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‘I can’t believe I’ve actually done that’ – four months on, Ros Canter is folding washing when her Olympic gold sinks in

In the first of a three-part subscriber-exclusive series talking to Ros Canter about her phenomenal year, she reveals what it took – and what it means – to have won team gold in Paris
Lucy Elder Lucy Elder

    • Pre-Paris and post-Paris. Ros Canter’s experience of 2024 falls neatly into two halves, each topped by achieving two life-long ambitions. Ros’s Paris Olympic team gold medal performance and her Burghley Horse Trials win took place in fairly quick succession, but were completely different experiences.

    “Paris was such a big focus for me that the first half of the year all revolved around that,” she explains. “I had a couple of weeks after Paris where I felt a bit flat and a bit lost, because I hadn’t really thought beyond the Olympics – and then I really kicked back into gear again.”

    We caught up in the days after Pau five-star, where Ros ended her season with another top-level podium finish, this time riding Izilot DHI, the pair finishing second in 2024 having won in 2023. Ros’s five-star debutant ride MHS Seventeen also stepped up to the big time in Pau, meaning the eventing season finished for Ros with this new star’s five-star future just beginning.

    Ros Canter and Izilot DHI on the cross-country at Pau Horse Trials.

    Ros Canter rounded off an incredible year by finishing second at Pau five-star riding Izilot DHI, and is ready for more. Credit: Peter Nixon.

    “Normally I finish the season ready to stop and have a bit of a break, but actually this year I still feel quite buoyed up,” says Ros. “I could have quite happily carried on for a bit longer. I think that’s because the first half of the season was so different to normal, as I only had that one focus. Now, I almost feel like I found another spark – that I still really love it again.

    “Paris had just become such a big thing, in that I really wanted to tick that box. I felt like it was the one box I hadn’t ticked.”

    Pressure to reach the Olympics

    “Having a horse like Lordships Graffalo, and having had a [successful] year like we’d had in 2023, I felt quite a lot of pressure on myself to make sure that I got him to Paris, because I knew I was sitting on a horse that ought to be going to the Olympics,” says Ros.

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    Lucy Elder
    Lucy Elder

    H&H senior news writer
    Lucy is an experienced news journalist, reporter and presenter. Since joining the Horse & Hound team in 2015, Lucy has reported from major global sporting events including the Tokyo Paralympic Games and multiple European Championships, as well as Badminton, Burghley and London, to name a few. She has covered current affairs and sports news across the full spectrum of equestrian disciplines and racing, as well as human and equine welfare, industry news and court cases.
    Lucy Elder

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