Much more than a rider
Merely A Rider
Anneli Drummond-Hay with Martha Terry (Kenilworth Press, £18.99)
TO any follower of the sport of eventing, the names Anneli Drummond-Hay and her best-known horse, Merely-A-Monarch, evoke a heroic era of hairy fences, flamboyant riders, scary flights and dashing corinthian spirit, although few involved now are old enough to remember their heyday. As The Princess Royal writes in her foreword: ‘For someone of my vintage, Anneli Drummond-Hay and Merely-A-Monarch were the combination who inspired many girls to take up competing.’
Anneli was the first winner of Burghley Horse Trials, in 1961, and the first to do the Burghley-Badminton double, winning the latter event in 1962. Merely-A-Monarch remains a blueprint for the event horse (his bloodlines are still around), although he was considered too valuable to risk across country; two months after Badminton was ‘in the bag’, he was successfully switched to
