ABOUT | imogengloageventing

I am an event rider based in Oxfordshire, near Chipping Norton. Having had 2 gap years after finishing school, I decided I wanted to work with horse’s full time. I did a 9 month business diploma in Oxford in 2015/16 and am now eventing full time. I cannot ever remember not riding horses, I rode my first pony when I was 3 years old and I haven’t stopped ever since! I was a member of the Heythrop Hunt Pony Club from a really young age and have grown up doing all the Pony Club activities and teams that I can think of.

I started British Eventing aged 13 in 2008 on a legendary horse called Walnut, kindly lent to me by the Calden family. In 2009 I competed both Walnut and a new horse of my own called Jaffa VI and the following year Jaffa and I were selected for the U18 national championships as a member of the Central Team to do my first 3 day event. We were re-selected the following year as well as competing in my first intermediate classes at the age of 15. In 2011, we bought a horse called Brendonhill Doublet. Little did we know that he was going to take me round Burghley, when we did our first BE90 together at Homme House.

In 2013, Brendonhill Doublet and I were selected to go to the Junior European Eventing Championships in Jardy, France. We finished with the second best British performance at these Championships. The following year we went on to compete in our first 2* competitions finishing in the top 10 at all 3 of them and being selected as reserve to the British Young Rider Event Team. In 2015 we moved up to 3* level jumping a double clear in our first one at Belton International Horse Trials, 2015 concluded with my first ride around Blenheim Palace International Horse Trials in the CCI3* jumping a fab clear XC. We finished Blenheim in the top 50%!

In 2016, Quitus De Louan and Doodle Jump joined our team at home. They both had some great results throughout the year as they progressed up the grades. Brendonhill Doublet finished 11th in the U25 National Championships at Bramham International Horse Trials, which gave us our 4* qualification as combination!

We went on to compete at our first 4* at Burghley in September, I was the youngest rider there and we completed the XC with just one small blip round what has been shown was the toughest Burghley XC track since 2004 with only a 41% Clear XC jumping rate. Unfortunately we didn’t get to Show Jump the following morning as Brendonhill Doublet had picked up a tiny speedy cut inside his knee which was just a bit sore on the Sunday morning. 24 hours later and he was absolutely fine ready to go again – so we will, hopefully, be back next year ready to give it another go!