A 19-year-old British event rider is among three people who have died while travelling in Vietnam.
The bodies of Sheffield-based Izzy Squire, her 24-year-old sister Beth Anderson and Christian Sloan from Kent were found near a waterfall.
The sisters were seven weeks into a backpacking tour of South East Asia. They died while taking part in a licensed guided tour, according to the Foreign Commonwealth Office (FCO).
South Yorkshire Police officers are currently working with the FCO and Vietnamese authorities to establish the circumstances surrounding the sisters’ deaths.
British Eventing (BE) has paid tribute to Izzy.
“It is with deepest sadness that we learned of the tragic passing of one of our young members and BEu18 midlands region squad riders, Izzy Squire,” said a BE spokesman.
BEu18 coordinator for the midlands region, Arabella Bealby, has known Izzy since she joined BE’s u18 programme in the Midlands a few years ago with her pony Hufflepuff.
“Izzy, known to us on the squad as Specs, was such a big player in the BE Midlands area,” said Arabella.
“She came to a lot of training sessions and always would train very hard with our region’s coach Lisa Morris and was very keen to get everything right. However during downtime at training camps or competitions, she was an absolute bundle of laughs and made so very many friends.
“We went through a lot together, she started off very nervous about competing but we worked through the nerves, she trained hard and in her final year of being on the u18 squads she had progressed to CCI1J* level with her horse B Walt Lando Z at Weston Park last autumn, exceeding all expectations, especially her own. She will be missed by so many. ”
David Holmes, chief executive of British Eventing added: “I would like to express my deepest sympathies and I am sure also those of the eventing community to the family and friends of Izzy and Beth at this profoundly sad time.”
