Alex Bragg
“Dad sort of pimped me out to fix people’s horses. We didn’t have much knowledge – it was more determination that got us there”
ALEX BRAGG is proof that you don’t have to tread the beaten path through under-21 teams to make it as an event rider.
When his peers were collecting junior medals, he was an apprentice farrier and semi-professional rugby player. When they were taking tentative steps beyond the young rider bubble, he was a newly-wed with a baby on the way. When they were trying their first five-stars in their mid-twenties, he was unable to get a horse on the bit.
“I don’t think if you’d seen me ride 15 years ago, you’d ever have imagined I’d be going round a five-star – I was pretty bad,” he laughs. “I had these massive shoulders and neck, from playing rugby, and I rode like a silverback gorilla, going down the centre line with my elbows out.
“My wife Simmone and
