WHEN Alice Casburn decided not to start university last year, she cut an ambitious deal with her mother, Caroline. “I hummed and hawed for a long time about uni, and Mum said if I didn't go, I had to do a five-star,” says Alice. “She isn't really pushy, but she believes if you're going to do something, do it properly. Mum did Badminton and Burghley herself, so knows you can't be half-hearted. She said, ‘As soon as you've got your foot in the door, you need to barge your way through.’ So once I'd done my first five-star, Pau, I thought, ‘Let's keep it going.’”
And keep it going she did. The 20-year-old has burst on to our radars this season since finishing 19th in the south of France a year ago. She backed this up with a solid top-20 result at Badminton and crowned her meteoric rise into the elite ranks with fifth at Burghley. Many professional eventers never make it to the rarified heights of five-star; Alice quietly nailed it as a teenager. She also bagged team gold and individual bronze – the only rider to finish on their dressage score – at the young rider Europeans in July.
