Ginny Elliot

FEW have ridden across country with the panache of Ginny Elliot, the petite eventer whose distinctive purple colours blazed a trail around the sport’s toughest tracks. Yet Ginny delivered not just style, but substance. During an astonishing decade, she dominated the international scene – claiming multiple Olympic, World and European Championship medals alongside a Badminton hat-trick and five Burghley wins.

“We hit a real purple patch in the 1980s,” she recalls. “I’d had a tough time but, thankfully, everything suddenly clicked.”

She certainly made it look effortless. Fellow eventers admired her, spectators adored her and no pony-mad youngster’s bedroom was complete without posters of Priceless, Night Cap and Master Craftsman on the walls. But the polished performances came after an arduous climb to the top.

Ginny, whose maiden name was Holgate and first married name was Leng, was born in Malta, in 1955. Her father was a Royal Marine so she spent much of her childhood abroad, with spells at school in the UK.

“One day he arrived with a foal he had bought for me, for £35”GINNY ON HER GRANDFATHER’S PASSION FOR BUYING HORSES