Mark Todd helps soldiers learn to ride and drive
In a break from his eventing schedule Mark Todd has been teaching soldiers how to ride and drive horses this week.
The double Olympic champion has been helping run a four-day intensive training course for wounded soldiers before they take part in the Horses Help Heroes challenge this summer.
The five soldiers are part of a group of 12 who hope to raise more than £1 million by driving a replica WWI horse-drawn ambulance from Land’s End to John O’Groats in just ten days this summer.
Soldiers will ride the outrider horses that will accompany the ambulance.
Paramedic Jacks El Tawil, who will ride on the ambulance for the full ten days of the challenge, said: “The challenge will be a real test of both human and equestrian endurance.
“Training sessions are therefore an essential part of planning the challenge to ensure that specific problems from injuries can be addressed before facing the endurance conditions of the drive.”
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
Never miss out on the latest happenings in the equestrian world
A self-confessed newshound, farmer’s daughter and journalist of many years' experience, Charlotte worked on regional papers before joining H&H in 2007. A regular rider, she visited Ireland in 2010 to investigate the fate of Irish horses through the recession, to much acclaim, and reported from the FEI General Assembly in Rio de Janeiro in 2011. She left Horse & Hound in March 2013.