Emily Llewellyn certainly made an impressive start to her eventing career — she collected eight European medals at under-21 championships, and is the only rider to have ever won the national championships for under-16s, under-18s, under-21s and under-25s.
Now 25, Emily has a wise head on a young person’s shoulders.
“In the grand scheme of things, three years is a very short period in life,” she says, referring to juggling her final years in youth eventing with studying for a business and management degree at Sussex university, gaining herself a 2:1 degree.
This should help her and boyfriend Max Routledge with their stud business.
Max is a polo player in the summer months and grand prix showjumper the rest of the year, and his parents own Paddock Woods stud, where Emily is now based. The two met at a World Class training day in 2009.
She jokes: “I have a lot to thank the World Class scheme for!”
The pair have enviable facilities: 26 boxes, summer turnout, a wood chip exercise track, irrigated exercise fields for jumping and dressage arenas, an all-weather manège, a horse walker and the most enchanting hacking on the doorstep.
“The showjumpers and eventers are all stabled together and then the mares and geldings for the stud are kept separately, to stop the mares coming into season at the wrong time,” says Emily.
The stud has all the services and equipment necessary for collecting semen and a lab on site to check the quality, chill it and prepare it for shipping.
Don’t miss the April edition of Eventing magazine, out on Saturday 21 March, 2015, including the full interview with Emily Llewellyn
