Kylie Roddy
ALL being well, Kylie Roddy will make her Badminton debut in three months’ time. That’s not particularly unusual – first-timers frequently start at the British spring eventing classic – but most of them are in their twenties, hot off the young rider circuit.
Kylie is different. She will be 40 years old by the time she rides out of that hallowed stable yard for the first time. Badminton is, Kylie happily admits, her “childhood dream”, but behind it lies a lifetime of dedication and grind, a long apprenticeship in horsemanship and making a living in the horse world.
“I definitely wasn’t the most talented rider,” she says frankly, looking back at her early years, when she was a young rider team gold medallist. “I made a lot of mistakes and my bravery always outweighed my riding ability, probably because I didn’t have enough experience.”
From an unhorsey family, she never had the opportunity to ride a lot of horses to build mileage. Even last season, her five-star debut at Pau was only her ninth cross-country run of the year on any horse.
“When I worked for Leslie Law, I started doing sums – I’d jump 20 fences riding one horse, he’d ride eight horses and jump eight
