It's been a long time coming'

From the warm-ups to fuelling on McDonalds, Kitty King tells all about her week winning European individual silver and team gold last month

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BEING selected was a relief after repeatedly being the first reserve over the past few years. 

I was hopeful after second at Luhmühlen in June, but the selectors keep their cards close to their chest, so I didn’t have any inkling one way or the other.

We had a final camp at the British Showjumping Centre at Home Farm in Northamptonshire, which was a great opportunity to concentrate on the team horses. There’s always a good showjumping course built there and we also did some test riding.

There was also time for some pool volleyball – we had a riders’ team, a staff team and a grooms’ team, so that was less serious and good for team building.

WE left in the early hours of Monday morning, arriving around 4.30pm on Monday afternoon. 

I drove out in the lorry with Vendredi Biats (Froggy), my husband Ben and groom Chloe Fry. Laura Collett also had just her horse, London 52, on the lorry while Tom Jackson and Tom McEwen travelled together and Yasmin Ingham and Ros Canter paired up.

We all met up at Stop 24 at Folkestone and travelled in convoy, although I managed to go round a ring road a different way. But we caught up and all arrived together at the venue at Haras du Pin. Usually on these trips, if riders eat dinner in the hotel it’s paid for by British Equestrian (BEF), but you pay your own way on alcoholic drinks, which is fair enough. When we arrived on Monday evening, the hotel restaurant was shut, as were most other restaurants. We went for the athletes’ diet of McDonalds!