Fiona Bigwood sells Rio Olympic horse due to home commitments

Fiona Bigwood has sold her Rio Olympic horse, Atterupgaards Orthilia, to Danish rider Agnete Kirk Thinggaard.

Family commitments

Fiona and the 12-year-old mare, known as ‘Tillie’, won team silver at both the 2016 Olympics and the 2015 European Championships in Aachen.

The mum of three cited family commitments as the reason for the sale, and said it was a “very hard decision”.

“Tillie is in the prime of her competition career and I want the best for her,” she said. “My home commitments mean I can only do around four top level shows a year and she deserves to have her full potential realised.

“She’s the most talented, generous and clever horse I’ve ever ridden, but I know she’ll have the best home and chance of success with Agnete. We waved her off yesterday on her journey to her new home in Denmark.”

Future champion

As well as being mum to Mette, Morten and Lars, Fiona and her husband Anders Dahl (the Danish dressage rider) have recently moved to a new base near Haywards Heath in West Sussex. The property needs major renovation and development, which will also take up her time. However, she has no plans to retire.

“I love training and competing, so my career is far from over,” she said. “I have some exciting youngsters at home and am currently looking for another so I’m not ready to hang my boots up just yet! My priority is my family and home so while I won’t be out competing at the big internationals for a while, I’ll still be busy at home working on producing a future Olympic champion for Britain.”

Magic partnership

British Dressage’s chief executive Jason Brautigam said Tillie and Fiona had a “magic partnership”.

“I’m sure everyone in the dressage community will be sad to see Tillie go,” he said. “She’s hugely talented and still has great potential for the future, so this is a big loss to Team GBR.

“While this combination will be much missed, Fiona’s stable of exciting youngsters will hopefully mean that she’s back as part of our medal-winning teams in the near future.”