“MY KNEECAP WAS IN 18 PIECES”

FOR a brief time in April 2019, Helen White thought that she’d never event again after a cross-country schooling fall left her with a broken tibia and fibula, and her right kneecap shattered into 18 pieces.

“I almost lost my leg and had to spend five months in an external fixator frame,” explained Helen, who runs a window interior design company and is the grassroots representative on British Eventing’s sport committee.

Eighteen months on, Helen still cannot straighten her right leg – “I’m sounder on a horse than off it” – and she has to have twiceweekly physiotherapy.

None of this has deterred her from producing her talented seven-year-old Goresbridge Go For Gold graduate, EPA Murray, to win a BE80(T) section at Alnwick Ford (2).

“I eased back into competing by doing a lot of dressage and training with Becky Moody, who has been fantastic,” said Helen. “And since we started eventing in July, we have been placed in three of our four runs.”