Yasmin Ingham

Yasmin Ingham is a young British event rider who won the individual gold at the 2022 World Championships.

Yasmin Ingham and Banzai Du Loir win the 2021 Blenheim Horse Trials CCI4*-L. Credit: Peter Nixon

Yasmin grew up on the Isle of Man, where her mother Lesley was a manager at a large equestrian centre, Kennaa.

“The Isle of Man is an amazing place to grow up, so tiny, but so friendly,” said Yasmin in an interview with Horse & Hound in the autumn of 2020.

“Mum would take me up to the yard in the pram, I’d pet her horse Remy and my first words were ‘on it’. I always wanted to be on the horse. Then Mum got me a little pony on loan, Evil Edna – the naughtiest pony ever.”

Yasmin’s summer holidays were spent at the centre, where Lesley could keep half an eye on her between office or yard work.

“There was a lot of going out in fields and jumping hedges. And we used to do Chase Me Charlie – one day Mum walked in to find me galloping to a 1.60m fence on a 14hh pony. She was like, ‘What am I going to do with this child who can’t stop riding and wanting to gallop at huge fences?’”

Where is Yasmin Ingham based now?

Yasmin is based at Pewit Hall, which is owned by Sue Davies. Sue and her daughter Janette are Yasmin’s major owners and backers. They met because of the Isle of Man connection – Sue is also a resident of the island.

Lesley wrote to Sue Davies – who previously owned horses with Mary King, with her now-deceased husband Eddie – just before her daughter’s pony Europeans success, saying we were huge fans of all her horses and suggesting meeting for coffee.

On their return from the Europeans in Italy, the family found a letter saying Sue would love to discuss Yasmin riding some of her horses. She offered Yasmin the ex-five-star horse Fernhill Urco and a home-bred, Pewit Terceiro, and by April of the following year, the then-teenager had moved to the Davies’ Pewit Hall.

After Mary King pulled world team gold medallist Imperial Cavalier up at Badminton Horse Trials 2014, Sue decided she’d like him to semi-retire and do juniors with Yasmin.

Yasmin remembers: “I was stood in the yard and I literally dropped to the floor and said, ‘How have I managed to get this lucky?’ For Sue to say would you like to ride Imperial Cavalier, a horse I’d dreamt of even touching, it was just incredible.

“Without Sue, Eddie and Janette, I’d nowhere near have had the success I’ve had – it really is down to them.”

What have been Yasmin’s biggest successes on the way to her world gold?

Yasmin scored a breakthrough at senior level when she piloted Banzai Du Loir to win the eight- and nine-year-old championships at Burnham Market in 2020 (this class is usually held at Blenheim Horse Trials but moved that year because Blenheim was cancelled due to Covid-19).

A year later, Yasmin and Banzai won the CCI4*-L at Blenheim.

In April 2022, the pair travelled to the USA to compete at the Kentucky Three-Day Event – Banzai’s five-star debut – and pulled off a brilliant result when they finished second behind Michael Jung on FischerChipmunk FRH.

Yasmin Ingham and Banzai Du Loir at Kentucky 2022. Credit: Amy Dragoo

Has Yasmin ridden at any championships?

Yasmin made her senior championship debut at the 2022 World Eventing Championships where she won individual gold riding Banzai Du Loir, who was bought with the Paris 2024 Olympics in mind.

“If I could choose the qualities which combine to make an event horse, he’s the one with them all,” she says of Banzai Du Loir, a Selle Français bought in May 2019 from French amateur rider Axel Coutte, through Rachel Wakefield of Uptown Eventing.

“He’s super athletic, really fast, very scopey, brave – and he’s rideable. Sometimes you have horses who are hot and you have to be careful how much pressure you put on, but the more you ask, the more he gives.”

In 2023, Yasmin rode at the European Eventing Championships on Banzai Du Loir, finishing 25th as a member of the gold medal-winning British team.

Yasmin rode at two pony European Championships on Craig Mor Tom, taking team and individual gold the second time, in 2013.

In 2018, she rode on the young rider team, finishing fourth individually on Rehy DJ. Yasmin was also a member of the fourth-placed British team.