Mary King has won 13 Olympic, European and world medals as a member of the British eventing team. She has won Badminton twice, as well as Burghley and Kentucky. She has also been British open champion four times.
A few people have had a big impact on my career. Double European champion Sheila Wilcox was my mentor and thanks to the two years I spent working for her I formed a broad base of knowledge. Without that education, I would have reached the peak of my career at an earlier stage.
I think gaining that all-round knowledge is where many riders miss out. Sheila was a real stickler in every aspect; from stable management to training, to getting the best out of different types of horses, to dealing with injuries. She had tremendously high standards and it becomes ingrained in you.
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H&H features editor
Martha is an experienced journalist who is mad-keen on horses and dogs. Her reporting CV includes the Paris Olympics, European championships, Aachen World Equestrian Festival and World Cup finals. After growing up with assorted liver and white springer spaniels, she enjoyed 14 years with two rescue dogs. Now, her constant companion is Fidget, an extremely energetic and habitually muddy black and white springer. Martha has written on topics as diverse as a top horse’s clone to the best GPS trackers for dogs, as well as equestrian and rural matters for Country Life, The Field, The Times, The Spectator and The Telegraph alongside Horse & Hound.
