Equestrian Yasmin Ingham: From tiny-isle pony club champion to world's best eventer
Competing in her first senior contest, the British eventer beat arguably the best rider of all time, Michael Jung, to become the 2022 world champion. She was quick to thank supporters from the Isle of Man for her wild ride to the top.
The profile for Yasmin Ingham on the British Equestrian website lists two achievements:
2013 Pony European Championships, Craig Mor Tom, Team and individual gold
2022 World Championships, Banzai du Loir, Individual gold
There are many more accolades providing the filling for the sandwich between these events, but the contrast between the 26-year-old's starting point in eventing and becoming world champion in September, couldn't be demonstrated any more clearly.
Ingham, who is aiming to add the European champion title to her tally at the FEI Eventing European Championship taking place in Haras du Pin from 9 to 13 August, grew up on the Isle of Man, a 21km wide, 53km-long island in the middle of the Irish Sea.
The population of 84,000 swells dramatically each year when the world-renowned Isle of Mann TT, a two-week motorbike race that weaves its way at breakneck speed through the closed quaint streets, adds an extra 40,000 riders and visitors.
But it's not just the roaring two-wheel format for which the isle is famed. A two-wheeled peddler has also etched his name in the region's sporting history books.
Widely considered one of the best road sprinters of all time with a record-equalling 34 Tour de France stage wins, Olympic silver at Rio 2016 in track cycling – in which he is also a three-time world champion – Mark Cavendish is a super proud Manxman who competes for Team GB but also for his beloved isle at the Commonwealth Games.
Rower Sidney Swann and cyclist Peter Kennaugh are the only Isle of Man residents to have won Olympic gold medals, while polo player Frederick Gill won bronze at the 1900 Olympic Games in Paris.
Tokyo 2020 Olympian Ingham now adds her name to the annals of those who hail from the isle and announced themselves on the world's sporting arena.
Britain's Yasmin Ingham becomes 2022 eventing world champion
Riding one's luck
The young Ingham's grounding came as a member of the Isle of Man branch of the Pony Club, in which she partook in a variety of disciplines.
At 13, eventing became the main focus, with trusty steed Craig Mor Tom taking her through the next levels of development.
A year later, Ingham competed at the 2011 Pony Club Championships, finishing second in the Open section, and winning the Cross-Country Horsemanship Award Bursary. The reward, a week’s live-in training with 1968 Olympic champion in team eventing, Jane Holderness-Roddam, would spark a dream for the youngster.
During the spring 2012 training, Holderness-Roddam showed Olympic memorabilia to the youngster, serving to inspire Ingham to have designs on "competing at the highest level in the sport", she told the British Equestrian website.
Later that year, Ingham competed as an individual at the Pony European Eventing Championships in Fontainebleau, a venue just 70km from the Palace of Versailles, where she hopes to be selected to compete at the Paris 2024 Games with Team GB having secured a quota spot.
At her second European Championships, in Arezzo, Italy in 2013, a cracking performance on Craig Mor Tom saw the duo win both individual and team gold.
Leaving school at 16 to pursue the equestrian career dream, an opportunity to move to the UK mainland presented itself, riding for the late Eddie and Sue Davies, and their daughter Janette Chinn – fellow former Isle of Man residents – at the Pewit Stud in Cheshire.
"They wanted to support a younger rider from the Isle of Man," said Ingham at a press conference after her World Championship win in September 2022, claiming an astonishing title which tipped the eventing world on its axis. "We made this journey together and I'm just so grateful they chose to support me all those years ago."
Riding the wave
"Are we going to see a fairytale play out here," said the announcer at the Pratoni Jumping course as Ingham readied herself for the world title charge in the last round at the 2022 worlds.
"To find yourself in second position to the greatest event rider the world has ever seen in Michael Jung at your first senior championships, which happens to be the world championships, it's a big undertaking," spluttered the TV commentator, quite unable to believe what she was seeing.
"He's a good horse, he's a good jumper, she's a good rider, they have a great partnership," she continued, "and at that point you have to say hand over to lady luck."
Well, lady luck was on Ingham's side as she and horse Banzai Du Loir secured a clear round with the rider, British teammates and crowd all going crazy on clearing the final hurdle clean as you like.
"Banzai's the best horse I've ever sat on," said Ingham. "He is the ultimate event horse. He's incredible in the dressage, he has so much potential, he has so much presence, he's fast on the cross country, he's agile, he's brave and then coming into the show jumping today, he just showed everybody he was jumping a clear round and there was no two ways about it."
The suggestion her horse has "so much potential" might just be sending shivers to her competitors with Paris just one year away, with Ingham riding high.