Gender: Gelding
Foaled: 2009
Height: 16.3
Sire: LANDOS
Dam: VERNANTE
Sire of Dam: QUINAR
Owner: Laura, Karen Bartlett and Keith Scott
Breeder: Ocke Riewerts (GER)
Groom: Tilly Hughes
Laura Collett began her riding career in the showing ring, and won the Supreme Pony of the Year at Horse of the Year Show in 2003 when she was 13.
She went on to win nine medals during her youth career, including three individual gold medals.
Following a heavy fall from her horse in 2013, Laura suffered many serious internal injuries and had to be put into an induced coma. A fragment of her shoulder bone detached and travelled to her right eye through her blood stream and damaged the optic nerve, affecting her sight in one eye.
Laura has been selected for three European Eventing Championships as an individual. She was eliminated on the cross-country on her senior championship debut at Luhmühlen in 2011, but finished 13th at the 2015 championships at Blair Castle on Grand Manoeuvre.
Collett was second at Luhmühlen five-star in 2018 on Mr Bass, but she achieved her first five-star win in October 2020 when she took the title at the Pau Horse Trials, France, riding her own, Keith Scott and Karen Bartlett's horse LONDON 52 and therefore has the honour of winning the only five-star of 2020 as a result of COVID.
LONDON 52 had previously been the 2018 eight- and nine-year-old champion at Blenheim Horse Trials, as well as winning both the Event Rider Masters at Chatsworth Horse Trials and the CCI4*-L at the Boekelo Horse Trials in 2019.
In 2021, Laura and London 52 were selected to represent Britain at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo that been delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic . She won gold in the team event with Oliver Townend and Tom McEwen.
Collett was given an MBE in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to equestrianism.
In 2022, Collett won the Badminton Horse Trials. Riding LONDON 52, she led from start to finish, setting an all time Badminton record finishing score of 21.4.
In the run up to her defence of Badminton in May 2023, Laura announced that LONDON 52 had overreached and cut into his heel, seriously affecting their preparation for the event. She withdrew the horse from the entry list in mid-April 2023, but remained in the draw with DA CAPO.
2022
Burgham CCI4*-S - 6th
Badminton Horse Trials CCI5*-L - 1st
Thoresby Spring Festival CCI4*-S - 3rd
2021
Tokyo Olympic Games CCI4*-L - 9th
Bicton CCI4*-S - 4th
Aston-Le-Walls CCI4*-S - 1st
2020
Pau CCI5*-L - 1st
Little Downham CCI4*-S - 1st
2019
Boekelo CCI4*-L - 1st
Chatsworth 4*-S - 1st
