Being a three-day event rider comes with a multitude of challenges. It is a tough, unrelenting sport, and competitors – who have included Princess Anne and Zara Tindall – experience thrills and spills as they take on three different equestrian disciplines. For Jemima Howden, however, competing at Cornbury House Horse Trials in the Cotswolds takes the challenge to the next level: Cornbury is her family home.
“It’s a lot of pressure competing,” she laughs. “I have to keep my eyes on what I’m doing – if I look around, there are about 50 of my mum and dad’s friends watching.” Two years ago, she was nearing the end of the competition when disaster struck in the showjumping ring: Jemima had jumped the first fence before the bell rang. “I managed to eliminate myself,” she groans. “That was really depressing.” Last year, she managed “to turn it around” and won. “That was definitely quite nice,” she admits.
Cotswolds family home
HELLO! met Jemima, 21, in the sweeping grounds of Cornbury Park, near Charlbury – a favoured Cotswolds destination for celebrities – as the estate gears up for this year’s event, which begins on 10 September.
Dressed in flowing black, Jemima poses outside the honey-coloured stately home with her “little rocket” Oreo, whom she is planning to ride at the event. “And hopefully win it!” she says.
Formerly a fixture in the eventing calendar until 2001, the event was revived in 2020 by Jemima’s father, the millionaire insurance magnate David Howden, after the family, who include Jemima’s mother, Fiona, and her sisters, Talitha, 26, and Kitty, 18, moved to Cornbury in 2019, which they lease from Lord and Lady Rotherwick.
“I remember it so clearly, going down the drive, and I was just like ‘This is a joke,'” Jemima smiles. “We got out of the car, and it was like, ‘This is definitely a joke. We’re not going to move here’. And then it genuinely did happen. I think still, every time I drive down the drive, it’s mental. It’s the craziest place to live. I feel very, very lucky to be here.”
Royal visitors
Fans of the horse trials, which Jemima says has “a magical atmosphere”, include Zara Tindall, who is a “brilliant supporter of the event – I know she loves competing there”, and local Cotswolds resident Princess Beatrice, who was also spotted at Wilderness, the music festival in Cornbury’s grounds every August.
“Mum and Dad know quite a few of the royals now, and they do come to a lot of events in and around Cornbury, which is really nice,” Jemima says. Just as it’s an event fit for royalty, the family are keen that it be “one of the most spectator-friendly events in the country” with tickets on sale for £10. “I think it’s really important to make the sport accessible for everyone, to open it up to new people,” Jemima says.
Sport is a passion for the Howden family and for David’s business, Howden Insurance, which was this year valued at £10 billion. It’s a sponsor of Ascot Racecourse, the British and Irish Lions rugby tour and the Lawn Tennis Association, among many others.
In June, Jemima and her sisters watched on proudly as her parents rode in a carriage as part of the Royal Procession from Windsor Castle to Royal Ascot. “It was such a proud moment,” she says. “They’ve never done that before, and I think it’s very well deserved, especially with Dad just having been given his CBE [awarded in the King’s Birthday Honours for services to the insurance industry]. It was pretty emotional.”
Family support
The family is incredibly close, she says. While Jemima’s mother, Fiona, whose creative eye “is the reason Cornbury looks so amazing,” finds it hard to watch her daughter compete – “I think she finds the big fences a bit scary” – her father David is “definitely a pony club dad”, who started riding at the age of 50. “He literally learned for us girls, because we loved it so much.”
Last year, Jemima shared a video on Instagram that showed her father in tears over her win. “It made me a bit teary,” she says. “To see his reaction and to see how proud I’ve made him was very nice, because he’s done so much for me.” Jemima first started riding as a child when her father’s sister, the florist Miranda Fairhurst, gave her nieces a Welsh mountain pony called Misty. “He was so naughty,” Jemima remembers. “He used to shove his head down and chuck us over the top.”
Jemima, however, was undeterred. While her older sister Talitha has pursued a career as a fashion stylist – “she puts amazing clothes on me” – and her younger sister Kitty is still at school and “completely animal obsessed”, Jemima always knew horses were her future.
“There was an online website called Horse Events, and I’d go and look and drag Dad along to events,” she says. “When I was 14, I did my first actual British event. Two years later, I did my first full season.”
Jemima didn’t let being at boarding school get in the way. “I spent every moment I had riding, at ridiculous hours in the morning.” Once she’d left school, she “attempted to go to Bristol University, but I lasted about six weeks before knowing horses was all I wanted to do”.
This summer, Jemima was thrilled to be selected for the British team for the prestigious FEI European Championship for Young Riders in Poland in August, after a turbulent qualifying period in which she fell “splat on the floor in front of a lot of people – I tore a disc in the process”. Sadly, her dreams of a medal were dashed when her young horse misread a step out of the water jump, and Jemima had a fall.
Thankfully, both horse and rider are fine, but it’s an insight into just how tough the sport is, both mentally and physically. “It takes a lot of courage to keep on getting up and going,” she says. “But it’s definitely worth it.”
Whatever success she achieves, the best thing about the sport is being with horses every day, Jemima says. “Not just riding them, but the quiet times with them; sitting in the stable with them. I can go in and lie down with them, and they’ll put their head on me. If I’m ever having a bad day or feeling anxious, it feels like they understand me more than anyone else. Dad always jokes to Will [Jemima’s boyfriend] that there are six horses, a dog and then Will. And he’s definitely right.”
Passion projects
Will Kayll is Jemima’s boyfriend of two years, whom the family first met through Talitha’s best friend when she encouraged them to watch Will, a professional DJ, play at Wilderness five years ago.
“Mum and Dad loved him so much, Dad asked him if he’d like to do his corporate gigs,” Jemima smiles. “So Will started playing a lot for Dad, and then at our annual Christmas party too.” Two years ago, he performed at Fiona’s birthday. “Then we basically spent the whole summer with each other and realised that we got along.”
A passion project for the couple is the music stage they set up at Wilderness, which has been taking place in Cornbury’s grounds since 2011. “There’s a lot of reversing truck noises and crashing and banging for a month,” Jemima says. “It’s surreal – you’ll look out and the main stage is right there and there’s about 17,000 people walking across the garden.”
Jemima and Will came up with the idea for The Riddle stage because “we wanted to create a space where people could come out and dance, especially our young generation. Post lockdown, a lot of people stay inside; they don’t go out as much. We have a no-phone policy; they can actually dance, not everyone’s there filming the DJ. There’s a really nice community feel.”
A lot of work goes into the preparation of the area, which is “actually on the horse arena”, Jemima reveals. “I get about 30 of my mates to work away with wheelbarrows and shovels. This year, I got all of my friends from prep school to do an amazing, massive circus artwork, and my aunt did all the flowers.” Organising it all is very stressful, she says, but seeing people enjoy it is a “real pinch-me moment”.
“We had a circus theme on the Friday, and the outfits were unbelievable; Jodie Kidd had these party pants with fairy lights on, and my mum was there in black and glitter trousers with [the fashion designer] Daniel Lismore. They looked amazing. I always joke with my cousins that it doesn’t matter how many friends you invite to Wilderness, you always end up on the dancefloor with Mum, Dad, the cousins and the sisters. Like everything with us, it’s a real family affair.”
Another family project is The Howden Way, which David set up in 2022 to support event riders and horses. “When I was coming up [in three-day eventing], going to the European Championships was very expensive, and it’s not accessible for a lot of people,” Jemima explains.
The Howden Way comprises three programmes designed to develop young horses, help ex-racehorses find new careers and boost young riders through the Rider Talent Academy, which Jemima is part of. “The whole idea is to give people access to the kind of coaching and advice and opportunities that make a massive difference,” she explains. “For young riders, it’s providing a platform for people so that everyone’s on an equal playing field.”
After the Cornbury House Horse Trials conclude, “hopefully, in October, we’ll get a bit of a rest”, Jemima says. But there’s a bigger aim to come in the shape of the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028. “That’s my ultimate goal,” she says. “There’s such talent in the British team that it would be very tough, but I think going to the Olympics and representing your country would be an amazing achievement.”
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