Bella Innes Ker

With her Burghley debut and a big birthday looming large, the assiduous young event rider tells Bethany Stone how she hopes to make her mark as a rider, trainer and entrepreneur

- Bethany Stone

BELLA INNES KER has numerous claims on her attention – not least an impending debut at one of eventing’s toughest tracks – but an unexpected call from an eager journalist barely breaks her stride.

“This sounds great – please do ping me an email,” she says in cheerful reply to my ill-timed interview request, “only I’m out with four horses at the moment and it’s just me on my own this week”.

And so I type a message to Bella’s address that contains the name of her business: Roxburghe Eventing. The name is in homage to the young rider’s heritage; Bella’s is an ancient family, bearing the title of Roxburghe in some form since 1600. The ancestral seat has been Floors Castle in the Scottish Borders since the 18th century.

When we resume our conversation the following week, I ask whether coming from a titled family means navigating any difficult preconceptions about her.

“It’s not always straightforward,” she says. “I’ve been lucky with my upbringing, and you’ve got to be proud of who you are. Equally, I’m on the cautious side, because I don’t want people to judge me for it.

“Running a business is tough on your own. Horses are hard. It doesn’t matter who you are or how you do it. It’s tricky, and you need a big team around you to be successful.”

Bella’s professional brand reflects her late father Guy Innes Ker, the 10th Duke of Roxburghe. The Duke was a prolific breeder of thoroughbreds at Floors Stud, and Flat racing one of his great loves. He died following a recurrence of cancer of the oesophagus in 2019.

While Bella enjoys watching the breeding programme from afar, her eventing career hasn’t permitted her the time to be hands-on.

“It was my dad and my brother’s thing,” she says. “He and my mum still run a small section of it – I love that it’s part of my dad’s legacy.”

AS one of five chidren, Bella paints a picture of an outdoorsy childhood spent playing “every sport under the sun”.