“I’ve been trying to stay on cloud nine for as long as I can,” laughs Laura a couple of weeks afterwards. “The first feeling I had after realising we had won was just utter disbelief, even as I came out of the ring and everyone crowded around me. I wouldn’t go to sleep for two days after because I didn’t want to wake up and find it was all a dream. Even now I keep watching it back to see if it really happened.”
Her emotional reaction to such a win is hardly surprising. For all its countless highlights, Laura’s record is flecked with near-misses – including elimination at two of her three senior championship runs, most recently in 2019 following third after dressage with London, and an agonising second-place finish at Luhmühlen in 2018 with Mr Bass.
“It’s always been my dream to win a five-star, but I had started to feel like maybe it wasn’t going to happen. I was second in Luhmühlen and I thought that might turn out to be my best five-star result,” Laura says candidly.
This story is from the November 19, 2020 edition of Horse & Hound.
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This story is from the November 19, 2020 edition of Horse & Hound.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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