Yasmin Ingham will represent Great Britain in the FEI European Eventing Championships which is taking place at Haras Du Pin in Normandy, France this week.
Haras Du Pin is the home of the French national stud and the venue hosted the Eventing World Championships in 2014.
Isle of Man Sportswoman of the Year Ingham will ride Banzai Du Loir, owned by the late Sue Davies Trust, with whom she took an historic victory in the World Championships last year at Pratoni Del Vivaro in Italy, the first individual rider to take the title and also in their first senior squad appearance.
More recently the pairing took another historic win at the World Equestrian Festival Aachen in Germany, winning gold as an individual in the SAP Cup CCI4*S and becoming the first British rider since the event’s inception to win individually.
The pair beat German multi-Olympic, World and European Gold medal winner Michel Jung for the second time within a year, pushing him into second place by a tiny margin of 0.1 of a penalty, which was the result of Ingham’s cross-country time being one second faster than Jung’s.
In the World Championship, it came down to the showjumping to decide the medals, Jung losing out on gold by knocking the final showjump down in a nail-biting climax.
Ingham joins a very strong squad of horses and riders in France - every team member has either won or finished second in a 5* competition and the Brits start the competition as strong favourites.
The first horse inspection takes place on Wednesday afternoon, with dressage then being held on Thursday and Friday, followed by cross-country on Saturday and the final showjumping phase, often the one that causes upsets in the standings, taking place on Sunday.
The decision on which riders will make up the team of four and who will run as the two individuals will be made after the first horse inspection on Wednesday afternoon, as well as the order of running for the team members.
The British squad is also made up of the following horse/rider combinations: Ros Canter riding Lordships Graffalo, Laura Collett riding London 52, Kitty King riding Vendredi Biats, Tom Jackson riding Capel Hollows Drift and Tom McEwen riding JL Dublin.
The event will be live-streamed via the Clip My Horse streaming site and results can be followed on https://results.worldsporttiming.com/event/162
Further information is available through the British Equestrian Hara Du Pin Hub https://www.britishequestrian.org.uk/teams/fei-european-championships-2023/eventing
l Yasmin is extremely grateful to the National Lottery funded Equestrian World Class programme, Sport England and Isle of Man Sport for their support.