Harry Meade

The eventing world number one talks to Madeleine Silver about his early experiences, career highs and lows and his pursuit of perfection ahead of this year's Burghley Horse Trials

- Madeleine Silver

BEFORE I leave the Cotswold home of the eventer Harry Meade, he dashes up the stairs, three at a time, and returns clutching a vintage Pony Club manual. Inside are black-and-white photos of his late father, three-time Olympic gold medallist Richard Meade, illustrating how an eventer should correctly dress: the tack, the stock, the boots...

Now in his early forties, the five-star eventer has always been a self-confessed stickler for detail; Harry Meade's head groom Jess Errington is meticulous in her horse care under his guidance. And it shouldn't be scoffed at. This summer he topped the FEI Eventing World Athlete Rankings with two horses in the top four at Kentucky and two in the top six at Badminton, as well as third, fourth and twelfth at Burghley last year (he was third in 2023). It's deserved recognition for someone who's the sort of head boy of eventing: universally liked and unfailingly polite. It’s a tale of old-school horsemanship triumphing over any kind of fads or shortcuts.

Growing up just fields away from Badminton, as a boy he dreamed of winning that holy grail of the sport that happened to be his local. “Like lots of children I can measure my childhood in the chronology of ponies but they were definitely not smart or flashy,” he says, recounting days hunting with his parents and siblings with the Beaufort. “We'd go to the Meet and come back in the dark.