Winning at a Canter

Ros Canter pilots the still relatively inexperienced - but extraordinarily talented - Lordships Graffalo to individual gold, spearheading the Brits to a 24th European team title

- GEMMA REDRUP

'We're in Walter's world'

Ros Canter leads the Brits to double gold at a dramatic European Championships and Kitty King claims a long-awaited first individual medal

FEI European Eventing Championships, Haras du Pin, France 

“IT’S Walter’s world and we are privileged to be able to live with him in it,” summed up Ros Canter as she claimed the European Championships individual gold and led the Brits to team honours with the superb Lordships Graffalo, affectionately known as Walter.

Nothing seems to faze Michele Saul’s son of Grafenstolz, who is still only 11 years old. Indeed, if six-star competitions existed, Walter would probably win those too.

At his first Badminton and five-star in 2022, he finished second. He then went on to claim an agonising fourth place at last year’s World Championships in Pratoni – he was on the same score as Tim Price in bronze, but his faster cross-country time, which put him further from the optimum, meant Ros had to go home without an individual medal.

At Badminton this spring, where most horses were toiling to the cross-country line a minute over the target, Walter came home in the second fastest time and won with 15 penalties to spare.

Here at Haras du Pin he put in an impressively consistent performance, topped by an outstanding cross-country round in tough conditions. To say he is a superstar would be an understatement.

Ros’s incredible skill and horsemanship should not be underestimated. She is little over 5ft tall, yet she makes Walter, who is 17hh, look like one of the most rideable horses in the world. Now a seasoned championship rider, her achievements are mounting up, but she said “each one is special for different reasons”.