RIDING HIGH

From Monaco to Miami, showjumper Lily Freeman-Attwood's life is as eventful as her sport. Here, the 2028 Summer Olympics hopeful invites us to her Rothschild family seat

- MIRANDA THOMPSON

Mounted on her dark bay showjumper, Lily Freeman-Attwood looks every bit the accomplished equestrienne she is.

An international showjumper who has clocked up wins everywhere from the Royal Windsor Horse Show to Fontainebleau in France, her bond with her home-bred horses is a joy to witness.

Although she's now predominantly based in Belgium, Lily, 23, is hosting HELLO! for an exclusive shoot at her home on the Waddesdon Estate in Buckinghamshire, the Rothschild family seat since the 19th century.

She’s joined by two of her string: 11-year-old showjumper Johnnie Walker and 15-year-old Leon, the horse that carried Lily to her first five-star win (the highest level of international showjumping) in 2023. Lily explains fondly that he’s “one of the horses who really changed my career”.

This weekend, Lily and Johnnie Walker will be in action at the Royal Hospital Chelsea as the Longines Global Champions Tour returns to London. Afterwards, Lily flies to Corfu for a holiday on the family’s 30-acre estate. “I’m going the day London finishes,” she smiles. An affinity with horses is in the blood; Lily’s late grandmother, Lady Serena Rothschild, was famed for her success with the racehorses she bred at the Waddesdon Stud on the estate, which was established by James de Rothschild in 1924. They included Nathaniel, a horse that Lady Serena named after her son and which won almost £1.6m in prize money.

It is Lady Serena whom Lily has to thank for sparking her passion for riding. “My earliest memories are at my grandmother’s house in Wiltshire. She always had a pony, and [Lily’s first ride] was a little fat brown-and-white Shetland.”