “He also maybe wasn’t totally cut out for it. But that was really tough and definitely messed with my head because I’d put pressure on myself to be able to do as well at grand prix as I’d done at every other level and it’s a completely different ball game.”

Becky continues: “Not every wonderful small tour horse makes a good grand prix horse, it’s a whole different kind of knowledge and experience that you need to train them for that.

“I know that now and I try to help people understand that the first couple of horses they train to grand prix, you’re going to make so many mistakes doing it because you’ve got so much to learn.

“You still make mistakes when you’re training your umpteenth horse to grand prix, because every horse is different, and you have to keep learning new things every time you do it. I believe how you mentally approach that is massively important – I often say my role as a coach is 20% technical, 80% counsellor.”

The challenges of social media

She adds that while equestrianism has always been a tough sport to be involved in – in terms of harmonising the unique needs of elite equine and human athletes – it’s been exacerbated by social media.

“It’s one of the things that frustrates me the most about the sport at the moment,” she says. “I’m pretty useless on socials in some ways, but I do always try to be myself – for me, that’s really important.

“And currently, I’m having a really lovely time on social media, it’s been a really supportive, and positive place for me – but it hasn’t always been.

“I think that as professional riders it’s very hard for us to post anything other than perfection, and I find that really frustrating because I think if young people, or anyone else, looking at our social media thinks that we live in a place where everything is perfect and our horses are going in a flawless frame all the time, they then expect or think they should be able to that themselves, and that’s not always how it goes.

“I would absolutely love to show a three or four-year-old on social media that is only just starting to be sat on and is still wobbly, where you can see the talent but maybe they go a little bit too round at times and lose their balance and rhythm, and then put up another video in six months showing how things are getting stronger.

“But I know the minute I put that video up, where the horse drops behind the vertical for three strides I’m the world’s worst rider, then you just end up not doing it because it’s just too hard – so, instead, you just put the really short clip on where they look really cool and in a perfect balance.

“I find that so frustrating because there’s so much value in showing the process. I wish we could share it without fear.”

Becky Moody: “Our sport is in trouble”

Despite these frustrations, Becky believes that dressage must engage with its critics to retain its social licence to operate.

“Our sport is in trouble, I don’t think there’s any denying that,” she says. “I can’t pretend that I know exactly how to get it out of trouble, but I do think we have to look at how we can become more transparent and open.

“There’s a group of people that think horses just shouldn’t be ridden, and we need to be able to show them how much they love it, and how much they thrive off of it. A lot of these horses aren’t bred to be field ornaments, they’re bred to do a job, and we have to try and find a way to get that across in a positive way.

“It’s really hard, we’ve got to not try to talk at people. I think it’s too easy to get defensive, and we need not to be. We need to try and understand what to do and how to bring them around.

“We have to talk to people outside our bubble if we want to keep our sport in the Olympics.”

You may also be interested in:

‘Spectacular movement isn’t always good movement’: Becky Moody on young horses and her key training mantras

‘I literally couldn’t walk or halt!’: Becky Moody relives her medal-winning tests at the Paris Olympics

The double bridle debate – the facts, the opinions… and the politics

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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

In this exclusive, subscriber-only interview, Tom McEwen explains how becoming an Olympian has (and has not) changed his life, reveals some of his up-and-coming equine stars to look out for, plus what he’s focusing on for next season and beyond...

Dual British eventing Olympian Tom McEwen reconsidered his answer when asked whether the Olympics – most recently his efforts in Paris, where he helped secure team gold with JL Dublin (Dubs), also finishing fourth individually – has changed life for him at all.

“Someone asked me this the other day and I said no, but I think it probably has,” explains the 33-year-old, who also won team gold and individual silver at the Tokyo Olympics aboard Toledo De Kerser. “It doesn’t change your life in a monetary way, although it can help with sponsorships, and in terms of the business I’m running day-to-day, it changes nothing really.

“But then in other ways, it does change your life because an Olympics increases the public awareness of our sport – you can’t quite believe how many people have paid attention and watched. Like going to the gym, people that aren’t horsey there now know what it’s about to a certain degree and that’s because the Olympics means something to everyone. They might not know how you get a dressage mark, or what the hell a time penalty is, but they understand the principle.”

Tom adds that although new opportunities in the form of sponsorships and owners might arise off the back of an Olympic appearance, he feels a sense of wanting to give something back to equestrianism too.

“It provides us riders with the opportunity to give back to the sport, whether that might be teaching at Pony Club or helping at the RDA,” he explains.

Life after the Olympics

Upon arriving back in the UK from Paris, “Dubs” wasn’t put in a field for a holiday immediately, as Tom explains.

“We started letting him down by hacking him out and slowly reduced that, rather than just immediately putting him out on a holiday while he was at peak fitness. He then did go on holiday and spent time in the field with Toledo.”

Tom says that he had a conversation with Dubs’ owners, James and Jo Lambert and Deirdre Johnston about plans for the rest of the season.

“Obviously Paris finished so early in the season that there was a conversation to be had about whether Dubs would compete again this year, but it was an easy decision to make in the end to let him have a holiday as he had such a busy first half of the year,” states Tom, referring to the fact that their route to Paris included a win in the CCI4*-S in Kronenberg in the Netherlands in March, second in the CCI5* in Kentucky, USA in April and second in the CCI4*-S in Luhmühlen, Germany in June.

Tom McEwen’s equine stars of the future

Looking ahead, Tom has some other stars in his string that he says we should note for future reference. The first of these is Isa, a 10-year-old grey mare, who was imported from Germany at the start of this year.

“I really like Isa – she’s awesome and I think she really showed it at Blenheim,” says Tom, who finished seventh with this horse in the CCI4*-L at Blenheim in September. “She had done a lot of three-stars with a girl called Charlotte Whittaker, who lives in Germany, and James and Jo Lambert were looking for a horse to add to my string. It’s the first time I’ve looked for something a little older and I really struggled to find her – it took me an awfully long time and it’s also taken me a bit of time to get to know her as she’s very much a mare and always did whatever suited her and didn’t really care much for what I was asking her sometimes.

“We’re building a bond and she’s super-exciting. She will probably aim for the CCI4*-L at Bramham next season.”

As well as Isa, Tom has an arsenal of top-class seven-year-olds in his stable. The first of these is Shannondale Arnold, who, were it not for picking up eight faults in the final showjumping phase in the British Eventing seven-year-old championships at Cornbury in September, would have finished runner-up.

“Those two fences, both in the treble, were annoying, but he’s super-exciting; a very modern type and athletic through his body. His flatwork is forever improving too,” says Tom, whose next one to watch is fellow seven-year-old Maestro, with whom he won the British Eventing seven-year-old championship, and who is owned by Toledo’s owners Fred and Penny Barker.

“He’s a proper modern day sports horse – he’s quite blood but also quite small,” comments Tom. “He jumped at the FEI WBFSH Jumping World Breeding Championship for Young Horses at Lanaken with his previous owners River Lodge under Michelle Kenny and is very smart.”

Tom’s final one for us to watch is another seven-year-old called Quintus, who recently finished 11th in the seven-year-old World Championships at Le Lion D’Angers, and is owned by Deirdre Johnston and Jane Knight.

“He’s a huge, great big horse and a rangy mover,” comments Tom. “Everyone thinks he looks too big and rangy on the flat and then you watch him across country and he’s so light on his feet.”

Tom states that “all three of these seven-year-olds are incredibly exciting and each one brings something slightly different to the table”.

“It will be interesting to see how each of them progresses. Everyone told me when Toledo was a seven-year-old that he was too good a jumper and too careful and he’d never have enough blood to make it round a five-star, but look at the horse he turned into.”

Speaking of Toledo, Tom says that the now 17-year-old with whom he won his first five-star at Pau in 2019 is doing well following his career-ending injury at Burghley in 2023.

“Toledo is unlikely to event again but he loves being active as he gets bored otherwise, so he will definitely do something, whether that’s Harriet [Tom’s wife] carrying on hacking him out or a little bit more – no decisions have been made yet, but he’s currently being brought back into work.”

Tom McEwen on his future plans

In terms of future plans, big event success is at the forefront of Tom’s mind – including a third Olympic Games.

“I very much want to get to LA [for the 2028 Olympics] and achieve results like the ones we managed in Tokyo and Paris. Obviously Paris was amazing, but I didn’t quite do the dressage test I know I can do – not every day is going to be spot on, but the rest of the competition was absolutely perfect for us individually, but it is what it is – you can whinge and whine about it, but it’s not going to make any difference.

“The test wasn’t down to me feeling the pressure, it was just one of those things that didn’t quite work out. So yes, getting back to LA is a big aim. For me it’s also always about the team first – I was obsessed with any team sports I could do while growing up – I just love the team environment.”

While British team success remains a huge motivation, individual five-star success is also high on Tom’s to-do list, as he says frankly: “I want to stop mucking up around British five-stars at some point soon!

“I want to win Badminton, Burghley and Kentucky – it’s easy to say and a thousand times harder to do. I feel like I’ve been getting myself in really good positions – Kentucky this year [where a fence down relegated Tom and JL Dublin from first to second] was just one of those things in that he jumped really well and one part just wasn’t good enough on my behalf. Sometimes things like that happen, but if you can put yourself in that place more often than not, at some point, it will start coming off.”

But achieving major accolades on a horse isn’t the only thing Tom McEwen has in mind for the future.

“I’ve done a marathon and I was told I became really grumpy while training for it, so that part of my life is over!” he laughs. “Someone mentioned doing an Iron Man triathlon, and although I’m not a great swimmer, I thought it sounded like a cool challenge, but I think I better chill out with things like that as I can’t be moody and tired halfway through a season.

“I will definitely give myself more challenges to do though and Harriet and I are really happy to be welcoming our baby. In that respect, we’ve got new challenges ahead and I’ll try giving being a dad a go!”

What about Tom’s future within the sport of eventing further down the line?

“I really admire the people that hold down a job and go eventing too – people like Lauren [Innes], who goes around Badminton and Burghley, that’s super-impressive. Maybe later on in my riding career, I might go down different avenues and do different things. I don’t really know what yet – I’ve got things in mind – but eventing and riding is a hard world and I want to be open-minded about it.

“You have to be very single-minded while you’re a competitive athlete. I’d quite like to go showjumping later on in life or in a few years’ time, but at the moment, my main and sole aim is eventing and trying to nail out a few better results.”

You may also be interested in:

‘I start them at five, they all hack and we jump more in the winter’: Tom McEwen’s training ethos for young horses

‘I wouldn’t change anything about Paris, apart from the rain – that was a bit s**t!’: Tom McEwen on 2024 Olympics

‘We make a lot of sacrifices’: Lottie Fry on what it takes to achieve such success before turning 30, plus what’s next

‘If I couldn’t compete it wouldn’t bother me’: Olympian Abi Lyle’s training mantras, including why praise, variety and turnout are key

‘Everything he does we started as a game’: how an Olympic dressage rider honed her project horse for the world stage

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 this exclusive, subscriber-only interview, Tom McEwen shares what he looks for in a young horse, why thoroughbred “blood” isn’t that important to him and how he trains his horses, including favourite exercises and the importance of hacking and turnout for every horse in his yard

Riders, no matter whether they are professional or amateur, have a preference on the type of horse they like to have in their yard and ride. British double eventing Olympic team gold medallist Tom McEwen is no different.

“When sourcing a young horse, I look out for two main things. Like with any athlete – human or horse – and no matter the equestrian discipline, soundness is the most important thing, which comes down to conformation,” explains Tom. “Within that, you can overlook some things but not others and sometimes things that put you off conformationally can then not affect a horse for years.”

Toledo De Kerser, the horse with whom Tom picked up team gold and individual silver at the Tokyo Olympics, has been somewhat of a flag bearer for Tom in recent years.

“Until his final event [where Toledo injured himself on the flat across country at Burghley in 2023], Toledo was the soundest horse I’ve ever had – the only time he missed an event was the Europeans in 2019 when he ran loose on the gallops and fell over onto some concrete. His soundness really contributed to him being such a special horse in that, year after year, he could compete,” states Tom.

Trainability is key

The second key component Tom looks for in a young potential top event horse is “trainability”.

“This encompasses their personality; can you work with them? Do they listen? There’s a million things associated with trainability but it basically comes down to whether or not you’re compatible with each other as everyone rides in slightly different ways,” explains 33-year-old Tom. “I’ve always been used to a slightly sharper type that takes a little bit more time and I really enjoy the bond that that creates and then they really trust you.”

You often hear event riders talking about the amount of thoroughbred blood a horse may or may not possess and for some, this is a deal-breaker. However this isn’t the case for Tom.

“For me, the one thing that’s changing over time is making sure you have a jumper. Blood isn’t a massive deal for me – I wouldn’t go off the percentage a horse has – if they have got the right stride, the right heart and correct approach in their mind, blood isn’t the biggest problem for me,” he says.

“Toledo De Kerser and CHF Cooliser don’t have high percentages of blood, for example, and those two have both shown that they can eat up big courses and actually find it quite easy. That has been down to me developing their stride and rhythm across country, because neither of them were naturally gifted with a long, easy galloping stride.”

Tom McEwen’s Gatcombe base

Tom credits his base at Gatcombe Park in Gloucestershire as being key to being able to develop his horses to become elite eventers.

“We’re really lucky being based at Gatcombe as we have lots of grass and that helps to develop a horse’s stride. We do a lot of longer, slower canter work, which means that over time, horses start to relax into it and stretch their stride out,” he explains. “We do a little bit of fast work every now and again, but we don’t do too much of it. I find that giving them more time and doing the longer, slower work teaches them to relax and breathe.”

Although they have been few and far between, Tom has taken on a couple of more experienced horses during his career, such as JL Dublin (“Dubs”), who he rode at the Paris Olympics, and more recently, Isa, who he took on at the start of 2024 and culminated this season by finishing seventh in the CCI4*-L at Blenheim.

“I was very lucky to be given Dubs later on in his career and also Isa,” says Tom. “I find taking on established horses trickier, because you have to try and work out your compatibility with them. You still want to look for the same things as you would with a young horse though, such as a good jump and the right temperament for the job.”

Tom McEwen on starting young horses

In terms of starting young horses’ careers, Tom says he has changed tactics over the years.

“When I was younger, I was very lucky to be able to go and work at The Billy Stud, which was great to learn more about starting a young horse. Back then, we started horses off at a younger age and did a lot of long reining, but now we don’t tend to start them until they are five.”

Tom explains that, as he generally has more time during the winter months to focus on training as he isn’t away competing, he utilises that time accordingly.

“We do more jumping in the winter than in the summer. All of our horses hack as I think it’s a really good way for them to relax – they go off into the woods on a long rein. Flatwork-wise, our six-year-olds are already working on shoulder-in and a bit of half-pass, but that’s as a training aid, rather than focusing on the dressage tests themselves.”

One of Tom’s go-to exercises at home features fillers in the arena.

“I like to put fillers on an S-bend – the younger horses will jump just two of those, while the older, more established horses will jump three – and I repeat that exercise for a couple of weeks before moving onto something else, such as a bounce grid.”

Cross-country schooling-wise, it once again depends on the horse and their character.

“If we have a young horse that isn’t quite so confident across country, depending on their nature, we would perhaps take them hunting, but also we’re so lucky at Gatcombe that there’s loads of little logs in the woods that we can go and pop as much as we need to.

“Oxstalls cross-country is also just down the road and I go there quite often to build confidence. The older ones I’ve started cross-country schooling more frequently than I used to and we often go to the Dumas’ facilities at Rosamund Farm to do more technical lines and build up from there. We also use the skinnies and brushes from Jump4Joy at home in the arena. It comes down to making it fun and easy for horses who learn to look for the flags.”

It’s clear from our chat that Tom is a big believer in hacking.

“Every horse’s routine is tailor made to suit their needs, but in the winter, every horse has Sunday off, and in the summer, they are all hacked before and after doing any work in the school. During February, we do a lot of long hacks, which are up to an hour and 40 minutes,” he explains.

“All of my horses hack and every horse gets out in the field every day, even throughout the winter, and I think that’s super-important.”

There is one key component, though, that Tom really drums home, and that is the importance of having a good team around his horses.

“Having a good, constant team of staff at home, who really love the horses, is also really important to me – the people that spend the most time with them are the most important people. It’s the day in, day out, knowing that everything is in a routine for the horses that really counts.”

You may also be interested in:

‘I wouldn’t change anything about Paris, apart from the rain – that was a bit s**t!’: Tom McEwen on 2024 Olympics

‘He tried his heart out’: Tom McEwen pipped to an individual podium place after winning Olympic team gold

‘I walked the cross-country course five times, I knew what I was going to do’ – how Yasmin Ingham prepared for the Olympic course she never got to jump

‘I’m good with mares because I am one’: Abi Lyle on her future stars, best advice and why she’s going eventing

Tom McEwen’s groom Adam Short on the Paris Olympics: ‘The medal ceremony was like when Adele steps out on stage’

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

Since Paris 2024, we’ve been catching up with the riders whose stories captured fans’ imaginations, to bring their experiences exclusively to H&H subscribers. Next we have Tom McEwen, who reflects on how his two Olympic Games compare

“Tokyo and Paris were completely different for me,” says 33-year-old British event rider, Tom McEwen, who won team gold and individual silver in Tokyo with Toledo De Kerser and team gold and individual fourth in Paris with JL Dublin.

“Tokyo was my first Olympics and I had no idea what to expect,” Tom explains. “It made me aware of how much more media attention there is surrounding an Olympics compared to a normal championship – and I think it’s super-important for riders to make the most of that.

“The other thing Tokyo taught me is that everyone pays attention – so all your friends that aren’t horsey or the people I went to school with who had no idea why I disappeared during term time sometimes, realised what I was doing. It made me realise the wider appeal the Olympics has.”

Tom McEwen: coping with the pressure

Tom says there was a different kind of pressure at the Tokyo Olympics, compared to Paris.

“When we did our dressage in Tokyo, the pure dressage riders were there, like Carl [Hester], watching us and it was quite a lot of pressure to have those peers and idols watching us the whole time. Then when it was time for us to showjump, the pure showjumpers had arrived, and that brought a lot of pressure, because although there weren’t many eyes watching, the few eyes that were, really knew what they were talking about! For me that was worse than the pressure I felt in Paris in many ways.”

Individuals experience and deal with pressure in different ways – and Tom is no exception.

“I find the part where you can’t do anything the most pressurised,” he states. “For example, the team call-up – I find that much more difficult to deal with than the competition itself. It’s the reason you do hours in the school at home, hours having lessons and hours doing all the extra stuff, like time in the gym and the billion other things that go with horses.

“Where other people might find competing the hardest part to deal with pressure-wise, I find the building up to the competition tougher – all of a sudden you become really critical of things that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, like asking yourself was the walk in that dressage test going to be good enough? Or was that halt square enough? Like, does one average halt out of a million tests really matter?”

Getting that all-important Olympic call

When British Equestrian’s eventing performance manager Dickie Waygood called Tom to confirm his place on the Paris team, Tom was teaching. “I actually missed the call and so I had to call him back in the evening,” he laughs.

On the battle for a place on the British eventing team, Tom says: “It’s been so competitive to try and get into the team, which was highlighted by the number of people who travelled out to Luhmühlen to compete in the CCI4*-S [in June]. So many people were going so well and as per usual, we had to travel a lot to try and secure a team place.”

Tom’s route to Paris with Dubs included a win in the CCI4*-S in Kronenberg in the Netherlands in March, second in the CCI5* in Kentucky in the USA in April and second in the CCI4*-S in Luhmühlen, so he’s not kidding when he says he had to travel.

Taking on horse “at the top of his game”

Tom took on the ride on JL Dublin, or Dubs as he’s known at home, from Nicola Wilson after her fall at Badminton 2022 forced her to retire from the saddle. The now 13-year-old, owned by James and Jo Lambert and Deirdre Johnston, had already secured double gold with Nicola at the 2021 European Championships.

“Dubs was already at the top of his game and was trained incredibly by Nicola and he’s really easy to deal with in every way – he doesn’t have any quirks,” explains Tom. “But at the same time, it’s taken me a full 18 months to make him my own and get him to understand my rhythm across country.

“It’s just been a case of time, especially with the dressage and cross-country. He’s very different to what I’m used to – he’s very placid, very relaxed and sometimes he hides behind that character and keeps a lot of energy to himself and can then release it in a nice way, but that’s not always the best for a good dressage mark.”

Tom McEwen’s Paris Olympics memories

Reflecting further on his Paris experience, Tom says much of it has stayed with him.

“A lot of my time in Paris has stuck with me. I think having been to Tokyo helped with that – I took a lot more of it in this time.

“The atmosphere and the team spirit really stand out in my memory from Paris. Yas [Ingham – the British alternate rider] was incredible all week and Ros [Canter] and Laura [Collett] were excellent teammates. I think that was highlighted by Ros’ 15 penalties – we dealt with it and we all just got on with it and everyone supported each other. That was really cool.

”I wouldn’t change anything from my Paris experience, apart from maybe if it hadn’t rained on my dressage day – that was a bit sh*t!”

Cross-country day stands out for Tom too.

“That was an amazing experience – the noise from the crowd that followed each horse around – and actually, being so close to home, the amount of British flags that were there was amazing.

“Dubs is a born professor and the more people there are to watch, the better – for example going into the arena after a French rider had jumped, the crowd were so noisy and all of the British horses absolutely loved that.”

The British eventing team stayed close to Versailles while competing, but they also got to experience the wider Olympic spirit too.

“We were really lucky to be with our owners near Versailles and have the most amazing hub created by the BEF, but we also got to go and experience the main athletes’ village, which was awesome. It’s vast and you don’t quite realise how big it is,” says Tom.

“I also stayed on with Harriet [Tom’s wife] after the eventing and we watched some of the other sports, such as the swimming, which was really cool.”

With two Olympics, two team golds, and one individual silver medal under his belt by the age of 33, few would bet against Tom adding to that collection at future Games.

You may also be interested in:

Tom McEwen’s groom Adam Short on the Paris Olympics: ‘The medal ceremony was like when Adele steps out on stage’

‘He tried his heart out’: Tom McEwen pipped to an individual podium place after winning Olympic team gold

‘A massive thank you’: double Olympic team gold medallist becomes world number one

Two Olympic gold medal winners relax together as plans for Toledo De Kerser’s future revealed

‘I walked the cross-country course five times, I knew what I was going to do’ – how Yasmin Ingham prepared for the Olympic course she never got to jump

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 this exclusive, subscriber-only interview, Lithuania’s first Olympic rider Justina Vanagaite-Samuile shares how she found her grand prix partner, plus her training ethos that has enabled her to compete against the the world’s best riders on the biggest stage

She describes herself as “the girl from nowhere”, but Lithuania’s first Olympic rider – Justina Vanagaite-Samuile – is certainly going places in the dressage world. Last year alone, she and her first and only grand prix horse Nabab competed in Doha, Saudi Arabia, Czech Republic, Latvia, Estonia and the Paris Olympics. Justina drives her precious cargo thousands of kilometres across Europe in the truck herself, enlisting a friend as a groom.

It may seem a gargantuan task as a one-man band, but Justina, 34, simply adores the sport. She has an infectious enthusiasm, beaming broadly during her tests and celebrating flamboyantly after, blowing kisses and drawing in the crowd. She might not yet be troubling the highest echelons at the very elite level, but she’s become a national hero and she’s demonstrably delighted, even grabbing a selfie with the Lithuanian president in Paris, where he came to support.

“Do what you love, and love what you do, and you will definitely succeed,” she says.

Justina’s joy is coupled with her partnership with Nabab, an 11-year-old Belgian warmblood by Sir Donovan x Krack C. Her Instagram is filled with reels of the pair simply having fun together – cantering through a vast field, riding bareback in a headcollar and a pair of trainers, Nabab wriggling Houdini-style out of his headcollar.

“It’s just me having fun with my horse; sometimes when I’m bored I do interesting things, and one of them is riding in a halter,” smiles Justina, who caught the eye this year as the first rider to compete at international grand prix without spurs.

Justina Vanagaite: Nabab’s journey to grand prix

Justina has been riding Nabab – nicknamed Kebabi – for five and a half years, though she first spotted him three years earlier.

“When Nabab was a three-year-old, I saw his sales video and I liked him, but I said I would like to come and view him,” she says. “That evening I was told the horse was sold.”

Justina knew the person who bought him, and when she wanted to sell him three years later, she sent Justina some videos and asked for help selling him. Justina wasn’t going to let this second chance pass her by.

“I bought him without even trying him – I just lunged him to see he was sound and loaded him into the trailer,” she says.

At that stage, Justina had never even competed internationally – her first FEI competition was a prix st georges in August 2020. She was treating Nabab as a sales project.

“I didn’t think he would become the horse of a lifetime,” she says. “The beginning was not very easy. At first we were competing in club competitions and we were always finishing last. But little by little we started to trust each other and became really good partners.”

Within a year, Justina started to dream of grand prix.

“When he was seven, we started to play with tempis and piaffe and I said to myself that he would be my first grand prix horse,” she says. “Everything he does we started to do as a game. I was just playing with things. He can naturally do passage, so it just felt really easy.

“He’s very talented, but his best attribute of all is his mindset. If a horse is willing to work, he will improve in all ways. You can make them move better, improve other elements, build muscles with correct work, and the horse can be born beautiful. But if they don’t have the right brain, you won’t be able to improve it.”

“What he does depends on both our moods”

But it’s also that Justina Vanagaite’s management style allows for Nabab to express his personality. Like Justina, who describes herself as a “showgirl”, Nabab “always wants to be at the party”.

“He just loves people and attention – he’s super curious, wants to discover everything. He really is the best horse I know.”

When he’s at home, Justina arrives at the stables and puts Nabab with other horses on the walker while she prepares their food. He has ad lib hay, and is fed three feeds a day – nuts with lucerne for breakfast, a mash at lunch and an evening mash with a mix and supplements. In the afternoon she lunges or rides and after that he is turned out in the paddock.

“I ride him three or four times a week,” she says. “After every competition – if I don’t have a few in a row – he gets at least one week off. And after the bigger ones, where there is more travelling, he’ll have 10 days with no riding. I’ll lunge him in a halter instead.

“Some days he just has turnout in the paddock, but if the weather is bad, he’ll do a mix of the walker and riding or lungeing. It always depends on the weather, his mood and my mood.”

Nabab will be 15 when Los Angeles 2028 rolls around, so still in a dressage horse’s prime. But right now, Justina is just basking in the satisfaction of their achievements this year.

“Of course Los Angeles is on my mind, but for now we will just enjoy being together, going to some shows where I really want to go. Nabab will keep enjoying his paddock with his friends and we will see how it goes and where it will lead us. I have more horses in different levels, but for now Kebabi is the one!”

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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

In this exclusive, subscriber-only interview, Becky Moody shares what she looks for in a young horse and we delve into her training routine and the ethos that helped get her home-bred Jagerbomb to the Paris Olympics

One of the most remarkable aspects of Becky Moody and Jagerbomb’s success at the Paris Olympics was that Becky not only rode but also bred and trained Jagerbomb herself, guiding him through every stage of his development.

In a sport often clouded by the misconception that wealth and privilege are required to reach the top, their journey highlighted what’s possible through dedication and skill, making their achievements all the more inspiring.

Becky’s had to be patient throughout a career that’s had its fair share of ups and downs, and that patience carries over to her approach to training.

“The most important thing is that the horses go at the rate that they need to go at, and that you have their bodies and minds in the right place to do it,” Becky explains. “I don’t have any hard and fast rules when it comes to training them through the levels.

“Although I did say for many years that I’d never buy something that was backed without sitting on it, but I broke that rule over Covid when Rebecca Dudley, an agent I work with a lot, rang me about a very nice three-year-old that she thought was my kind of horse. That was Magic Dream – she was the first one we took a punt on and bought without riding.”

That punt looks to have paid off handsomely with Magic Dream being crowned the national seven-year-old champion this September.

As we delve more into her approach to training, Becky shares what she values most when assessing young horses, highlighting the key traits she believes are essential for developing future grand prix competitors

“When they’re less than three years old I find it really hard because I’m not experienced enough looking at youngstock,” she said. “The thing I struggle with at that point is to see what they’re going to end up like conformationally, unless you catch them at the three-weeks or three-month stage.

“But I’ll take a risk on a pretty face,” she laughs. “What I’m looking for is looseness and how the horse pushes energy through their body, and the ease with which they move.

“One of the biggest things I’ve learnt is that spectacular movement isn’t necessarily good movement. I would much rather have an easy, pushing movement that you can develop and improve rather than a horse that is super flamboyant that finds it harder to find their balance.”

When it comes to backing young horses, Becky relies heavily on each individual horse’s mental and physical readiness.

“It massively depends on the horse,” she says, “I think their brains and their bodies tell you what they’re ready to do.

“For instance, we’ve got one four-year-old who we’ve only just backed because as a three-year-old he was just not ready – he looked more like a two-year-old and he just needed more time chilling in the fields.

“I also don’t like doing the backing because I don’t think I give the horses confidence because I’m filling my pants, so Anna Burns who rides for me and is much more chill about it gets them started. She’s brilliant at getting on them and riding forwards – it’s think it’s really important to understand what your strengths and weaknesses are!”

Once a horse is under saddle, even if they’ve only just started being ridden, Becky focuses on their dynamic conformation and how uphill they carry themselves.

“But above everything else, I’m looking at temperament,” she adds. “So when I’m looking at youngsters, I do look at bloodlines more in terms of their trainability than their movement, and how the line looks from that point of view.

“I want to check for how the horse reacts to my aids. For example, what’s their natural reaction when I put my leg on or touch with the whip?

“Even with Magic Dream on the video, I could see her reactions. I remember, there was a moment when she was backing off and the rider gave her a tiny touch to say ‘Go on, you’re fine’ and she nicely, and automatically, folded her pelvis underneath herself and I was like ‘Yeah, that’s a good reaction’.”

Once they’re backed, the young horses school no more than three times a week, for a varying amount of time depending on their energy levels.

“We’re really conscious that we don’t overwork the young ones, they do loads of hacking – we have excellent hills around here,” Becky says.

When it comes to introducing new movements Becky doesn’t see it as a tick-box exercise and again takes a more holistic approach.

“I believe you do things with the horses to help develop them rather than because you need to do them for a test,” she explains. “That’s what I try to say to people when I’m coaching, you have to think of a dressage test as a series of exercises rather than a list of movements that you’re being told to do.

“Everything that we’re training these horses to do should help make them more supple through their body, more engaged, and help develop their balance – if you think of the training process like that it becomes a lot more natural

“And some of them find some things easier than others, but the wonderful thing about what we do is you never know it all because every horse is different and with every horse you have to solve different problems.

“But with that being said, I would have a rough idea in my head of where I’d be aiming for in an ideal world – I just don’t get too worked up about it.”

With movements such as the changes and the piaffe Becky likes to test each horse’s reactions quite early in their training.

“I do actually like playing a little bit with the changes when they’re young, sometimes when they’re even for four or just coming five – before they’ve got super established with the counter canter,” she says.

“I’d just ride a diagonal line and have a blast and see what happens. I’ve found that’s quite often the best time to play with it and then leave them until they’re a little older.

“But it varies, sometimes I’ll be riding a four-year-old and have absolutely no inclination to do a change because I don’t feel like they’ve got any type of balance or control of things, so it depends – you have to find the right moment.

“And likewise, I might start training the piaffe at four or five, but it’s not a real piaffe. It starts off as a jog and I’m using it as a tool to help get the horse a little more reactive.

“It’d start off with just transitions, literally just riding a trot walk transition and giving them a little touch and seeing what their reaction is.

“Or by picking up the walk to make it a bit shorter and think about creating more energy – some of them at that point just jog and you’re like ‘Oh good, we can leave that’.”

This is the process Jagerbomb went through, but his work looks quite different now he’s established at the highest level, with the focus switching to marginal gains and conditioning.

“This is the first time I’ve ever had a horse at grand prix that I’ve just been trying to get better, and it’s helped me understand things in a different way,” Becky enthuses.

“It’s like, getting to grand prix is only part of the journey. It’s a different outlook now, because we’re thinking now about things like strengthening to make things more expressive, and really getting into the nitty, gritty details.

“We’re working a lot on the suppling and alignment side of things at the moment. For instance, he has a half pass left for an 8.5 but to the right it’s 7.5 because we don’t have the same suppleness, and that then means we don’t have the same push or the expression – so it’s very small differences.”

Becky has also started to do more sport-specific physiotherapy work to improve her performance.

“I remember in Paris I felt a bit like I was struggling to get my leg on because Bomb was so hot, and my sister Hannah [Moody] kept telling me off because my leg was too far forward,” Becky recalls.

“Then Carl [Hester] starting saying it too, so of course Hannah was absolutely delighted because Carl was agreeing with her. I mentioned it to the World Class Scheme’s physio Ash Wallace and she looked at my hips and I had one that was totally more blocked than the other.

“After she’d helped me I felt so much better when I was riding and it was a real important reminder that we do have to take responsibility for ourselves as riders to help our horses be even and level.”

Becky Moody credits her logical and systematic approach to her long-term coach David Hunt. “He’s almost like a life coach at this point as well,” she adds.

“One of his biggest philosophies is that you’re better to do the wrong thing with confidence than the right thing with none. If you don’t believe in what you’re doing and don’t commit to what you’re doing, then the horse doesn’t believe you.”

• 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

You may also be interested in:

‘Not every day is a perfect day – patience and positivity are very important’: Lottie Fry shares her training mantras 

‘If I couldn’t compete it wouldn’t bother me’: Olympian Abi Lyle’s training mantras, including why praise, variety and turnout are key

‘I literally couldn’t walk or halt!’: Becky Moody relives her medal-winning tests at the Paris Olympics

‘I’m good with mares because I am one’: Abi Lyle on her future stars, best advice and why she’s going eventing

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

Ireland’s Abi Lyle achieved what many top riders aspire to and only a select few attain when she competed at the Paris Olympics this summer – but what does the future hold?

Abi thrives on training horses – more so than competing – and that hasn’t changed since riding at the Olympics.

“It’s funny, I don’t have children but they say doing an Olympics is like childbirth and that you say ‘Never again’. Then time passes and you think, ‘Hmm, maybe I could do it again’. I’m still transitioning,” laughs Abi.

“Of course, if I’ve got a horse that’s good at the time, then absolutely. But I’m not going to say ‘Right which one’s going, what am I going to do?’. We’ll just see.”

Abi Lyle’s current horses

Abi has a promising string of six horses; her top rides Giraldo (Arty) and Farrell are joined by eight-year-old Francesca II (Chessie), who is competing at prix st georges, seven-year-old Sun Rose (Shirley), who is at advanced medium, plus five-year-olds Olenza (Lenny) and Firedance Caledonia (Fawkes).

Abi produced Arty and Farrell from young horses to grand prix, and it was Farrell she rode at the 2023 European Championships. They were both qualified for Paris, but Abi leaned towards Arty, with the atmosphere in mind.

“When I found out there was a Paris slot I wanted to focus more on the one I would take and I thought I could do a better job with Arty. I feel guilty for saying that, and there were times I questioned my decision, even not that far out from selection,” she explains.

“I knew Paris was going to be an atmosphere like I’d never experienced before, and Arty is the most bombproof, chilled, easy-going horse. That’s really why I chose him because I knew when he saw all the things he’d see, he would be absolutely fine – and he was.

“But it’s nice they’re at the same level; they’re very different to ride but they complement each other, if there’s something you wish you had more of on one, you can ride it on the other and get that feeling.”

Since returning from Paris, Arty has been just ticking over, then headed to the Burghley dressage demo, and Abi says he feels “so good and fresh” following the Games.

“I’m not sure what’s next for Arty, I loved the London International, so maybe he’ll do that – or maybe Farrell wants to do that.”

Discussing her string, Abi says “there isn’t a weak link”.

“They’re all gorgeous and really strong in different areas,” she says.

“They’ve all got good temperaments, and I’ve got such wonderful and supportive owners. You’ve got to be really confident in the people you have around you and who is going to be standing there when you’re going into these big events, and I’m over the moon to have them standing there in the kiss and cry.”

Abi’s top rides may be geldings, but she “loves” working with mares.

“I’m inclined to say I’m very good with mares, and I think I’m good with them because I am one. You discuss everything with them and you pick your battles. I think it’s important with each one to decide what you’re fussy about and what you’re not,” she says.

“A rule I have with all horses, if you’re getting nowhere then it’s OK to quit that day. They won’t hold a grudge. Especially with mares, I think there’s days where things can just be a fluke. With one, she was jumping everything and then one day wouldn’t go over a pole, then the next was absolutely fine. Some days you can say ‘It’s not today’, and that’s important with mares.”

Abi Lyle – not just a dressage rider

Looking further ahead, Abi reveals plans to mix things up – she has a love for showjumping, but keep your eyes peeled for her on a cross-country course.

“Ingrid Klimke, that’s the vibe,” says Abi. “I’d love to be able to dabble in other things. I don’t think I could event to three-star or anything like that, but I’d love to maybe have a toe in another discipline. For me the idea of getting a medal or scoring 80% is not as inviting as the potential of being able to be working across disciplines – that’s a little bit more of a goal I’d have for now. I don’t know how I’m going to achieve it because I’d need another horse, but that is something I’d be super interested in.

“I’m supposed to be doing a British Eventing BE80 competition soon with a client’s horse. If we don’t get it done before the end of the season it’s not the end of the world, but it’s going happen at some point – and it has to happen because I’ve told the whole of Instagram, and the Irish eventing team, so I’d look really silly if I didn’t do it!”

Abi will also continue with her regular coaching commitments.

“It’s been a journey in coaching, I really lacked confidence with it and I still do sometimes. But I enjoy it and I think it really helps my riding. You’ll be teaching someone and they’re having a problem and you magic up an exercise, and then think ‘I’ll use that’,” she says.

Being realistic

When it comes to giving others advice on following their dreams, Abi says the most important thing is to set achievable goals – a mantra she followed in Paris.

“I read a book by Steve Magness, an amazing sports coach. He says if you’re doing something important take your last five scores and average them, and that’s your goal. He says it’s so important to be realistic about what you want to achieve or otherwise you’re going to be disappointed,” explains Abi.

“Have your dreams absolutely, but when it comes to what you’re doing now be super realistic, because you don’t get better by not being confident. If you have an achievable aim and you reach that then you’re going to get more confident. And you’ve got to be prepared for something being difficult. A really good motto I have, and this was my motto going into Paris was, ‘This is going to be hard but I’m perfectly capable’.”

There is no doubt that Abi is proud of her Paris achievements, but when asked if it has changed her life, it’s an easy no.

“I came home to my same little house, and everything day to day is the same. I am the same,” she says diplomatically, but she has already been spotted for her achievements when outside of horses, thanks to her new tattoo of the Olympic rings accompanied by Giraldo’s name.

“The only thing I would say is in ‘civilian’ life, being at the Olympics is something that people know what you’re talking about. I was at the Taylor Swift concert and someone saw my tattoo and they said ‘May I ask, did you do the Olympics?’ It’s a really good talking point,” laughs Abi.

“But on a deeper level, I really didn’t know if I could do the Olympics, to ride in that sort of atmosphere and hold my nerve, and I did. And I’m really, really proud.”

One thing that is next for Abi is a well-deserved break – and her first holiday in five years.

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

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‘If I couldn’t compete it wouldn’t bother me’: Olympian Abi Lyle’s training mantras, including why praise, variety and turnout are key

‘Arty is my heart horse – I sat watching him for hours in Paris’: Abi Lyle shares her special Olympic memories

‘It’s been a wild ride’: Abi Lyle shines for Ireland with emotional performance in the Olympic dressage grand prix

‘It helps to know that others struggle, too’: Abi Lyle on the power of social media in dressage

The Horse & Hound Podcast 131: International dressage rider Abi Lyle | Teaching horses to stand still | News round-up

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

When Jessica von Bredow-Werndl brought her double Olympic champion TSF Dalera BB home from Paris 2024, the first thing she did was turn her out “as soon as possible”. The 17-year-old mare loves her daily turnout (in front brushing boots and over-reach boots). Dalera’s homecoming ritual after any competition always consists of both grazing and hacking.

We now know that Dalera has contested her final competition, although she will still appear at certain shows on a farewell tour and Jessica confirmed that the mare will stay in work.

“I think she would be super disappointed if I didn’t continue to ride her!” Jessica says. “Luckily we have got some more shows together, not to compete, but to enjoy each other and to give the audience that chance to feel that too.”

The pair have been “dancing together”, as Jessica puts it, for nine years. Jessica is proud that Dalera has never been lame, and puts their success down to a mutual partnership, where she listens carefully to what the mare is telling her. 

“What we have is more than a partnership, it’s on another level. We have a very special bond.”

Jessica von Bredow-Werndl: “Dalera tells me when she wants to train”

At home, their training has always been structured around Dalera’s desires.

“She is talking to me,” explains Jessica. “OK, maybe I am a good listener, but she really tells me what she wants to do and when. 

“She tells me how long she wants to hack out, or she tells me when needs a canter – or a wild canter up the galloping track. And she tells me when she wants to work. She is just too good for everyone!”

Dalera’s days at home do not consist of endless drills in the school. Besides her daily turnout – since Paris she has had a field companion, 11-year-old grand prix mare Forsazza De Malleret – she “loves her cuddle sessions” and long hacks.

“We canter through the forest, hacking out a lot and spending so much extra quality time together,” Jessica says. “We go strolling around, eating grass, massaging – that time together is special too, not just riding her.

“I think I have found a good rhythm between technical training, regeneration and conditioning training, so this keeps the whole work/life balance so good for her because when we have the regeneration part we are hacking out for days,” she explains.

“Then she tells me when she wants to train again. She is a very good communicator about what she needs, which is so cool. So when we are hacking out after a competition, she tells me when she wants to start training. Sometimes it’s day three, sometimes day five, but when she starts playing around when we’re hacking out it means let’s start to do something.”

In Paris Jessica said that this year the veteran mare was feeling “more athletic than ever – she has all the strength she needs and more”. However, with the full set of four gold medals from the past two Olympics, individual golds at the past two European Championships and World Cup titles to boot, there is nothing left for Dalera to prove. She goes out on a high – and it looks like very little is set to change in a daily routine filled with plenty of attention and human intuition on how she spends her time.

“I will continue to thank her again and again her, I kiss her and cuddle her,” says Jessica. “I will spoil her until the last day of her life.”

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

You might also be interested in:

‘Arty is my heart horse – I sat watching him for hours in Paris’: Abi Lyle shares her special Olympic memories

‘The fear of mistakes knocked on my door every day’: Jessica von Bredow-Werndl on the ‘mental toolbox’ that helped her win Olympic gold

Future plans for veteran gold medal-winner TSF Dalera BB confirmed

‘London 52 wanted it as much as I did’: Laura Collett relives her Olympic medal-winning performance at Paris 2024

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

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

“I’m very lucky,” says Lottie Fry. She moved to the Netherlands in 2014 to train with the van Olsts and has lived there ever since. Anne van Olst is a five-time Olympian and Lottie’s trainer and mentor, and the operation focuses on stallions at stud, dressage, training, youngstock and buying and selling horses. Lottie’s good fortune is in the horses she rides. 

She explains that Anne’s husband, Gertjan van Olst, “is breeding horses all the time, and always trying to improve”. There are currently 27 much-garlanded stallions on the Van Olst site including household names such as Everdale and Glamourdale.

Lottie adds: “One of the top attributes that Gertjan’s looking for is good character. It’s very important, right from the beginning, especially for stallions, because they need to balance the breeding and the sport – and it’s very difficult unless they have good character.”

What exactly is “good character”? It means “they love their job”, Lottie explains. “I love it when you get on a horse and they want to please and want to do the job for you. It makes my job easier! They’re very easy to train, and the breeding offspring we have are so talented as young horses.”

“It’s very important to take every horse as an individual, they’re all slightly different, there will never be two the same, so we keep an open mind and train them each as they need to be trained. Some take longer, we go at their speed,” adds Lottie.

That good character has to include a certain stage-craft to perform well in dressage, they need to “have that showmanship; the stallion side makes it very exciting”.

No shortcuts to building a partnership

It’s essential to be attentive to their characters from the beginning, Lottie says: “Once you start to work, you see how the horses react on the ground around you, how they are in the stable, if they’re nervous or confident and you build them up to create a partnership. The better they know you and you know them, the more likely it’s going to go well.”

There’s no shortcut to building rapport, Lottie points out: “It comes with time, it’s the same as humans, some trust a lot easier than others, but when you gain the trust, they’ll do anything for you.”

Case in point is Glamourdale, Lottie’s Olympic team and individual bronze medallist. The bond is tangible and she says: “I’ve been riding him since he was six. In the beginning, I was very young as well and we grew together. I always trusted him from the start and he me as well. \\

“I remember thinking the first time I sat on him, I don’t think I’ve ever ridden anything this amazing, it was an incredible feeling. When you’re really positive about horses they get very positive about their work and enjoy it.”

“When you canter it’s like flying,” Lottie Fry on Glamourdale

What was that feeling? “He’s so powerful when you canter it’s like flying, but he’s also elastic and supple at the same time, and it’s rare to be so powerful and elegant; he’s the perfect dressage horse,” says Lottie.

Training takes place four times a week, sessions are well planned and “every day is a little different – we never work on the same things, so I take what I need to work on, and focus on that more specifically. We don’t do everything every day – I’d never do the whole grand prix in one session,” explains Lottie.

At home, Glamourdale is engaged with everyone. “If you come into the stable and say, ‘hi’, he immediately replies! He’s super chatty and he loves getting treats. He’s the king, so why shouldn’t he? If someone else gets a treat, he has to have one as well, even if they’ve just worked, he has to have one as well, just for being Glammy!”.

The horses all enjoy their freedoms, but, to put it mildly: “It’s not easy with breeding stallions. Anything that moves unsupervised they think might be for breeding. We have special individual paddocks for stallions, with proper fences; the geldings and mares are out in the fields.”

It’s not a training principle as such, but Lottie and the team never lose sight of the fact that the horses are their own entities, and “not every day is a perfect day, as with us. When you work with animals, patience and positivity are very important.”

Lottie Fry – the basics are key

If sessions aren’t progressing, Lottie goes back to basics, and says that they spend 90% of the time working on basics: walk, trot, canter, straight lines, transitions. “They’re all needed in the movement eventually, and if the basics are good, it’s so much easier”.

Holidays are incorporated into the schedule, particularly after a major competition – when we talk, Glammy is having an easy few weeks after the Paris Olympics, “stretching, hacking, chilling” and will be slowly built back for the winter season and breeding again.

The key to keeping these star athletes happy in training is making the work enjoyable, which means variety. This includes hacking, a water treadmill, and grass turnout. There’s also regular physio, light therapy and “a lot of attention”.

“They feel good about themselves,” Lottie says.

After a few weeks off, “Glammy wants to work. He’s quite fresh and he definitely misses the work. It’s a really nice thing, he gets excited to start training,” Lottie says, adding, “He’s a very happy pony.”

Describing a 16.3hh breeding stallion as a “happy pony” shows the profound level of affection in which this horse is held.

You may also be interested in reading…

‘We make a lot of sacrifices’: Lottie Fry on what it takes to achieve such success before turning 30, plus what’s next

‘If I couldn’t compete it wouldn’t bother me’: Olympian Abi Lyle’s training mantras, including why praise, variety and turnout are key

‘I literally couldn’t walk or halt!’: Becky Moody relives her medal-winning tests at the Paris Olympics

‘Dalera was pushing me out of the hammock to get going’: how Jessica von Bredow-Werndl kept her Olympic champion ‘playful and happy’ through the Games

‘Arty is my heart horse – I sat watching him for hours in Paris’: Abi Lyle shares her special Olympic memories

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

Top riders often talk about developing their own system, but modest Irish dressage rider Abi Lyle says she’s “still figuring this out”.

“I don’t know how much of a style of my own I have yet. I’m obviously heavily influenced by Carl (Hester) and Gareth (Hughes), but I’m also influenced by being Irish in that I love jumping and doing a bit of everything,” she says.

Perhaps surprisingly for an Olympic rider, it’s not competition that motivates Abi.

“It’s not that I’m not grateful for the success I’ve had competing, but I just really love working with horses, training them and being with them,” she explains.

“I loved the covid lockdown, I thrived so much. For some reason if I couldn’t compete it wouldn’t bother me… I enjoy it when I compete, but it’s not where my motivation lies,” she explains.

“Some people might say I’m not a great sportsperson for that reason, but I think it’s a good mindset to have as an equestrian. I’m more interested in partnership and longevity with horses, than scores.”

What does Abi Lyle look for in a horse?

“I don’t really have a set ‘something’ I look for, and any horses I ride have come to me. But I want horses that seem like they want to do it; they look happy to be tacked up, and interact with me,” she says, adding that a good temperament is key.

“I like to figure them all out and I like to work out what they need in terms of their personality. I’ve never had an established horse to ride, they’ve always been young or green. The oldest horse I’ve ever had was six, and that was Farrell [Abi’s 2023 Europeans ride].

“I don’t really have a preference when it comes to bloodlines, I think they all have something to offer. I have Arty’s half-sister (Olenza) and she’s by Glamourdale and out of Arty’s mum Valenza (by Flemmingh). Temperament comes a lot from the mare; they are the ones giving the foal their first experiences and laying the boundaries, so I think looking at the mare is really important.”

Training for success

When it comes to training Abi believes less is more, and she says having someone on the ground is an important factor for gauging progress.

“I do a lot of riding the horse on both sides; if you’re spiralling in, then spiral out, do left and right shoulder in on the same rein. Moving the horse around a lot is something I always do with all of them, even in the warm-up,” she explains.

Abi believes in variety when it comes to training, and while she enjoys hacking and this is included in most of her horse’s routines, including her Olympic ride Arty, she adds that it isn’t essential for all horses if they don’t enjoy it.

“It depends where you are in terms of roads, and the horse. I have two horses that don’t enjoy it, one that I had a collision with a cyclist with. But both these horses love jumping, so when the others hack they’ll jump that day. Why make them do something they don’t want to?,” she says, adding that being based at showjumper Georgie Round’s yard helps with her jumping training.

“Georgie might have an exercise out, and we have poles out a lot. I absolutely love jumping, and used to compete up to 1.20m in Ireland – though I emphasise poorly! But if I had a horse that could, I’d jump around 1.30m tomorrow.”

Abi applies the “rule of age” when working with young horses.

“Four-year-olds work four days a week, five-year-olds do five days, and if they are six and up they’ll do six days. For the four-year-olds Monday is generally a lunge to get their bodies going, they’ll then do a schooling session, a hack, and another school. If they’re five they might hack again, or school,” she explains.

“Some people might turn a three- or four-year-old away but I prefer to always have a hand on them so mine get a lot more intermittent holidays, and if they’ve just done their first show they might get a week or two after that.”

“I’m a big believer in reward, I train all my horses to stop when I whistle,” says Abi. “It means if I want to quickly walk and give them a break, I whistle, they’ll walk, get a pat, and then do a circle, and then we pick up and go again. But, if it’s something a bit more intense, like training piaffe, the pockets will very much be filled and the treats will be administered.”

And training piaffe is one movement Abi can be particularly proud of.

“The two horses I’ve produced from youngsters to grand prix are Arty and Farrell. Arty’s piaffe isn’t always his best in the actual test because he can get a bit tight, but they’re both very good at piaffe. Carl did say to me once ‘This isn’t a coincidence’ – which was a really nice thing for him to say,” says Abi.

“I also love teaching a flying change. My method has changed over the years, and for me it’s about the shape of the horse and the canter. You need a bouncy canter, the kind that you’d want coming to a big vertical fence. On a line I do a lot of simple changes; I’m not worried about the walk transition, but I want it to be really snappy when I ask them to canter again. From that I put them into a little bit of renvers so their bodies are positioned where they need to change.

“It’s incredibly unglamorous at the start, and I always say with changes you will want to tear your hair out, then all of a sudden they’ll come.”

Turnout is key, says Abi Lyle

One thing you can always expect to find at Abi’s yard is turned out horses.

“I like them to go in the field and move – that’s my biggest thing. They all have buddies and go out as a pair,” she says. “And I don’t like them to be ridden then not leave the stable again, they’ll either go back out, or go for a walk, or on the walker.

“I’m quite old school when it comes to management and I believe less is more. But I do like to use a massage rug, and when I used to be near a water treadmill everyone went every week, but I don’t have one very close now.”

Abi also takes a less is more approach to tack on occasion…

“If I can ride them without a bridle I will. I wouldn’t say I’m doing natural horsemanship or anything like that, but I’ve ridden a few without a bridle, and jumped one. If I can do stuff like that I will,” she says.

“Sometimes I’ll close the doors, let them loose in the school and muck about and have fun. I remember once riding a mare and getting off her thinking ‘This isn’t happening’, so I just ran around the school with her and had a lovely time.

“You can get too regimented in thinking that you’ve got to ride and ‘do this’, and you’ve got to be achieving every time, but spending time with your horse is still achieving.”

You may also be interested in reading…

‘Arty is my heart horse – I sat watching him for hours in Paris’: Abi Lyle shares her special Olympic memories

‘I literally couldn’t walk or halt!’: Becky Moody relives her medal-winning tests at the Paris Olympics

‘We make a lot of sacrifices’: Lottie Fry on what it takes to achieve such success before turning 30, plus what’s next

‘Dalera was pushing me out of the hammock to get going’: how Jessica von Bredow-Werndl kept her Olympic champion ‘playful and happy’ through the Games

‘I walked the cross-country course five times, I knew what I was going to do’ – how Yasmin Ingham prepared for the Olympic course she never got to jump

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 this exclusive, subscriber-only interview, Paris Olympics team bronze medallist Becky Moody relives her medal-winning rides on Jagerbomb and gives an insight into the behind-the-scenes action that lead to that success

For those who’ve been involved in British dressage for some time, there was something so cathartic in watching Becky Moody and Jagerbomb impress on the world stage and win a team bronze medal at the Paris Olympics.

Since winning the Pony Talent Spotting Final at 14, Becky has been a fixture on the circuit in her iconic brown tailcoat, winning more than 30 national titles and training countless other riders up through the levels.

Seeing all those years of unwavering dedication and tireless hard work rewarded, while riding a horse she bred, raised and trained herself, encapsulates the dream of what is possible in the sport.

“My diary was chock-a-block as soon as I got back so I haven’t had much time to think about it all,” Becky admits, after a short pause. “I’d say it’s been surreal – it almost feels like it never happened.”

We’re speaking two months on from Paris, and while Becky has been non-stop, Jagerbomb has been enjoying some well-earned downtime in the field.

As we wave our arms and rustle his favourite treats to perk him up for the photos, it’s hard to believe Becky when she says this nonchalant gelding – who looked wholly accustomed to his new level of fame – was one of the hottest horses she’s ever ridden while in Paris.

“This is why nobody quite believes the horse I had before the grand prix,” she laughs. “Normally, he is a very laid back character. He had been to Compiègne and Rotteradam earlier in the season, which gave him some exposure to stadium atmospheres, and while he was hotter there, it was in a manageable way.

“But in Paris he was ridiculous – pinging around and thinking it was the best thing ever. I was on the first day of the grand prix on the Tuesday and when I rode him on Sunday after the trot up, I was really expecting him to have settled by that point, and he just hadn’t.

“I literally couldn’t walk or halt because he was so full of energy and excited by everything, and I was like ‘Oh my goodness, this is not how I wanted it to be!’

“But Carl [Hester] was fantastic and we made a plan and by Monday evening I was feeling in a much better place.”

On the morning of the grand prix itself, Becky admitted the waiting was the toughest part, especially with the pressure of the crowd.

“I wasn’t on until four o’clock on Tuesday so I had the whole day to think about what was coming and it made me feel a little queasy,” she says. “It was nice to be able to watch Carl who went earlier but I don’t like watching too much so spent a lot of time in the stables – which was the nicest place to be because the air-conditioning was so good.

“Once I’m on it’s fine, it’s the sitting around before you get on that’s the horrible bit. The heat was tough. I warmed-up in the covered arena and then probably for the last 15 minutes went outside. I’d drunk a lot of water but probably not enough electrolytes and when I went outside I felt quite light-headed. I even asked my groom Kim for a sugar cube!”

Despite the heat and the nerves, the pair produced a mistake-free round to score 74.94% and top Group C in the grand prix.

“So many people messaged me after the class and to say how nice it was to see someone smiling doing their test,” Becky recalls. “But I was absolutely not smiling, I was grimacing and squinting in the sun, apparently I just can’t squint with my mouth shut!”

But while the pair were impressive in the grand prix, they excelled in the special. Going first for the team, and on their championship debut, they were close to faultless, scoring a new personal best of 76.49%.

“I was in the morning, so I managed to force some breakfast down bright and early,” Becky recalls. “I rode him first thing and then put him away so we could both have the physios look at us. I think that’s something people don’t really see, but the support team that we have around are incredible.

“I then always plait up. It’s my thing, I love it, and it’s part of my mental prep. I use that time to focus and visualise my test and think through it.”

Becky adds that there are always a few “set pieces” she rides in the warmup, but in Paris she tried to stay adaptable.

“We knew the passage, to trot, to half-pass was something he was fragile in, so we practiced that before the test. One thing we did differently is that we didn’t really practice the piaffe. I think I maybe did one piaffe in the warm-up for each test, and that was it.

“That was a tiny bit daunting for me because I’d never done that in a warm-up. Normally, I’d probably have to do quite a lot of piaffe as a sort of motivating thing but he was so on it, and I didn’t want him to be off in his halts, so we just left it alone.

“And it worked – because the wonderful thing about him is how much he wants to do it, and that’s what got me through the special as well as it did.

“That test is a marathon, but even on that final centre line he was ‘I’m ready for more, what’s next’, which is great because as a rider my job became saying ‘Whoa, balance, organise, good boy, you’re fine’ rather than ‘Come on, you need to be a little sharper’, which makes for a much better picture.”

Becky did manage to get everyone a bit nervous when she cut it close, leaving a second of her allotted 45 to spare before entering the arena.

“That was just to freak everyone out,” she laughs. “It was because we’d been doing a lot of canter, walk, canter to help him with the halts and I wanted to do a couple of those before I rode my first centre line.

“But he was still a little bit tense and tight still, so I was like, ‘I’ve got to do another one.’ I could see the clock so I was sure I had time, I don’t think everyone else was though!”

One moment that stands out for Becky is standing on the podium alongside some of the sport’s greatest names.

“That was the coolest thing and the picture of us all up there is one of my top five favourite photos of all time. To look at that picture and think that these guys have been my absolute inspiration and role models was incredible, and to be there with Lottie [Fry] as well who I taught when she was a wee nipper in BD Youth, it just goes to show how things can change when you graft and work hard.”

You may also be interested in:

‘I brushed my teeth and Glamourdale listened to his music’ – how double Olympic bronze medallist Lottie Fry prepared for glory in Paris

‘We make a lot of sacrifices’: Lottie Fry on what it takes to achieve such success before turning 30, plus what’s next

‘Arty is my heart horse – I sat watching him for hours in Paris’: Abi Lyle shares her special Olympic memories

‘Dalera was pushing me out of the hammock to get going’: how Jessica von Bredow-Werndl kept her Olympic champion ‘playful and happy’ through the Games

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

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

Lottie Fry has already won – take a deep breath – individual gold in the 2018 Under-25 European Dressage Championship, individual gold at the World Breeding Dressage Championships for Young Horses in 2018 (with a then seven-year-old Glamourdale) and 2021, team silver at the 2021 Europeans, as well as team gold and individual silver at the 2023 Europeans, team silver plus individual gold in both the special and freestyle (with a personal best of 90.995% on Glamourdale) at the 2022 World Championship, plus team bronze at the Tokyo Olympics (with Everdale), and team and individual bronze at the 2024 Paris Olympics with Glamourdale. She is yet to celebrate her 30th birthday.

All this, and yet, when asked how the Olympic medals in particular have changed her life, she replies with a surprised laugh, “I’ve never really thought about it!”. She wears her spectacular success very lightly.

With a bit of gentle prodding, she admits that it’s important to realise the achievement, and behind that, the work that goes in to make it all look so easy. Effortless rarely is. The debrief after any competition “goes on for a long time and is still going on now”, she says, “it’s a constant conversation, how we can improve, what can we do better in future”.

She relies heavily on Anne van Olst, her trainer and owner who “sees me ride every single day at competition and is always looking. We’re always working together to get the best, we discuss how it feels, how it looks. We plan each training session, so we know what will happen every day.”

Lottie was working one week a month, aged 16, in exchange for lessons with Carl Hester and it was Carl who connected Lottie with Anne van Olst, a successful Danish dressage rider, five-time Olympian and Danish national champion, and now Lottie’s coach and mentor. Lottie moved to the Netherlands in 2014 as a teenager and she starts her working day at 5am.

She says, “horses aren’t a job or a career, it’s a lifestyle and we really put 24 hours a day, seven days a week into the horses. We make a lot of sacrifices to be where we are. It’s pretty amazing to have something to show for all the work. My partnership with Glammy isn’t something that happens very often – it’s very special.”

When we speak, Lottie’s preparing for the World Breeding Dressage Championships for Young Horses, with two six-year-olds, and next year she will have “a few more” rides ready to start competing at grand prix for experience, and she expects to have Everdale and Glamourdale ready to prepare for next season.

As for rising stars, she cites Kjento, sired by Negro (sire of Valegro, dam-sire of Glamourdale) with whom Lottie won the World Breeding Dressage Championships for Young Horses as both a six-year-old (scoring 96%) and seven-year-old, and Nespresso (also by Negro), with whom Lottie has already competed internationally, including a win in the grand prix freestyle at Lier in March. “All of that will keep me busy!”, she says.

Riders she’s impressed with include Andrew Gould, who became the new alternate for Paris when Becky Moody stepped into Charlotte Dujardin’s place in the team at short notice. “It was incredible to have him there, he’s got an amazing horse, Indigro, and it’s not an easy place to be [as reserve]. He was so supportive and a really good teammate and fun. Also we saw with alternates Yas Ingham and Joe Stockdale, it’s a really difficult position and all three were pretty amazing”.

Dressage, along with all equestrian sport, has come under the glare of an unwelcome spotlight, with familiar questions about welfare, social licence, and whether there is even a place at all for horses in sport, all making national headlines. Looking at the future of dressage, for Lottie this is inextricably linked with convincing the sceptics about the exceptional care the horses receive.

She says, “I really hope we can get it across to the public how much we love and adore the horses. They couldn’t want for anything, they are treated to the best every single day. People don’t see it because it’s behind the scenes, so they don’t see how all our horses are looked after, and how happy they are to do their job. I know from experience they love to go into the arenas, they love to compete and perform, it’s a part of who they are, and it’s something I hope everyone will see.”

Lottie can trace her equestrian lineage back to Sixpence, her first pony (“white, tiny, cheeky”), the first in an infinite line of ponies and horses. “I have to thank every single one that has contributed to my career, and my life as a rider,” she says.

Lottie has returned home from Paris 2024 with two bronzes, and a souvenir mascot to add to the collection – she has one from Tokyo – and her eyes firmly on the future. “I’m very motivated,” she says. Her success is her rocket fuel. “It really drives you to know that it’s possible, and it makes you hungry for more.”

You may also be interested in reading:

‘Arty is my heart horse – I sat watching him for hours in Paris’: Abi Lyle shares her special Olympic memories

‘Dalera was pushing me out of the hammock to get going’: how Jessica von Bredow-Werndl kept her Olympic champion ‘playful and happy’ through the Games

‘I walked the cross-country course five times, I knew what I was going to do’ – how Yasmin Ingham prepared for the Olympic course she never got to jump

‘I was slipping everywhere!’: Lottie Fry and Glamourdale continue their winning streak – in a dramatic rainstorm

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As we now know, Paris 2024 would be the swansong for Jessica von Bredow-Werndl’s ride TSF Dalera BB, the all-conquering mare with multiple gold medals to her name. Between July 2022 and July 2024 they reigned in an unbeaten stretch that incorporated 36 classes at the highest level. However, in the Olympic grand prix special at the start of August, they were just pipped to the win, by Denmark’s new pairing of Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour and Freestyle.

The mark of a champion is not just what they win, but how they bounce back from their blips. With Dalera’s sub-par test, Germany’s team gold by a 0.12% margin over Denmark in the Olympic team dressage was tighter than envisaged. This was partly due to a rare miscommunication in the piaffe.

“We had a hiccup – actually a huge misunderstanding – which cost us a lot of points, but luckily we connected again and brought it home,” Jessica said after securing the team title.

Their harmony is their hallmark, so it was rare to see that falter, and a credit to their relationship, class and resilience that Jessica not only regained their mutual composure during that grand prix special to secure team gold, but came out for the following day’s freestyle back on top form.

“She is always leaving her heart in there for me, especially when it is such a big atmosphere,” Jessica says. “She has her antennae 100% on me, so when I am in the here and now and totally focused, she is as well. This is what makes her so special and this is why I can ride her with so little aids. It looks so easy, but she makes it easy for me because she is listening so well.”

Jessica von Bredow-Werndl: “I just tell Dalera what test is coming next”

Jessica explains how she managed the mare in Paris so that she could achieve this level of focus in front of a crowd of 16,000 and the weight of expectation on her shoulders. Between each of the three tests – the grand prix, the special and the freestyle – Dalera had different routines to bring out the best in her.

“On the first day [off] after the grand prix, Dalera was completely off – I didn’t ride her, only strolled around with her four or five times a day,” Jessica says. “We went grassing, massaging her, like at home. Then the next day I did some little check-ups for the special like walk to piaffe, and showed her that the passage to canter is now from the right – just telling her what’s coming up next.”

After the glitch in the special, Jessica could have been tempted to put a bit more work in to check all their transitions were watertight. But she didn’t waver from her routine.

“For the freestyle, I don’t prepare for it,” she says. “Dalera and I always listen to her freestyle music while I’m plaiting her mane so then she knows the freestyle is coming.

“She is so smart and so funny,” Jessica adds. “I wanted to sleep [the morning of the freestyle], so I was in the hammock in her stable, but she was just playing with me, and trying to push me out because she wanted to get on with it. She was so playful, cheeky and happy. And then when I walked her – we always do the “peepee” walk so she can pee – and she was kind of smiling. She knew that was the day and she just did it. She knows everything.”

The key word was trust. Jessica says the pressure of playing anchorman for the German team had affected her in the special, and she reset her mind.

“The change from the special to the freestyle was in the heart. I didn’t change anything – no equipment, nothing about Dalera,” she says. “I woke up and thought, ‘It’s all about love, joy and trust. She is enough, I am enough, and together we can do it.’ We have proved so often we can do it, so I didn’t need to fix anything. It’s about letting go, to surrender.”

Less is more for Dalera’s prep

Dalera’s freestyle warm-up was minimal.

“I didn’t even do a whole pirouette in the warm-up, just tested it a little,” says Jessica. “She went in with dry hair and came out with dry hair. It was just a mental game.”

And as a result, “She was 1,000% with me. She had no ear or eye anywhere else but by me. She was listening so carefully and really showed me this is what she wants to do – it’s what makes it so emotional because I don’t know if I will ever get another horse like her. At the end, I knew I couldn’t have done better and nor could she.”

It was indeed good enough for a second individual gold medal, the climax of years of planning. After the Tokyo Olympics, Jessica – then six weeks pregnant with her second child – was walking along a beach in Spain with her husband Max, listening to Je Ne Regrette Rien.

“I played this music, and got goosebumps on my whole body,” she says. “I told my husband, ‘this is the music; this is what I want to do’. I used the whole pregnancy to create Dalera’s new freestyle. And just before I got too big to do extended trot, I filmed the choreography.”

Dalera now retires to a life of hacking, pampering, exhibition shows and maybe motherhood. But what a way to leave the sport – dancing to a gold medal in front of a French crowd to the tones of Edith Piaf.

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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

“Oh my God, this is the call,” Yasmin Ingham remembers thinking, when she saw technical director and performance manager Richard (Dickie) Waygood’s number flash up on her phone as she had a cup of tea one morning in July. It was indeed the call – she was going to Paris 2024 as the alternate or reserve rider for the British eventing team.

She was ready, coming into Paris “massively on form” as the reigning World Champion, finishing third at Kentucky in May and winning Luhmülen with her “horse of a lifetime”, Banzai du Loir.

They had trained to the same level as the British trio who would win gold – Tom McEwen, Ros Canter and Laura Collett – right up to the event. And every evening throughout the competition, Yasmin prepared as she usually would if she were going to compete. She went through her dressage test, watched previous training sessions, revised the notes she’d written from them, and took advice.

“Chris Bartle [BE’s Eventing High Peformance Coach] and I were at the arena, visualising how I’d ride in the stadium and approach the centre line,” she remembers. “I walked the cross-country course five times. I had minute markers, I knew which route I was going to take and exactly what I was going to do. I looked through course photos and watched previous positive rounds I’d done, like the World Championship and Kentucky, because it gives you a feeling: we can do it, we’ve done it before. It gives you the confidence you need to go out and do your best.”

It’s all part of her system to “leave no stone unturned”, so that she goes in with “a clear vision of how I want to ride and what I want to get out of it. And understanding how your horse is feeling; they’re not predictable, and you always listen to your horse.”

It was Yasmin’s first Olympics and the sheer scale of the Games surprised her – the size of the crowds in the vast stadium, the traffic-stopping beauty of Versailles. “It’s like no event I’ve ever done” she recalls. “I feel so lucky, there was so much excitement throughout the week, I felt so proud to be there. It was a massive achievement to be in the four, so close but so far, and I realised I needed to take in as much as I could, be a sponge, soak it all up”.

How Yasmin stayed ready to compete – then coped with disappointment

It was a delicate balance to maintain readiness, while not performing, like balancing the accelerator and clutch ready for a hill-start in a car. Yasmin says: “I tried to keep everything normal. We hacked a lot and walked round the cross country field, I made sure he stayed relaxed. Banzai’s grown up a lot over the past few years; he’s so good at an event, he’s a real professional now. It was disappointing for him to watch all the horses go out in their cross-country tack, but I took him out, gave him a jump and a play.”

Every morning, she’d get the call that the deadline had passed and she wouldn’t be needed that day. Disappointing, of course, but she’s an elite athlete and managing her mentality is second nature. There were plenty of positives to focus on anyway. “I felt included the whole time,” she says. “I was at every team meeting, listening, chatting about the course, the venue, the horses. There was a real team spirit, we all got on so well, they’re great riders and friends”. The medal ceremony as the eventers took Team GB’s first gold of the Olympics only strengthened her resolve that “I want that to be me one day”.

After the podium, it was off to Paris for press duties – and selfies with Tom Daley, “he was so lovely and down to earth”. The celebration was nothing more raucous than a lunch for four in the Olympic village, reflecting on the momentous Games they’d shared.

“I was totally unaware of how much pressure they’re under”

What Yasmin took away from Paris was a sense of “I’ve been there, I’ve seen it all happen, I’ve been in the bubble, I’ve seen what it takes.” “It’s really helped me for the future,” she says. “It’s another string to my bow. I’m lucky to have been given the opportunity to experience it first hand, to be in the mix with all the riders, picking up lots of tools for my toolbox in the future.” Such as? “I was totally unaware of how much pressure they’re under – myself, too, being ready to step in. You’ve got the whole of the UK riding on your shoulders. Everybody only wants you to be successful and do well, the pressure is intense and I’ve seen it, so I know how to deal with it, were I to have the opportunity to go next time.

“Tom, Laura and Ros were role models all week, to watch the way they dealt with it was admirable. To look up to them and see where I want to be – there’s no one better to learn from. I gained so much from being in that situation, and the result was a credit, they deserved it.”

Returning from Paris, with so much emotion and tension wrapped up in just one week, was a little like “being spat out of the washing machine!” so Yasmin took a day, just the one, to relax. She was given a souvenir rosette from the Games and as she finalises her move to a new, 10-stable yard, she plans to display it with the collection she already has of the late Sue Davies’ mementos from previous Olympics.

The Sue Davies Fund and Sue’s daughter Janette Chinn own the yard, and Yasmin’s horses – including Banzai – and Sue was a great supporter. Yasmin says: “None of this would have happened without her and she’d have been very proud”. A poignant daily reminder of what is past, and what is yet to come.

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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

Abi Lyle solidified her position at the top of Irish dressage when she was named as the country’s sole Olympic rider at the Paris Games this summer, with 13-year-old gelding Giraldo (Arty), whom she has produced since a four-year-old.

The Games weren’t Abi’s first taste of championship experience, having competed at the World Championships with Arty in 2022, and the 2023 European Championships with her own and Fenella Quinn’s Farrell, but now she can add Olympic rider to her credentials.

“You think Worlds, Europeans, they’re both great – but you know the Olympics are different,” says Abi.

Ireland missed out on a team spot at Paris, but in late February it was confirmed they had secured one of 15 individual places. It was then all to play for with Abi, Anna Vervedlt, and Judy Reynolds in contention.

“At London International in December there were two countries ahead of us in our group for the individual place so we didn’t think it was going to happen,” explains Abi.

“When we found out that Ireland had a place, I said: ‘If you pick me you pick me, and if you don’t you don’t’. I felt if I started grabbing the bull by the horns thinking ‘I’ve got to get this’, it would just be a disaster.”

That magical selection phone call

That all-important telephone call that Abi will “remember for the rest of my life” came around six weeks before the Games – and while she was paying at the till in the garage.

“We’d been given a time slot and I’d planned to be in the tackroom. I’d heard on the grapevine that they do commiseration calls first, so when our high performance director Anne Marie Dunphy phoned me 15 minutes before my slot my heart dropped because she was calling early,” laughs Abi, who had to ring Anne Marie back.

“My heart was in my throat. I got in the car, phoned her and I was told I’d been selected. I drove back to the yard and my best friend Georgie (Round), who owns the yard, ran to the car and gave me a big hug, and then I told Mark (McVicar – Abi’s partner and groom).

“It’s funny because at first it’s amazing, and then you think ‘Oh, now I need to do the Olympics!’.”

The journey to Paris

Abi says it was important not to change anything in Arty’s routine.

“We checked his field daily, and the only thing different was if it was absolutely pouring he didn’t go out. I really trust him and he’s not a silly horse – so I thought keep letting him do his thing and he’ll be fine,” says Abi, who trains with Gareth Hughes and Carl Hester.

“There’s no two better people to keep me on the straight and narrow. Gareth is about 30 minutes from me so I’d see him once a week, and he’s made a big difference. He’s able to simplify things, for example the hardest part of the grand prix is getting the paces right and he’s really good at helping me to identify if I’m in the right trot or the right canter.

“Arty is a less is more kind of guy, in the lead up I schooled him three times a week at the most and did the test movements once a week. The rest was hacking and poles.”

Abi put a lot of emphasis on preparing herself, too.

“I couldn’t have done more on my mindset, and I’m so glad that I did. I had sessions with performance coach Debbie Hill from Ahead for Life, I did a lot of journaling, and I cut down on social media,” she says.

“Every week I did a circuit session, yoga, a long run, an easy run, and speed interval sessions – my own goal was to look and be really fit. I eat pretty well and don’t eat a lot of sugar anyway, so it was just watching what I ate. There was also a special Paris playlist, it was quite personal, but one song on it was So High School by Taylor Swift. It was the second last song I listened to before I got on to do my test, it’s very much a song that will always make me think of Paris.”

“We had a call to say Arty wasn’t happy”

Abi and Arty enjoyed a smooth journey to Paris, with Arty’s owner Caroline Clarry, and Mark and Georgie accompanying them at the Games. Abi was invited to be part of the Olympic opening ceremony, an experience she says “took my mind off dressage, and allowed me to just appreciate being there”.

But the evening took a turn for the worst when Mark received a call after midnight to say Arty wasn’t happy.

“You can imagine the panic,” says Abi. “He is the most easy-going horse, and he’d settled in well. The aircon had been blasting when we left him and I’d put a thin cotton sheet on him, but didn’t realise they would turn the aircon off at night. He’d gotten a little warm and all it was was that he needed his sheet taken off. But of course I then didn’t want to leave him, so we sat for two hours watching him until the stewards eventually had to ask us to leave.”

Yoga in the sunshine on competition day

Abi and Arty competed in Paris on Tuesday 30 July, the first day of the grand prix.

“I hand walked Arty then I did yoga out the back of the stable in the sunshine. It was lovely,” says Abi, who was stabled next to New Zealand’s Melissa Galloway, who she describes as her “favourite person of the Olympics”.

“I wanted to watch one combination so that I could hear what the bell sounded like, how much the crowd were cheering, and things like that. I watched Nanna Skodborg Merrald and Blue Hors Zepter, who is one of my favourite horses.

“Then it was time to warm up. When it comes to warming up I like to do a movement then walk, then another movement, and more walk. It really works for him and keeps us both super relaxed. Because of the heat I had allowed 15 minutes longer, and it worked out perfectly.”

“I felt so in the zone”

Abi and Arty put on a beautiful and assured performance to score 69.44% in the grand prix, finishing sixth of group B. The group session was won by Denmark’s Daniel Bachmann and Vayron on 76.91%.

Abi says the test went “better than I ever could have imagined”.

“Arty and I went into a little bubble, and I felt so in the zone. Afterwards it’s a wave of relief and emotion,” she explains. “I’ve had very few rides like that in my career, and I don’t know how many I’ll have again. It was the best we could do. He just did everything even better than usual.

“Someone asked me when did I know Arty would be capable of this, and it’s weird because I always knew he would, but equally I didn’t care because if this never happened with him I’d feel exactly the same about him. We’re bezzie mates, I absolutely worship him and always have since he was four.”

The one-time tempi changes from the test stand out in Abi’s memory.

“If you watch the test back, I did my ones and took the biggest breath of relief – I wanted to nail them so badly. I turned on the line towards the big Paris sign and I just stared at that sign. I thought ‘These are going so well, don’t give up! Ride them, ride them, ride them’ and I got them all.

And while Abi says she wouldn’t change anything about her test – there is just one minor detail.

“Looking at it analytically, I lost 1.4% on my halts which is tragic,” she laughs. “My first halt he didn’t want to stand still, then the halt into my rein back I thought ‘Hmm’. But there’s battles to fight, and battles to not fight – and this was one of them.”

The grand prix was a qualifier for the individual medal-decider, the freestyle. The top 18 combinations from the grand prix – made up of the top two from each group plus the next six highest overall ranked combinations – advanced to the freestyle.

Although Abi did not qualify for the final, she has absolutely no regrets – nor was it even on her radar.

“Before the Games I had to give an expectation to my Olympic federation, and we were hoping for a mid 67%, so to score mid 69% I was over the moon, and everyone on Team Ireland was delighted,” explains Abi, who says she went to Paris with “realistic aims”.

“If I went thinking ‘I want to qualify for the individual final’ I would have come away feeling really disappointed. It was almost frustrating because people would say ‘You shouldn’t be thinking like that’. But I’m 96th in the world, and this was going to be the top 18. I surpassed the score I wanted by a good amount, and I am absolutely delighted.”

Back to normality: “I just want to be doing day to day things”

Abi and Arty remained in Paris until the dressage competition had concluded, during which time she enjoyed hacking him around the venue.

“We thought we’d see other sports and do things while we were there, but when you’ve got a horse and you want to see the other dressage, there wasn’t really a lot of time so we just hung out with Arty,” she says.

“Arty is my heart horse, and then Mark is my heart person. To have this experience with both of them, and knowing Mark got to walk all the way to the rope with me, I could cry thinking about it because it was so, so special.”

Abi and Mark gave themselves one day off, then it was “pretty much back to normal”.

“We had a little party when I got selected, and we were talking about having another little party but we haven’t done anything yet. The whole thing felt like a celebration anyway. The build up is so huge, and I know people can feel disappointed when they strive for something then it’s done, but I don’t because I feel so relieved,” she explains.

“As an Irish person we don’t like to blow our own horns but I feel very proud that I was able to ride well in that pressure, because I really didn’t know if I could or not. Now I just want to be doing day to day things, I was so excited to get back to teaching and riding. I just want normality, it’s a funny thing.”

You may also be interested in reading…

‘It’s been a wild ride’: Abi Lyle shines for Ireland with emotional performance in the Olympic dressage grand prix

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‘It helps to know that others struggle, too’: Abi Lyle on the power of social media in dressage

‘He’s the love of my life’: Ireland’s Abi Lyle sheds tears of pride for defining horse of her career on World Championship debut

Giraldo – meet the Paris-bound star flying the flag for Irish dressage

Meet Ireland’s sole Olympic dressage rider at Paris 2024…

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