An extraordinary record: we salute the rider contesting her 30th senior eventing championship this week at Blenheim
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This week’s Agria Blenheim European Championships is a landmark event for Karin Donckers – she’s riding at her 30th senior eventing championship. The 54-year-old Belgian rider has only missed two Europeans since 1993, an extraordinary record that tells of great skill in repeatedly producing horses to this level and persistence in a tough sport.
“It keeps me fit, it keeps me passionate, it keeps me motivated to do this,” said Karin after her dressage test yesterday. “As long as I enjoy it so much and as long as I love to work with horses and I feel good and I have a horse to do championships, then I’d love to do more of them.”
Karin was here at the Blenheim European Championships in 2005, when Zara Tindall took the individual gold. Karin finished fourth on her great campaigner Gormley – her best individual championship placing (alongside also being fourth at the 2010 World Championships), but also a painful one, being so close to medals.
“It was a wet year and the ground was tough. In term of conditions it was a real effort. Gormley showed his quality – he was Irish and he handled it well,” she said of the chestnut Irish sport horse, by the thoroughbred Sandalay.
Karin Donckers and Gormley at the 2005 European Championships at Blenheim. Credit: Trevor Meeks Photography
Karin Donckers will pilot championship first-timer Ceres De La Brasserie this week at the 2025 Blenheim European Championships.
The 13-year-old mare is by I’m Special De Muze and out of Gazelle De La Brasserie. Gazelle was a super championship horse for Karin, contesting two Olympics (ninth in 2008, 15th in 2012), two World Championships (fourth in 2010, 13th in 2006) and two Europeans (sixth and team bronze in 2009).
Karin says: “Ceres has a bit the same brain as Gazelle, in that she takes care of herself. She’s a clever mare. She pays attention a lot. She knows what she’s doing and that’s what I like going cross-country – that the horses think and take care of themselves and take care of their riders.”
Karin is particularly looking forward to tomorrow’s cross-country and said it’s “really nice” to be back in Britain.
“Since Brexit, we don’t come here so often because it’s all a bit more complicated. Everything is so horsey here in England and so green. It’s beautiful to ride in a park like this,” she said.
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