Carl Hester is a particularly busy man at the moment. As well as flying all over the world to teach, he is also riding several of Charlotte Dujardin’s horses while she is pregnant with her first child. “Charlotte is still riding, but she’s not riding to the point that she was – there is no sitting trot for her anymore,” says Carl, which leaves him with five grand prix and potential grand prix horses to produce for next year.
The owner of a horsebox that was destroyed inside by a fire while parked at a show has urged others to fit smoke detectors, saying: “If it had happened two hours earlier, we’d be dead now”. Sarah Knight was at Aintree International Equestrian Centre for the British Showjumping Dodson & Horrell National Amateur and Veteran Championships when the fire happened.
“The investigators came out and found that there was a loose AA battery in a cupboard and it must have touched something metal; apparently if both the positive and negative terminals touch metal, the battery can heat up and combust. They said it was a one in a million chance,” she explained.
There was high drama at the Global Champions Tour (GCT) Prague Playoffs as one rider’s premature start meant “heartbreaking” elimination for his team. The quarter-finals of the Global Champions League (GCL) Super Cup presented by Air Bank featured a stellar line-up of horses and riders trying to secure a place in the semi-finals. Uliano Vezzani’s course proved a tough test for the Super Cup, with faults coming throughout, but it was the third team in, the Cannes Stars, whose route to the semi-final was cut short by a technicality. Jens Backmann, on Aglaia J, started before the bell went, which meant elimination for the team.
'There we were, standing on the A1, with articulated lorries doing emergency stops, and the wagon just went up'
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Sarah has worked at an equestrian journalist and editor since 2004 and has held the position of Horse & Hound Editor-in-Chief since 2014. She has reported for Horse & Hound from major championships including Europeans and World Equestrian Games. She has co-written books on horses and horse sport including The Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia of Horses & Ponies. She has owned and ridden horses since 1993, and worked for and trained with Olympic gold medallist event rider Leslie Law prior to going to university. While studying for a BSc at London School of Economics Sarah also worked for top British dressage rider Louise Spate.
