“Oh my God, this is the call,” Yasmin Ingham remembers thinking, when she saw technical director and performance manager Richard (Dickie) Waygood’s number flash up on her phone as she had a cup of tea one morning in July. It was indeed the call – she was going to Paris 2024 as the alternate or reserve rider for the British eventing team.
She was ready, coming into Paris “massively on form” as the reigning World Champion, finishing third at Kentucky in May and winning Luhmülen with her “horse of a lifetime”, Banzai du Loir.
Yas and Banzai arrived in Paris in top form. Credit: FEI/Benjamin Clark
They had trained to the same level as the British trio who would win gold – Tom McEwen, Ros Canter and Laura Collett – right up to the event. And every evening throughout the competition, Yasmin prepared as she usually would if she were going to compete. She went through her dressage test, watched previous training sessions, revised the notes she’d written from them, and took advice.
“Chris Bartle [BE’s Eventing High Peformance Coach] and I were at the arena, visualising how I’d ride in the stadium and approach the centre line,” she remembers. “I walked the cross-country course five times. I had minute markers, I knew which route I was going to take and exactly what I was going to do. I looked through course photos and watched previous positive rounds I’d done, like the World Championship and Kentucky, because it gives you a feeling: we can do it, we’ve done it before. It gives you the confidence you need to go out and do your best.”
Yasmin Ingham walked the Paris cross-country course five times – here with Ros Canter and Chris Bartle. Credit: Peter Nixon
It’s all part of her system to “leave no stone unturned”, so that she goes in with “a clear vision of how I want to ride and what I want to get out of it. And understanding how your horse is feeling; they’re not predictable, and you always listen to your horse.”
It was Yasmin’s first Olympics and the sheer scale of the Games surprised her – the size of the crowds in the vast stadium, the traffic-stopping beauty of Versailles. “It’s like no event I’ve ever done” she recalls. “I feel so lucky, there was so much excitement throughout the week, I felt so proud to be there. It was a massive achievement to be in the four, so close but so far, and I realised I needed to take in as much as I could, be a sponge, soak it all up”.
How Yasmin stayed ready to compete – then coped with disappointment
It was a delicate balance to maintain readiness, while not performing, like balancing the accelerator and clutch ready for a hill-start in a car. Yasmin says: “I tried to keep everything normal. We hacked a lot and walked round the cross country field, I made sure he stayed relaxed. Banzai’s grown up a lot over the past few years; he’s so good at an event, he’s a real professional now. It was disappointing for him to watch all the horses go out in their cross-country tack, but I took him out, gave him a jump and a play.”
Yasmin rode Banzai Du Loir during arena familiarisation and around the venue throughout the competition to remain ready for the call up. Credit: Peter Nixon
Every morning, she’d get the call that the deadline had passed and she wouldn’t be needed that day. Disappointing, of course, but she’s an elite athlete and managing her mentality is second nature. There were plenty of positives to focus on anyway. “I felt included the whole time,” she says. “I was at every team meeting, listening, chatting about the course, the venue, the horses. There was a real team spirit, we all got on so well, they’re great riders and friends”. The medal ceremony as the eventers took Team GB’s first gold of the Olympics only strengthened her resolve that “I want that to be me one day”.
After the podium, it was off to Paris for press duties – and selfies with Tom Daley, “he was so lovely and down to earth”. The celebration was nothing more raucous than a lunch for four in the Olympic village, reflecting on the momentous Games they’d shared.
“I was totally unaware of how much pressure they’re under”
What Yasmin took away from Paris was a sense of “I’ve been there, I’ve seen it all happen, I’ve been in the bubble, I’ve seen what it takes.” “It’s really helped me for the future,” she says. “It’s another string to my bow. I’m lucky to have been given the opportunity to experience it first hand, to be in the mix with all the riders, picking up lots of tools for my toolbox in the future.” Such as? “I was totally unaware of how much pressure they’re under – myself, too, being ready to step in. You’ve got the whole of the UK riding on your shoulders. Everybody only wants you to be successful and do well, the pressure is intense and I’ve seen it, so I know how to deal with it, were I to have the opportunity to go next time.
“Tom, Laura and Ros were role models all week, to watch the way they dealt with it was admirable. To look up to them and see where I want to be – there’s no one better to learn from. I gained so much from being in that situation, and the result was a credit, they deserved it.”
Returning from Paris, with so much emotion and tension wrapped up in just one week, was a little like “being spat out of the washing machine!” so Yasmin took a day, just the one, to relax. She was given a souvenir rosette from the Games and as she finalises her move to a new, 10-stable yard, she plans to display it with the collection she already has of the late Sue Davies’ mementos from previous Olympics.
The Sue Davies Fund and Sue’s daughter Janette Chinn own the yard, and Yasmin’s horses – including Banzai – and Sue was a great supporter. Yasmin says: “None of this would have happened without her and she’d have been very proud”. A poignant daily reminder of what is past, and what is yet to come.
Yasmin Ingram and Banzai Du Loir are moving to a new yard and are ready for their next team call-up. Credit: Equigram
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