An Olympic Father, a Champion Daughter, and a Horse He Called Hard to Watch Win
Mark Phillips — the former Olympic equestrian who was married to Princess Anne from 1973 to 1992 — wrote a rare personal essay for the British weekly Horse & Hound, published over the weekend, about his daughter Zara Tindall's first national eventing title. The win came at the British Open Eventing Championship, held at Hartpury in England, where Tindall rode a 17-year-old Irish gelding named Class Affair to the top of the combined NAF CCI4*-S/British Open competition (Horse & Hound).
Phillips is a regular eventing columnist for Horse & Hound, but this piece carried a family angle. His initial reaction to his daughter's victory, he admitted, was "less than generous." He pointed to the attrition rate: 41 finishers, 14 eliminations, eight retirements, and 10 withdrawals across the field. In other words, the dad in him was proud. The coach in him wanted to talk about who didn't make it around (Town & Country).
That coaching instinct runs deep. Phillips won team gold in eventing at the 1972 Munich Olympics and at the 1970 World Equestrian Games, and he later spent years as the United States Equestrian Team's eventing coach — a job that put him on the American side of an international sport he once rode for Britain.
Tindall, 45, has her own medal collection. She won team silver at the 2012 London Olympics and has taken two gold and three silver medals across World and European Championships. But the British Open title had eluded her until now. She described Class Affair, her winning mount, as "one of the hardest horses I've ever ridden" (Horse & Hound).
Eventing, for readers who don't follow it, is the triathlon of horse sport: dressage (a judged pattern of movements), cross-country (a long course of solid fences over natural terrain), and show jumping (fences in an arena that fall if bumped). The British Open runs as a standalone national title within a larger international field, so Tindall's win means she was the highest-placed British rider in the combined competition.
The family lineage in this sport is extraordinary. Princess Anne, Tindall's mother, won the eventing championship at the Burghley Horse Trials in 1971 aboard a horse called Doublet. Phillips won the prestigious Badminton Horse Trials four times, including in 1971 and 1972. Three generations of Olympic-level equestrians, all riding at the top of the same demanding discipline.
Phillips' essay went beyond family pride. He also analyzed the 2026 FEI World Equestrian Championships, held this month in Aachen, Germany — breaking down cross-country course design, dressage judging, and the British team's overall performance. Tindall appeared at the Aachen opening ceremony, adding a global stage to a summer that already includes her breakthrough national title (Town & Country).
What makes this story resonate isn't the royal connection alone — Tindall, the daughter of Princess Anne, is a granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II and holds no royal title, having grown up without the style of "Princess" or "Her Royal Highness." It's the picture of a father who can't help coaching even when his own daughter wins, and a 45-year-old rider who just landed a title her parents spent their careers chasing on horseback.
