Lara Butler

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Lara Butler is a British Dressage Rider who resides in Gloucestershire. Born into a “horsey” family, her father was in the Kings Troop and her mother rode and acted as Chef d’Equipe for Britain’s Under-21 teams, has been a show secretary for a number of high profile events and is the current British Equestrian Federation World Class Co-Ordinator for Dressage.

Lara’s love for horses began from the moment her mother placed her on her first horse at two years old and she has never looked back since.

By 13, Lara grew too tall for ponies and loaned her first horse, Sir Dunaway, with a view to doing dressage who took her up to Advanced Medium level.

Lara loaned another horse, Warlock, who had been on the Dutch young rider team with owner Veronique Andre de la Porte. The Dutch family were happy for him to go to a nice home and continue competing. Lara took him to the 2006 junior Europeans having only been riding him for 3 months, and by 2008, he had taken her to Young Rider level and 12th in Europe.

 On Warlock’s retirement, Emile Faurie, with whom Lara was based for seven years, helped her secure the ride on Hilary Sawyer’s smart grey mare Dawning Hopes. “Being a big mare, she was a completely different kettle of fish,” says Lara.

The pair contested the 2009 Young Rider Europeans and were the best placed British combination in Lara’s last year at the level.

Emile didn’t feel it was right to ask the mare to continue to Grand Prix and so Lara, while studying equine science at Oxford Brookes, concentrated her efforts on producing Anne Hutton’s Don Benito to Prix St Georges level (PSG).

She sold the gelding in 2013 and purchased a three-year-old from the Netherlands to fit in well among her responsibilities as a stable jockey for the Bechtolsheimers.

In 2010, she graduated from University and decided that now was the time to concentrate entirely on her competitive career. She was approached by the Bechtolsheimers about the potential to join their team, so at the end of the year, after seven years of drawing much inspiration from Emile, Lara left to become the rider for the Bechtolsheimers.
She has now been at the Bechtolsheimers for ten years now and has had the opportunity to ride some amazing horses. She has had the opportunity to bring on Rubin Al Asad, who she now competes at Grand Prix, as well as competing one of their young homebreds, Kristjan at Small Tour. The biggest honour was when she was given the opportunity to train and compete Andretti H at Grand Prix level at the end of 2012, with her biggest highlight becoming Reserve National Champion at the British Dressage National Championships and competing at Olympia CDI and being placed in the Top 10. That was a moment Lara says she will never forget and cannot thank the Bechtolsheimers enough for giving her the opportunity!
At the end of 2013 she was also wild carded on to the World Class Development Programme, funded by UK Sport. At the end of 2014 Andretti was retired so her focused shifted to moving Rubin Al Asad up from Small Tour to Big Tour. At the beginning of 2015, she competed Rubin Al Asad out in Wellington, Florida, achieving their first international Big Tour win. Lara was also moved up on to the World Class Podium Programme.

In 2016, Lara was a reserve for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and European Team Reserve 2017. In 2018, she was also reserve for 2018 World Equestrian Games as well as becoming the BD Grand Prix National Champion.

Yasmin Ingham

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Yasmin Ingham is an International Event Rider for Great Britain based in Cheshire, UK

Yasmin was born and brought up on the Isle of Man, a small Island in the middle of the Irish Sea and home to the World famous TT races.

Years of having to travel by ferry to events paid off, when in 2013 Ingham won her first British title and went on to win Individual and Team Gold medals at the Pony European Championship in Italy, riding her beloved pony Craig Mor Tom.

This success at 16 years old opened up an opportunity to be based with and ride for prolific event and showjumping horse owners Eddie and Sue Davies and Janette Chinn at their Cheshire Stud.

One of the Davies’ older top horses – multi medal winning Imperial Cavalier – was being stepped down from from 5* level, and Yasmin was offered the ride on ‘Archie’ to compete in Juniors, and they duly won the British Junior title in 2015.

In 2018 and 2019 Yasmin completed the full set of British Youth, titles riding Rehy DJ and Sandman 7 – a feat not achieved by any rider before, as well as finishing 4th in the 2018 Young Rider Europeans riding Rehy DJ.

Yasmin also completed her first 5* at Pau that year, finishing in 16th place, and was awarded the Goldman Cup for the leading under 21 rider.

In 2021, Yasmin became the youngest rider to win the Blenheim Palace 4*L with Banzai du Loir.

She has also had a phenomenal 2022, coming 2nd at Kentucky 5* riding Banzai du Loir, and following this up not only with an impressive selection for the World Championships, but also by becoming World Champion in Pratoni del Vivaro, against the best in the world, aged just 25 years old.

2023 saw 26 year old Ingham make the history books once more with a milestone win and becoming the first British combination to win the prestigious SAP Cup at CHIO Aachen, as well as being selected as a member of the team for the FEI European Championships achieving a Team Gold medal.

Yasmin’s 2024 seasonal campaign has seen her return to the Defender Kentucky Horse Trials where she took the 3rd place podium spot at the 5* event having maintained top 3 positions overnight throughout the duration of the event.

She is a member of the current British Equestrian World Class Podium Team, and Windrush Foundation Academy.

With an accolade of achievements already under her belt at such a young age, we are excited to exclusively support Yasmin in the development of her brand and career on the world stage.

Bob Champion

Bob was born 4th June 1948 into a hunting family. His father was huntsman to the Cleveland in Yorkshire,

where he started riding at an early age hunting with his sister and father.

At the age of 15 he rode his first point-to-point winner then went into National Hunt racing with Toby Balding at Weyhill, eventually riding for many top trainers including Josh Gifford.

Bob’s racing career took him to America where he rode several winners. In 1979 he was diagnosed to have cancer and was given six months to live. After several months of chemotherapy he returned to race riding, coming back with several winners both in England and America.

In 1981 Bob won the Grand National on Aldaniti, trained by Josh Gifford. He finally retired from racing in 1983 having won some 500 races. Other major races that Bob won during his career were The Tote Eider Chase, The Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup, The Black & White Hurdle, The SGB Chase, The SGB Hurdle and The Whitbread Trial Chase.

In 1981 awarded the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Team Award. In 1983 he received the MBE and also formed the Bob Champion Cancer Trust which to date has raised approximately fifteen million poundstowards Cancer Research.

Bob has his life story portrayed in the book ‘Champion’s Story’ which was made into a feature film starring John Hurt.

In August 1996 Bob undertook ‘ride for life’ which was a ride on several horses from Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh to Buckingham Palace London where he was greeted by Her Majesty The Queen. This was to raise a million pounds towards a new research unit at the Royal Marsden Hospital. This sum was achieved, and the Institute of Cancer also donated a further million pounds towards this project. The new research unit opened in September 2000.

Rosie Tapner

TV Presenter and Model

After gracing the front cover of Vogue at the age of 16, Rosie worked as a top model for 10 years before turning her attentions to TV presenting in the equestrian sphere, where her real passion lies. Recently she has presented in the UK for some of the biggest names including Sky Sports Racing, Ascot, Goodwood, Cheltenham and Aintree, as well as abroad in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. She will also be presenting the main stage at this year’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations at Epsom Racecourse attended by HM The Queen, and later in the year, the Breeders Cup in Kentucky.

Carl Hester MBE

Olympic dressage rider