And they’re orf! Princess pulls plug on horse trials

PRINCESS Anne is so obsessed by horses that Prince Philip once memorably joked: ‘If it doesn’t fart or eat hay, she isn’t interested.’

So her father will be among those shocked to learn that she is planning to abandon the equestrian events that she’s held at her country estate for 29 years.

The Gatcombe horse trials, with courses designed by the Princess Royal herself, are a firm fixture of the sporting calendar. Anne’s Olympic medal- winning daughter, Zara Tindall, earned her spurs there.

But this year’s trials will be the last at the Princess’s 700- acre Gatcombe estate in Gloucestershire, I can disclose. ‘ Our event in the autumn will be the final one at Gatcombe,’ confirms the organiser, Pattie Biden.

‘I told the Princess that I wanted to retire. I don’t want to talk about it too much, but organising the events is very hard. I don’t always feel that the riders appreciate how much work goes into

it.’ She tells me: ‘It will be very sad, but there it is.’

Members of the Royal Family are regularly photographed at the events, which see some of the world’s leading riders compete.

News of their closure will cause shockwaves among the horsey set. Land Rover and other big names sponsor the trials and other local landowners may well want to step in to host them at their estates.

A Buckingham Palace spokesman declines to comment, but the Princess has previously spoken of the challenges involved in hosting the trials at Gatcombe, where she runs an organic farm. ‘People think you’re making money out of these things, but it’s a closerun thing,’ she has said. ‘We don’t make enough money. ‘ Even picking up people’s hay and other rubbish from their (horse) lorries could threaten our organic status.

‘And having the great British public tramping around is hardly organic.’

Happily, she will allow the Festival of British Eventing, organised by her ex-husband, Captain Mark Phillips, and her son, Peter, to continue being held at Gatcombe in the summer.