F EATURE LAURA COLLETT
When Laura Collett is asked why she enjoys working with racehorses so much, she replies instantly: “It’s escapism!” The great escape
I t gets me away frommy yard and gives me responsibility. When I go to Olly [Murphy]’s, those horses are his. I go and do a job - and I really love improving horses and seeing a difference in how they jump - but then I drive home. It’s good for me mentally.” The event rider – who won team gold for Britain at the Tokyo Olympics last year – has adored Jump racing since she was a teenager. She set up her own yard very young, on the late Mary Hambro’s Waverton House estate near Moreton-in-Marsh, and used to ride out Mrs Hambro’s something to focus on that isn’t me and my horses,” explains Laura. “Everything here [at her base in Salperton, a fewmiles from Cheltenham] is my
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racehorses in part-lieu of the rent. “Then I got more involved through Yogi Breisner [her long-time coach and mentor and former high performance manager of the British eventing team],” she says. “I’d ride the racehorses that were sent to him for jumping schooling, and it got to the point where he said to the trainers that they may as well deal with me directly, because he felt I had been doing it long enough to knowwhat I was doing.” She was based in Lambourn for several years, and was sent horses to school by the likes of VenetiaWilliams, RobertWalford and Oliver Sherwood – the latter would also let her take part in schooling mornings at his yard, which she describes as “really good fun, and good for my
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