Willa is now firmly established as one of Britain’s top professional event riders.
The 2021 season saw 75% of her runners finishing in the Top 20, across the levels, including a podium position in the Millstreet CCI-S4*. This followed injury and pandemic enforced breaks in 2020.
In January 2019, she was one of 5 event riders to be selected for the World Class Programme Podium Potential squad for 2019-2021. While, back in 2017, she was one of 13 to be longlisted for the British team to compete at that year’s Europeans.
Willa continues to produce consistent results across the board, notching up two Top 10 Placings in 5 star events in 2018 – finishing 8th at the prestigious Land Rover Burghley International Horse Trials and 5th in Luhmuhlen.
She is based at her parent’s yard at Stonesby, near Melton Mowbray. Willa comes from a family with a strong equestrian background, her father Joey won the Aintree foxhunters twice and her mother, Emma evented up to intermediate level and then going on to point to point. Willa’s sister Chloe also evented up to four star before opting for a career change.
Willa has ridden for as long as she can remember, hunting avidly as well as being a keen member of the Belvoir Hunt Pony Club. Willa followed in her sisters footsteps of choosing to event through ponies but sadly became too tall and moved on to horses when she was 16.
It was 2006 when Willa’s eventing really began to kick off, having acquired Neelix from Andrew Heffernan. Neelix took Willa from the Pony Club Championships to her first CCI four star. That combination won team gold at the Junior Europeans in 2008 and represented Great Britain at three consecutive Young Rider European Championships winning Team Gold and Individual Silver at Blair Castle in 2011.
Willa enjoys sourcing and producing quality young horses and has had numerous successes in Britain’s prestigious young horse classes, including taking the 8/9 year old National Championships at Blenheim in 2016, with Caja 20.
