Edwina Tops-Alexander

The top-flight showjumper chats to Jennifer Donald about family values, finding her match in the great ‘Itot’ and dealing with setbacks

“I ALWAYS say that every jar has a lid — so many great partnerships come from horses finding the right rider,” says Edwina Tops-Alexander, who has forged a stellar career in the saddle but is perhaps still best known for her amazing connection with the great Cevo Itot Du Château.

Many people had written off the bouncy chestnut as being too small at barely 15.2hh for a five-star horse, but he and Edwina crafted one of the sport’s greatest pairings during a golden era in which success seemed effortless.

“I found my match in Itot, Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum in Shutterfly and Eric Lamaze in Hickstead,” she says. “But you never know if those horses would have had those careers if they’d been with other riders.”

Since Itot’s retirement in 2014 at the age of 18, the 46-year-old Australian, now mother to two-year-old Chloe and married to Dutch Olympic gold medallist and Global Champions founder Jan Tops, has continued to reign as one of the world’s leading riders.

As an Australian, a female and a mother, she ticks a few minority boxes in the world of top-flight showjumping, but “loves a challenge” and, since moving to Europe in 1998, has broken the mould to claim more than 25 five-star Grand Prix and World Cups. She is a veteran of three Olympic Games, became the first Australian to reach a World Equestrian Games (WEG) final in 2006, she was a dual winner of the Global Champions Tour series in 2011 and 2012 and hit a rich patch of form at the end of 2018, concluding in victory in the inaugural super Grand Prix in Prague, one of the world’s toughest competitions.