ROSIE Alcorn enjoyed a successful trip to Scotland last weekend, when she completed the CCI4*-S at Scone Palace with a clear round cross-country riding Chrysanthos. This result was all the sweeter for Alcorn, because not only is she the owner and rider, but also the breeder of the 11-year-old gelding, who is out of her Young Rider eventing partner Fiorella and was the first horse she ever bred.

“It’s a funny story actually,” she says, about how Fiorella ended up in foal with ‘Phoenix’ in the first place. “She was supposed to go advanced when she had a career-ending injury, and my mum and dad were away in South Africa for three weeks. It was August, so we had a very short window to get her in foal and, by the time my parents came back from their holidays, their event horse was a broodmare. They had no choice but to go along with it, because I hadn’t been able to contact them.