Lucy Scudamore

Carl Hester's award-winning head groom Lucy Scudamore tells Polly Bryan how she's living her childhood dream and why En Vogue will always hold a special place in her heart

“ONE day, I’m going to work for Carl Hester,” announced eight-year-old Lucy Scudamore to her mother some time around 2005. Now, 19 years later, her dream has come true in ways she could have hardly imagined. As head groom for Carl Hester and Charlotte Dujardin, having stepped up to the top job on their Gloucestershire yard after Alan Davies’ retirement in early 2023, Lucy is now a familiar face in dressage circles. Anyone who wasn’t already aware of her certainly is now – Lucy rounded off a whirlwind 2023 by being named Absorbine Groom of the Year at the H&H Awards.

“I remember watching Carl on TV aged eight and being completely obsessed. I decided I didn’t need to work at school because I was going to go and work for Carl,” she chuckles, although young Lucy’s intention was not to become a groom.

“I always thought I would be a dressage rider, but by 18 I was doing some work with young horses for Sandra Biddlecombe, just up the road from Carl, and I realised around that time that not everyone can be a rider,” she says.

What unfolded next could be attributed to fate. Lucy had done a work experience stint with Carl while training at Hartpury and got to know Charlotte during her time with Sandra – developing a particular affinity with a tall, quirky black youngster of Charlotte’s. When Charlotte mentioned back in 2017 that Alan was making mutterings about retirement – six years prematurely, as it turned out – she suggested to Lucy that she might be a good fit for a groom’s job at Carl’s.