European Eventing Championships showjumping: Kitty King reflects

European Eventing Championships showjumping: Kitty King and Vendredi Biats — Kitty King and Vendredi Biats at the European Championships 2021.

(Image credit: Peter Nixon)

Kitty King had an unlucky rail down in the final European Eventing Championships showjumping phase today (26 September) in Avenches, Switzerland. Riding Vendredi Biats, who is owned by Diana Brown, Sally Lloyd Baker, Sally Eyre and Samantha Wilson, Kitty jumped a beautiful round, bar hitting the second fence.

“He felt really good in the warm-up and wasn’t touching anything, but we went and hit one inside the arena, but he’s had a fairly long, drawn out season and a bit of a mismatch year, so he’s performed brilliantly,” Kitty explained after her European Eventing Championships showjumping round, which dropped them from eighth after the cross-country down to eventual ninth.

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Gemma is an experienced journalist, who was a member of H&H staff from 2014 to September 2025. She is passionate about all equestrian sports, including racing and point-to-pointing. She has enjoyed riding out for top trainers Nicky Henderson and Charlie Appleby and took part in a charity Flat race at Epsom in August 2018. Gemma’s has reported from numerous five-star events around Britain and Europe, as well as European championships.

‘It’s nice to show some girl power to young Pony Club girls to give them confidence they can do it’: Kitty King on her eventing Euros experience

“It’s just a real shame to have a fence down on the last day when he hasn’t had one all season – it’s one of those things and I’m just relieved it didn’t cost the team anything. He’s gone out and performed really well and I couldn’t really be prouder of him at all.”

“It’s great to do it with such a great team of girls and I think it’s hopefully really nice to show some girl power to all the young Pony Club girls, to give them a little bit of a boost,” she said. “Just to give them the confidence that we girls can can do just as good a job as the boys.

“It’s been a really fun week, everyone’s got on really well together, we’ve had a great time and great rapport with everyone, including the grooms. It’s been a lucky week, a lovely experience and I quite like Switzerland – I might have to come back on holiday!”

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