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Life lessons: Course-designer Sue Benson *H&H Plus*

The Badminton runner-up and leading course-designer on never doing anything badly and always controlling the horse’s shoulders

  • Sue won three eventing European Championship medals with the British team and was second at Badminton in 1979. She remains involved in the sport as a cross-country course designer – the highlight of her career in this sphere was being responsible for the track at the London Olympics – and she also owns two event horses.

    I wish I had known when I was a teenager how hard my mum worked to give me the chance to be an event rider. After she died, I wondered if I had thanked her enough.

    From a very early age, I was told life wasn’t fair, which I live by. My mother always said never to do anything badly. If I did a bad transition out hacking, I’d do it again. She also said if you don’t think you can do it, you probably won’t – negativity breeds losers.